Prevention Council Builds Support For Legal Age 21

By Nancy K. Crevier

Newtown Prevention Council co-chairpersons Joan Piscitelli and Beth Agen distributed a statement supporting the minimum legal drinking age of 21, prepared by the Prevention Council, at the Legislative Council meeting held Wednesday, November 5. Council members were invited to sign the statement during a five-minute recess of the Legislative Council meeting, and Ms Agen said that the statement will be brought to the November 20 Prevention Council meeting for signatures, as well.

“Support 21” asks that community leaders “Continue to enforce the 21 drinking age. Uphold responsible alcohol policies. Hold those over 21 accountable for providing to minors. Work with high school and middle school parents and leaders to reach their youth well before college on the drinking age so this problem is corrected early versus once students are on college campuses.” Copies of the signed statement will be sent to college presidents in Connecticut who signed the Amethyst Initiative, a movement that the Prevention Council is concerned is advocating a lower drinking age, said Ms Agen.

The Amethyst Initiative was launched in July 2008 by president emeritus John McCardell of Middlebury College in Vermont, who in conversations with other college leaders felt that the Legal Age 21 drinking law was not working, and that it was instead creating a “culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’ — often conducted off campus.” It has been signed by approximately 130 university and college leaders across the country, including five from Connecticut.

The initiative calls upon elected officials “To support an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age. To consider whether the 10 percent highway fund ‘incentive’ encourages or inhibits that debate [A 1984 act imposes a penalty of 10 percent of a state’s federal highway appropriation on any state setting its drinking age below 21]. To invite new ideas about the best ways to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol.”

State Representative-elect and Legislative Council member Christopher Lyddy was one of the council members who took advantage of the break in the November 5 meeting to sign the “Support 21” statement. In a subsequent email to The Bee, Mr Lyddy praised the Newtown Prevention Council as “an extremely valuable coalition” and said, “I am elated that this group not only flagged the Amethyst Initiative as an issue, but more importantly has taken a proactive stance against it. Not only would this initiative impact universities, it would impact communities, like Newtown, across the country.”

As a former resident assistant at Salve Regina University and a graduate assistant at the University of Pennsylvania, Mr Lyddy said that he had seen evidence that young people entering college “do not always have the skills necessary to effectively deal with peer pressure or monitor the high stress of new or unfamiliar situations.” He said that it is vital that youth be prepared with basic skills to avoid risky behavior and added, “I applaud the university presidents’ initiative [who signed the Amethyst Initiative] for highlighting the importance of addressing this issue; however, I am not in favor of their proposed solution [of lowering the drinking age] to the problem.”

Newtown Legislative Council member, former principal of Northwestern Regional Schools, and former interim principal of Newtown High School Patricia Llodra also signed “Support 21.” Although the council members were not provided with copies of the Amethyst Initiative at last Wednesday’s meeting, Ms Llodra said that she is very familiar with the initiative, having tracked it fairly extensively online, via news reports, and through the Connecticut Association of School Superintendents. “I am empathetic to the plight of the Amethyst Initiative, and what very positive thing that could come out of it is wider discussion on the problem of underage drinking,” said Ms Llodra. “But I think it is premature to believe we should reduce the drinking age to below 21 years of age.”

She first became aware of the initiative discussion as an executive with the Connecticut Association of Schools, she said. “High school principals were alarmed with the possibility of a reduction of the drinking age and its impact on high school society,” she said. Ms Llodra said that the present Amethyst Initiative statement does not specifically advocate lowering the drinking age, but said that as she followed the original discussions among college presidents, she believed it was about their own concern about an inability to control underage drinking. “The discussion was that lowering the age would increase the schools’ ability to supervise drinking on campus,” she said.

“Let’s not rush into changing the law,” said Ms Llodra. “We need to consider, what are the factors in our society affecting underage drinking?”

Starting A Discussion

Both Ms Piscitelli and Ms Agen said that they were unaware of any movement in Newtown to lower the drinking age and that the “Support 21” statement was written in response to concerns of Newtown Prevention Council members about the Amethyst Initiative, triggered by an August 19 article printed in the Chicago Tribune titled “Amethyst Initiative Unites Educators in Quest To Lower Drinking Age.” Ms Agen received the link to the article from the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. The Chicago Tribune article stated: “College presidents from about 100 of the nation’s best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth, and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus. The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age.”

“Feedback from Prevention Council members was that we should do a campaign that would oppose lowering the drinking age, based on health and social issues,” said Ms Agen, after she had shared the Tribune article with the council members.

The Reverend Jeffrey Von Arx, president of Fairfield University and a signatory of the Amethyst Initiative, said, “We are not advocating for a lowering of the drinking age, but for a critical discussion of the present laws which, from our perspective on college campuses, are not working.” The Amethyst Initiative is commonly misrepresented as advocating for a lower drinking age, said Rev Von Arx.

In a blog published this past August by current president Ronald Liebowitz, he provides clarification of the Amethyst Initiative, and adds, “Most presidents who signed the petition may believe an 18-year-old drinking age should be part of the solution to the current problems they see on their campuses, but many, including myself, signed because it was a good way to bring much-needed attention and debate to the broader issue — abusive drinking and its consequences among the under-21-year-old cohort. Through this debate many hope there can come new ideas on how best to address the alcohol issue on our campuses.”

“[Lowering the drinking age] may be not what is expressed in the Amethyst Initiative,” said Ms Piscitelli, “but why else would they bother? What would they be hoping to accomplish? Our concern is, what is it about the 21 age limit that isn’t working?”

“Support 21” cites numerous national organizations that support a drinking age of 21, and statistics that indicate negative health and social issues related to drinking are greatly lessened when alcohol consumption begins after age 21.

“The biggest thing about lowering the drinking age, is that brain development is not yet complete until age 21,” said Ms Agen. “Alcohol consumption before age 21 results in a greater chance of alcohol dependency and abuse,” she said, “and while the Amethyst Initiative does not actually say ‘lower the drinking age,’ I think that the Prevention Council is simply heading off what that initiative may be implying. ”

A section of the Amethyst Initiative states, “Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing, contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.” It is this statement that worries Ms Agen. Voting, signing contracts, and serving on juries are not apt to cause harm to a person less than 21, she said, but she believes that enough health problems connected to teenage alcohol consumption make the Legal Age 21 a sensible law. “If the Surgeon General is telling me that at age 21 alcohol consumption is less dangerous [than at an earlier age], I have to believe that. There is an age of initiation for everything,” she pointed out. “The age of 21 is that for drinking.”

Choose Responsibility

Another group that more proactively advocates challenging the age 21 exception to adult responsibilities that comes with turning 18 years of age, Choose Responsibility, was also founded by the former Middlebury College president, John McCardell, in 2007. Choose Responsibility “cannot simply call for lowering the drinking age,” states the website chooseresponsibility.org in a directive to educators. “But you might join us in promoting a program of education and licensing.” The statement goes on to ask that educators join in initiating informed public debate about the effect of Legal Age 21.

The site also addresses parents, stating, “In many cases, this misguided social policy [of Legal Age 21] interferes with your ability to do the right thing for your children… We invite those who believe that alcohol education should begin at home to join us in re-enfranchising parents.”

Re-enfranchising parents may be a stronger term than applies to the situation, but, “It is key that parents need to be the role model,” agreed Ms Agen. “Teach your kids what is right and wrong and be an example to them at all times. Let them know that the Legal Age 21 law is there to keep them safe.”

She criticized advertising and television shows that play into the abuse of alcohol by teenagers, and urged parents to be aware of what their children are watching and the messages sent by the media. “There are many popular television shows that show rich, ‘cool’ kids out drinking. It’s not a good message. Let your kids know that it is not a realistic view of life,” she said.

Choose Responsibility refutes that the age 21 drinking law keeps children safe, citing studies that show “Between 1993 and 2001, 18 to 20 year olds showed the largest increase in binge drinking episodes,” the aspect of drinking that is creating problems for colleges and universities nationwide. The site goes on to note “excessive and abusive consumption — binge drinking — spells disastrous consequences for our nation’s youth.”

While the “Support 21” statement is a response to concerns over the unclear motives of the Amethyst Initiative, Ms Agen said that the Prevention Council feels that it is always timely to remind community leaders of the positions of national and local organizations in support of Legal Age 21.