Drinking age

This is absolutely correct:

When students are hospitalized--or worse yet, die from alcohol poisoning, which happens about 300 times each year--college presidents tend to react by declaring their campuses dry or shutting down fraternity houses. But tighter enforcement of the minimum drinking age of 21 is not the solution. It's part of the problem.

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...In my reporting at colleges around the country, I did not meet any presidents or deans who felt that the 21-year age minimum helps their efforts to curb the abuse of alcohol on their campuses. Quite the opposite. They thought the law impeded their efforts since it takes away the ability to monitor and supervise drinking activity.

What would happen if the drinking age was rolled back to 18 or 19? Initially, there would be a surge in binge drinking as young adults savored their newfound freedom. But over time, I predict, U.S. college students would settle into the saner approach to alcohol I saw on the one campus I visited where the legal drinking age is 18: Montreal's McGill University, which enrolls about 2,000 American undergraduates a year. Many, when they first arrive, go overboard, exploiting their ability to drink legally. But by midterms, when McGill's demanding academic standards must be met, the vast majority have put drinking into its practical place among their priorities.

The 21 drinking age is incredibly counter-productive. It encourages irresponsible behavior by raising the allure of alcohol. When I lived in Europe during my freshmen and sophomore years of high school drinking wasn't considered a really big deal, and it was only after I moved back to the U.S. that I encountered binge-drinking. In Europe people would often just sit down and have a few beers. In the U.S. this didn't really occur -- you either didn't drink or you drank yourself into oblivion.

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The complication in this whole debate, however, is that the U.S. isn't Europe. In the U.S. you can usually drive when you are 16. In Europe you can't drive until 18 and can frequently drink beer before then. Given the predominance of urban living most people either walk to ride their bike to the local bar. Falling off your bike or falling down drunk usually has significantly lighter repercussions than getting behind the wheel of your car while severely intoxicated.

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Nevertheless I think that the 21 drinking age has caused more problems than it has solved, and is yet a further validation of the old saying that the road that leads to hell is paved with good intentions.