2008 Woodie Awards
Amethyst Initiative sparks discussion on drinking age
Lizzie McQuillan
Issue date: 10/7/08 Section: News
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As 130 presidents signed the public statement since the release of the initiative, Loyola president Fr. Brian Linnane withheld his name.
"Why I haven't [signed] is not because I am opposed to a dialogue around the issue; this is a university [where] we should be able to discuss anything," said Linnane, who was vacationing during the release of the letter. "My concern has been that how it came across was as advocacy for [the drinking age] to change and advocacy for it to change because the perception of it is not working," said Linnane.
Although the initiative does not call for a direct change in policy, the foundation of the statement derived from the belief that the current drinking age is not working and only enhances the problems of binge drinking and dangerous activities involving alcohol on college campuses.
The main issue that discouraged Fr. Linnane from participating in the movement was the lack of research provided in the statement that aimed to prove that a change in age might be beneficial to the safety of the students. "It's a very complex question and a challenging one to universities," he said.
"I've learned that research is important to look at because otherwise we're just talking about anecdotes," said Jan Williams, the Director of Alcohol and Drug Education and Support Services. "People who go abroad will visit certain countries and find the drinking age is 16…they see a lot less people going out and getting drunk than they perhaps might see at Loyola. But that's just one person's anecdote."
"I worry that rolling back the age is sort of panacea because you can throw up your hands and say, 'Well, it's legal! There's nothing you can do!' It sort of takes it off the plate of the individual president or vice president of student affairs," said Linnane.
In fact, a study composed by the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Drugs and the United States Monitoring the Future in 2003 showed that certain notions about binge drinking in Europe may be incorrect. After anonymous self-administered school surveys were distributed among students from ages 15-16 in the United States and also in 35 countries in Europe, the studies showed that a higher percentage of binge drinking and intoxication problems occurred in Europe. With the exception of Turkey, almost all of the European countries showed a larger percentage of the students consuming five or more alcoholic beverages in a row, as well as a higher rates of intoxication.
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