Human Services News

From Funding News:

The age-21 drinking law is "bad social policy and terrible law," forcing college students to take their alcohol use underground and promoting dishonesty among college officials about drinking culture on campus, according to former Middlebury College president John M. McCardell, Jr.

Inside Higher Education reported Feb. 16 that McCardell has created a nonprofit group, Choose Responsibility, dedicated to exploring alternatives to the age-21 law, including the option of issuing drinking licenses to 18- to 20-year-olds who complete an alcohol-education program.

McCardell said that college officials who think that they have campus drinking under control are "delusional," adding that most officials are politically restrained from being honest about student drinking.

College alcohol researcher Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health said lowering the drinking age would be a "poor idea."

When they drink, they drink a lot," he said.

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