Conversations are being started about how old is old enough.

In an era where 18-year-olds can fight for our country and vote in local and national elections, some people are beginning to think that these young adults should be able to go out and have a cocktail at a bar as well.

More than 130 colleges and universities have signed the Amethyst Initiative which is striving to start an intellectual discussion about what age should be the legal age for young adults to drink.

One college noticeably absent from the list of supporters is Skidmore College.

“We support further research and debate on whether the 21-year-old drinking age is sound public policy, but we have significant reservations about the way in which the Amethyst Initiative is framing the conversation,” Skidmore College President Philip Glotzbach said in a statement.

Glozbach added that while the Amethyst Initiative states “the 21-year-old drinking age has created a dangerous culture of binge drinking on college campuses,” he believes that the issue of binge drinking is not due to the drinking age, but is a much larger and more complicated matter, and Skidmore College has not been persuaded by the research that the Amethyst Initiative has provided. 

The students at Skidmore College have mixed reviews of the Amethyst Initiative as well.

“I think changing the drinking age would be ineffective right now. We don’t know what the 18-year-olds would do. I think they would go crazy for a while,” student Colby Blake, 18, said. “If they can find an effective way to change the age then I think it would be a good idea in a few years, but the immediate future would be nuts.”

Another student who wished to remain anonymous due to sports affiliations is Canadian and has grown up in a country with an 18-year-old drinking age.

“I think things would be better if they lowered the age. Kids who aren’t legally allowed to drink are doing it secretly, with the specific goal to get drunk, and that’s more dangerous,” he said.

“There isn’t as much of a problem with binge drinking in Canada because they don’t have to hide it. If the age was lowered though, an extended problem would be more drunk driving, kids thinking they can do anything.” 

However, according to former president of Middlebury College and organizer of the Amethyst Initiative John McCardell, underage drinking will occur whether it is legal or not, and it is up to the citizens to become an extended arm of the law or look the other way.

“As a former college president of 13 years and a parent, I have seen how the law works, and there is not much room for interpretation,” he said. “We do the best we can to enforce the law, but underage drinking still goes on-behind closed doors-and that’s where the problems are the worst. We are keeping underage drinkers out of public places, but we are really becoming the victims of our own success.”

While the Amethyst Initiative believes that the drinking age should be reduced, their main goal is to begin a conversation. According to the Amethyst Initiative website, “someone who favors raising the drinking age could sign (the initiative). That said, presidents who have signed the statement generally believe that the drinking age plays a role in shaping the culture of alcohol on their campuses. It would be impossible to address the issue of alcohol on college campuses and exclude the drinking age and its effects from the discussion.”

Currently, the United States does not have a minimum drinking age—states are allowed to choose their own minimum legal drinking age, though all of the states have the legal age as 21, due to the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. The act says if states do not legislate and enforce a 21-year-old drinking minimum, the state would lose 10 percent of their federal highway funding.

“No government or legislature would even think about giving up 10 percent of their highway funds. The provision has stifled any debate over the drinking age. If the ‘initiative’ is removed, the subject will be more open for debate. What we want to happen is to have parents, students and faculty look at the situations that are taking place on college campuses all over the country and talk about how to fix the problems,” McCardell said.