this summer a study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry revealed that , among college-age males , binge drinking is unchanged from its levels of 1979 ; that among non-college women it has increased by 20 percent ; and that among college women it has increased by 40 percent . Remarkably , the counterintuitive conclusion drawn by the investigators , and accepted uncritically by the media , including editorials in The New York Times and The Washington Post is that the study proves that raising the drinking age to 21 has been a success . More recently , a study of binge drinking published in the Journal of the American Medical Association announced that `` despite efforts at prevention , the prevalence of binge drinking among college students is continuing to rise , and so are the harms associated with it . '' Worse still , a related study has shown that habits formed at 18 die hard : `` For each year studied , a greater percentage of 21 - to 24-year-olds -LSB- those who were of course once 18 , 19 and 20 -RSB- engaged in binge drinking and driving under
Editor 's note : John M. McCardell Jr. , president emeritus at Middlebury College , is founder and president of Choose Responsibility , a nonprofit organization that seeks to engage the public in debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age . John McCardell says the 21-year-old drinking age is n't preventing widespread binge drinking . -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- One year ago , a group of college and university presidents and chancellors , eventually totaling 135 , issued a statement that garnered national attention . The `` Amethyst Initiative '' put a debate proposition before the public -- `` Resolved : That the 21-year-old drinking age is not working . '' It offered , in much the way a grand jury performs its duties , sufficient evidence for putting the proposition to the test . It invited informed and dispassionate public debate and committed the signatory institutions to encouraging that debate . And it called on elected officials not to continue assuming that , after 25 years , the status quo could not be challenged , even improved . One year later , the drinking age debate continues , and new research reinforces the presidential impulse . Just