Self-Interested Activism

100 college presidents have banded together to call for a reduction in the drinking age from 21 to 18. They believe that this will curb binge drinking. Instapundit agrees. McQ dissents. Duffy thinks it will at least make them real popular with their students. McQ makes a great point:

Of course they're college and university presidents. Their only concern is their little world, and they're taking heat for not doing more about binge drinking by underage college students. Make 18 the law and they can wash their hands of the problem.

What effect it has in high-schools, of course, concerns them not at all.

Everyone I know who recalls when the drinking age was 18 thanked God for raising it. My bible-study leader in high school worked his way through college as a bar bouncer. He went from throwing people out once or twice a night to once or twice a week once the drinking age went up. I have yet to hear someone who was there say "yeah raising the age didn't change anything."

The reasons the college presidents are bringing this up is because if the drinking age drops to 18, they won't have to deal with the problem anymore. The number of collegians under 18 is negligible. The drinking problem will still exist, but it will be legal and therefore not the school's (and it's president's) problem. This lets them wash their hands of the whole situation.

What goes unsaid is that the drinking problem is going to get worse in high schools. Now you're going to have high school seniors running side businesses buying alcohol for underclassmen. And high school drinking is already a serious problem as it is.