Keep Drinking Age at 21

The staff erroneously includes a call for a lower federal drinking age in an otherwise acceptable appeal for a realistic College drinking policy. Encouraging universities to tolerate safe, small-scale drinking even when students under 21 may participate is reasonable. But calling for a reduction of the drinking age to 18 is irresponsible. There are strong social pressures on those in the 18 to 21 age range to drink; the law is one of few countervailing forces, encouraging young adults to think twice before using alcohol in these formative years.

Lowering the legal drinking age will only intensify the problem of high school alcohol abuse and increase the number of fatalities due to drunk driving--the legitimate basis of the federal highway law in the first place. For the sake of the health, welfare and safety of Americans of all ages, leave the drinking age at 21.