Criticism
The initiative has been criticized by several groups and government and industry officials, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Joining MADD's criticism are other groups, including the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the American Medical Association, and the National Transportation Safety Board.
A spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Association told the Washington Post that university leaders "are really just punting on the issue and leaving the high school principals to deal with it." However, Amethyst Initiative's parent organization, Choose Responsibility, proposes that only high school graduates should be eligible.
In a press release, MADD argues that lowering the drinking age would result in greater numbers of fatal automobile accidents, and that the presidents are "looking for an easy way out of an inconvenient problem" and "misrepresenting science." MADD cited former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, and current University of Miami president Donna Shalala statement that "maintaining the legal drinking age at 21 is a socially and medically sound policy that helps parents, schools and law enforcement protect our youth from the potentially life-threatening effects of underage drinking."
Choose Responsibility argues that scientific evidence supports the Amethyst Initiative's views and goals. and refutes some of MADD's past claims.
Radley Balko, of Reason, wryly noted inconsistency opponents of the Amethyst Initiative believe that it "would be a "national tragedy" to, for example, allow 19- and 20-year-old men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to have a beer in celebration of completing their tours of duty." Balko also noted research showing that underage drinking laws had not reduced highway deaths.
In November 2008, the Student Senate at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse rejected a proposal to urge that university's chancellor to sign the Amethyst Initiative." Supposedly the first such attempt by a student body to ask a president or chancellor to sign on, the measure at UW–L was defeated 14-19 after three weeks' debate. Chancellor Joe Gow said this vote, "certainly defies the 'conventional wisdom' regarding young people being eager to lower the drinking age." "
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