Amethyst in the rough

Chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across the United States have signed an initiative calling on elected officials to rethink and discuss the current National Minimum Drinking Age Act. Their publshed statement (pdf) supports "an informed and dispassionate public debate over:"

• the effects of the 21 year-old drinking age.
• whether the 10% highway fund “incentive” encourages or inhibits that debate.
• new ideas about the best ways to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol.

The Amethyst Initiative website states that membership is limited to college and university presidents and chancellors. As of today, the current signatory count is 129.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the Initiative and some of the debate surrounding it:

"We agree there are terrible problems with binge and underage drinking. We just don't agree on their proposed solution, that being lowering the drinking age," says MADD president Laura Dean-Mooney in a phone interview...

The Amethyst signers say that's an unfair charge. They want to take more responsibility, not less, for changing the culture around drinking, they say...

The Amethyst Initiative website states that the signatories advocate a debate but not necessarily a change in the law.