Summary: In 2008, 100 college and university presidents signed a petition to have the national drinking age lowered to 18 in an attempt to better control the underage drinking on their campuses. Met with resistance from groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the idea has gained little traction since then. Meanwhile, in the first two weeks of the new semester, 28 University of Maryland students were hospitalized due to alcohol poisoning. A look at binge drinking on college campuses, how drinking habits of young people in the U.S. compares with those in other countries, and how lowering the drinking age might help curb excessive drinking. With Barrett Seaman, the author of Binge: Campus Life in an Age of Disconnection and Excess and president of Choose Responsibility; and David Jernigan, associate professor and director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, John’s Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
