Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Thursday, September 04, 2008
Is 18 too young for drinking? College leaders ponder legal age
John Ottens Jr. has a brief memory from the moment 30 years ago that put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
He started to pull out of a truck stop in Illinois onto a four-lane highway into what appeared to be darkness.
What Ottens doesn’t remember is the car with no headlights that broadsided him at an estimated speed of 90 to 110 mph. The 18-year-old drunken driver didn’t survive. Ottens did.
The idea of lowering the drinking age doesn’t appeal to the Holmen resident, an avid crusader against alcohol abuse.
“There are other solutions to address the drinking problem aside from lowering the drinking age, and by doing that you are just going to open up a whole bushel of problems,” he said.
But that discussion already is happening on college campuses nationwide.
University and college leaders in July launched the Amethyst Initiative to debate lowering the legal drinking age from 21, which they think is not working.
“Substance abuse prevention is such an important issue that we need to be able to have open and honest dialog about all options,” said Matt Vogel, community health specialist at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
While he does not necessarily favor lowering the drinking age, Vogel does think the issue is worth exploring.
Few other countries have a drinking age of 21 or older, Vogel said, and the overall number of alcohol-related fatalities for 18- to 20-year-olds was decreasing before the passage of the Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.
“As long as we continue to mystify alcohol in our culture, promote it heavily though advertising, and not teach young people accurate and honest information about it, then I have no doubt that we’ll continue to see abusive alcohol consumption regardless of the minimum drinking age,” he said.
Angela Buck, Ottens’ daughter, also thinks it’s important to learn about alcohol from a young age.
She was a 1-year-old when her father was hit and grew up seeing the consequences of drunken driving.
Children need to learn about the responsibility that goes with drinking, said Buck, an LPN at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center.
But she doesn’t think lowering the drinking age is a good idea.
“At 18, I don’t think they are experienced enough to know what their tolerance is,” she said.
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