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 Earlier this year, a bunch of college presidents got together to form the Amethyst Initiative, which asked for a dialogue on our de facto national drinking age.
It turns out — and I know this is going to shock you — that lots of kids on college campuses drink. I know, I’m surprised too. Don’t these kids know the law? Anyway: College campuses have developed a dangerous drinking culture, perhaps in part due to the 21-plus drinking age, and these college presidents were all wondering if the federal government could reconsider its policy.
The reaction to this from nearly all political and media quarters was that of horror. The New Jersey Senate held a hearing yesterday and decided the solution is just a little more law enforcement. “We’ve got to tighten these laws up to deal with this unfortunate problem,” said said the committee chairwoman.
But a special award goes to Stockton College president Glenn Miller, who requested the police arrest his students more often:
There is currently no law forbidding underage drinking, said Miller. Instead, under state statute, underage drinking outdoors is against the law, but underage alcohol consumption behind closed doors is not illegal.
“I think we should refine the statute to make it an actual violation to drink underage,” said Miller, who also called for harsher punishments for those who buy alcohol for underage adults.
“We are dealing with a population of young adults aged 18 to 22 and they are learning, most for the first time, how to live as a responsible member of the community. Students will make mistakes — however, when a community member does not learn from their mistake or refuses to accept the mistake they have made, enforcement needs to be taken.”
Let’s say you’re a 19-year-old at Stockton College, and you drink on the weekends like everybody else at school. You’re breaking the law, sure, but you don’t throw up like when you were 16 and you don’t get really hammered much anymore. You’ve somehow managed to become a responsible drinker. There is nothing you need more than enforcement.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is this: Yesterday, a Moorestown policeman pled not guilty to charges of having sex with girls and cows. While this was going on, the Senate was debating how to best fail at the impossible task of preventing all underage drinking.
Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Or, I guess, fiddling while someone is diddling cows? Something like that.
Photo by cytoon used under a Creative Commons license
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Nooooooooo! MillerCoors (their U.S. operations are combined) has announced it will 
