Swami:
A buddy of mine told me that some college presidents want to lower the drinking age to 18 so there won't be as much binge-drinking on campus. Please tell me exactly when and where this will happen, because I'm a 17-year-old high school senior, and if there's a college out there that will let me drink next year, I want to send out an application.
Billy Sunday Jr.
Dear Billy:
You must be referring to Monday's news flash that presidents from "about 100 of the best-known U.S. universities" are calling for "an informed and dispassionate debate" about lowering the de facto federal drinking age from 21 to 18.
The debate has been heard before, and, at the risk of simplifying a complex issue by breaking it down into two basic arguments (an American pastime, by the way), here are those two arguments:
1) Lowering the drinking age to 18 would cut down on binge drinking because young adults, consuming alcohol legally in public settings rather than getting wasted in dark corners before anyone notices, would learn their own boundaries and limitations in the same way as any adult with legal access to alcohol ....
... and ...
2) Lowering the drinking age to 18 would expand both the roster of functional alcoholics stumbling through society and the armada of drunk drivers slaughtering themselves and others on the nation's roadways.
The Swami is not here to pass moral judgment on this or any such firestorm, but gazing into the crystal ball can instruct us on if and when the United States of America, former home of the Eighteenth Amendment and current home to beer commercials every five minutes during a football game, will allow 18-year-olds to not only vote and not only swear an oath to the military but also purchase and consume alcohol ...
... hmmmm ... it's coming in rather clearly now ...
Your answer: 21 will remain the magic number. And everyone under 18 will still openly go to a house party and tap a keg provided by someone with either a fake I.D. or an older brother -- America's preferred method of developing boundaries.
P.S. Among the colleges and universities with presidents calling for that "informed" debate: Lake Forest College.
