A nationwide debate on rethinking the drinking age made its way to UW-Madison Tuesday at the biannual meeting of the Policy Alternative Community and Education Project, a university and community initiative aimed at combating the consequences of high-risk drinking.
The Amethyst Initiative is composed of chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across the country that support public discussion and debate surrounding the drinking age and current problems with underage and binge drinking.
Wisconsin's drinking age was changed from 18 to 21 in 1986 after a 10 percent reduction of a state's federal highway appropriation was created for any state with a legal drinking age under 21 as a part of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act passed by Congress in 1984.
Marsh Shapiro, owner of the downtown Nitty Gritty, explained his frustrations with the drinking age at the meeting. Having spoken with many government officials and authorities in the past, Shapiro said there is no way Wisconsin would have gone to 21 had it not been for the threat of the highway funds.""
Shapiro feels strongly that many laws regarding the drinking age are unjust. ""You can be legal to do everything else in this country except have a beer, and I think its unfortunate that it has to be that way,"" he said.
""I've always said one of my ambitions would to be to have a marine, that is underage, come in and serve him a beer, and have the police arrest me for serving someone that has just come back from Iraq. That would just demonstrate how ludicrous the law is,"" Shapiro said.
Aaron Brower, principle investigator for PACE, said statistics show a spike in binge drinking between the ages of 18 and 22 and a drop after, therefore the issue of dangerous binge drinking lies within the bracket college years rather than in the larger issue of underage drinking.
""From a law enforcement prospective, I don't think it does any good for us to participate in the discussion of the debate,"" UWPD Assistant Police Chief Dale Burke said.
Susan Crowley, project director for PACE, said while college presidents target the issue of age, UW-Madison should focus on the overall consequences of drinking. Crowley said a minimum drinking age of 21 is apparently ineffective on college campuses because excessive drinking troubles continuously plague universities.
""College presidents have used the age issue as an opening to say this hasn't been working, because if it had been working we wouldn't be having as many consequences,"" Crowley said.
