A small but passionate group of students gathered last night in Sophia Gordon Hall to discuss lowering the drinking age in light of University President Lawrence Bacow's decision to join the Amethyst Initiative, a group of college presidents that support debating the policy.
"We think it's a good idea to encourage discussion on the drinking policy, because the current policy isn't working," said senior Leah Reitz, who organized the event along with fellow senior Jen Burg. "We thought it would be interesting to see what students at Tufts think on the issue."
The lively discussion grew intense at points, with students arguing from both sides.
"If we lower the drinking age, what are we saying about our country's stance on alcohol?" freshman Alon Agai asked. "If we want to equalize alcohol use on college campuses, why not change the drinking age to 22?"
Max Pinto, a sophomore from France, said that binge drinking is nowhere near as problematic in Europe, where drinking ages are typically lower, as it is in the United States. "People drink to get blasted here, not to appreciate the alcohol," he said.
Many students said that in this country, attitudes toward alcohol encourage furtive binge drinking and should ideally be reformatted. "Binge drinking is definitely a problem specific to our culture," senior Marisa Jones said.
Some of the students who favored lowering the drinking age expressed reservations. "It's a really difficult issue to try to resolve," senior Andrew Mills said. "You have to consider what the impact on high schoolers would be by just abruptly lowering the drinking age. We could try to phase it out gradually instead."
Participants also toyed with the idea of lowering the drinking age for certain alcohol, such as beer and wine, rather than implementing a sweeping drop.
The students who were legally able to drink agreed that after they turned 21, their interest in abusing alcohol had waned. "After you've been an idiot a few times, you start to learn your limit and you think about what you're doing to your body," Reitz said.
