Amethyst

Because of the Amethyst Initiative, we now know that the amethyst is the gem that the Greeks believed kept people from getting intoxicated. (I assume we mean the ancient Greeks, here, and since the ancient Greeks had elaborate religious ceremonies in which they worshipped Dionysus by getting intoxicated and otherwise abandoning themselves, I wonder how much use amethysts actually got.)

About 100 U.S. college presidents have signed the Amethyst Initiative calling for reconsideration of the legal drinking age. They argue that the present drinking age encourages binge drinking.

Well something certainly encourages binge drinking by adolescents and young adults. But if rebellion is the explanation, then we ought to get rid of age minimums altogether. Otherwise, following the same logic, lowering the legal drinking age to 18 will just create more alcohol abuse among 16 year olds or preteens. Getting rid of the minimum drinking age isn’t as radical as it seems; many countries around the world regulate the age for purchase of alcohol but not the age for consuming it.

Lots of kids go away to college looking forward to partying without parental supervision; getting a degree is just a good excuse. It is understandable that colleges don’t want to add policing that partying to all their other responsibilities. But will kids stop getting drunk just because it is legal? I doubt it.

Young people are inclined to do stupid and risky things, and binge drinking is just one of them. What is revealing is that college campuses have become the locus of so much binge drinking. Traditional college campuses are incubators for people getting ready to be adults, and in our culture, a major feature of adulthood is self-medication with drugs and alcohol. If college students drink more than working adults do, it is probably because they have fewer responsibilities demanding their time and attention.

I live in a wine-growing region where the economy relies heavily on a product that makes a lot of people intoxicated. You can say all the sophisticated things you want to about the taste of wine; it wouldn’t be as popular if that taste didn’t come with a buzz. We need to stop talking about legal drinking ages altogether and ask what it is about American culture that makes so many people want to get drunk.