Brother Featured on ’60 Minutes’
by Tad Lichtenauer • March 2009 • 8 Comments •
Editor’s Note: This is a follow-up article to the one we published about Dr. John McCardell in our March 2008 issue.
On February 22, 2009, CBS’ “60 Minutes” broadcast a news segment featuring alumni brother Dr. John McCardell (Washington & Lee 1971). The president emeritus of Middlebury College, he also is the founder and director of Choose Responsibility, a nonprofit organization established to engage the public in informed and dispassionate debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age.
“I am thrilled with the responses we have received from the ’60 Minutes’ segment that aired on CBS,” McCardell says. “Clandestine, high-risk drinking is a growing problem, for which the 21 year-old drinking age is at least in part responsible. It’s time to consider a change. The consequences of reckless and unsupervised drinking are serious.”
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, more than 60 percent of the lives lost to alcohol by those under the age of 21 are lost off the highways — more than 3,000 per year.
Underage drinking annually contributes to 599,000 injuries and 97,000 cases of sexual assault among college students. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that approximately one in six teenagers “have experienced ‘black out’ spells where they could not remember what happened the previous evening.”
As the Boulder, Colorado, Chief of Police Mark Beckner stated on the ’60 Minutes’ segment, enforcement alone is not the solution,” McCardell says. “Recent research estimates that just one out of every 500 cases of underage drinking results in citation or arrest. Seeking to enforce a law that has proven frustratingly unenforceable should lead us to ask whether the law is in step with social and cultural reality.”
More than two years ago McCardell founded Choose Responsibility. His purpose and mission is to to promote informed public debate and support a fresh approach to the problem of reckless and excessive drinking, especially by young people.
“One of the approaches to help solve the problem, we believe, is meaningful alcohol education that goes beyond scare tactics and temperance lectures,” he says. “We know that this approach can work: recent data indicate that students who completed the AlcoholEDU educational program were 20 percent less likely to be heavy-episodic drinkers and 30 percent less likely to be problematic drinkers – numbers that prove that alcohol education, which we believe should also include parents, can be a useful tool in altering young adults’ drinking habits.”
Nicholas Kilduff Says:
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:54 amI live in Europe right now. Here in Germany, the drinking age is 18 for hard stuff and 16 for beer. I have yet to see one overly drunk college-aged kid, or adult. Why is this so? Because alcohol isn’t considered some form of black magic, like it is in the U.S. Europeans, at a young age, are exposed to alcohol early on, and see their parents drinking it responsibly at times, not shunning it out of the house. Europeans consider alcohol a part of living and enjoying life, not a limiting factor. And, their drunk driving laws and punishments are zero tolerance, zero fuss. You drink to over the limit, you drive, you are not going to drive again for a very long time. None of this breath-test junk before you start the car… simply no driving. No going to court to pay a ton of money to reduce it to a lesser charge.
Parental and community involvement.
Simple, strict laws for going too far.
Greg Says:
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:57 amAmen to that. I second Nicholas, being a brother from Canada, I share similar experiences. Its time for a change! (LOL, not a democrat)
Jim Edwards Says:
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:20 amBrother McCardell makes some great points. I agree that the lower age limit and education will reduce the issues I faced as an undergrad and as a parent. The point about “Preloading” was dead on. It doesn’t matter if you are 18, 21, or 48 drinking and driving is illegal and stupid. MADD is an organization that was formed to prevent “Drunk Driving”, not to set temperance standards for the United States. We need to get our heads out of the sand and support this effort. Jim Edwards LP451 CMSU 1983
Tom Earp Says:
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:20 pmHaving been in the liquor industry 1/3 of my life, I find this article right on the money and agree with the other Brothers. Because of Governments typical interference, they have forced adults who can vote and die for thier country to become closet drinkers who then take it to extreems as in binge drinking maybe to prove a point. While some talk about education, education begins at home before students get to college and are still blocked from being adults by rules and regulations.
A far thinking Brother has started something that is being taken up by many other names from major schools.
Thank you for the article and I did see and enjoy the 60 Minutes article.
Tom Earp
LX Z 1
Pittsburg State University, Kansas
Mike Greer Says:
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:28 pmI watched Brother McCardell on “60 Minutes” and as someone who grew up with a dirnking age of 18 and now the father of 4 adult children, I totally understand the points he’s trying to make. Educating your children on the consumption of alchol is a difficult task and in our society it seems the more off limits something is the more desireable it is as well. My father’s advice to me when I went to college was; “You’re going to drink, just don’t make an ass of yourself.” Words to live by for sure. Pride in one’s self and one’s behavior has always been important in our Fraternity. I encourage our active members and associates to take that advice and take pride in their actions and be responsible in all aspects of their lives.
I wish Brother McCardell the best of luck with his work to reduce needless deaths caused by excessive drinking.
Mike Greer LX72 1973
Craig Benton Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 2:46 pmAs the father of a daughter who was killed in an alcohol related accident I can see no possible good of coming from lowering the drinking age. My question is where are these underage drinkers getting booze. In my case it was my daughters best friends Mom. We have these parents that want to be “cool” instead of being a parent. Teenagers are notorious for making poor choices, with alcohol the choices can be fatal.
Craig Benton, Slippery Rock 1982
Bill Bridges, KSU, 1970 Says:
March 12th, 2009 at 6:18 pmI strongly disagree with lowering the drinking age to 18. Make it 18 and the 15 and 16 year-olds will be the ones getting the fake I.D.’s. Where do you stop? Eliminate the drinking age altogether? Like it or not, in most cases, maturity comes with age. That’s one reason the office of President can’t be filled by anyone under 35. As to the argument that the current law is unenforceable, I’ve got news for you. ALL our laws are unenforceable, from marijuana possession to assault to fraud to murder. People commit these acts every day and get away with them. Following the logic championed in this article, we might as well do away with all law and regulation in our society. As to the European argument, Europeans are not car crazy like Americans. For the most part, they travel by rail, and move their freight by highway. We do the exact opposite. Getting a driver’s license at age 16 is not a right of passage in Europe, like it is in the U.S. Trust me, I live in a college town. The last thing I want to see is a bunch of legally drunk 18 year-old freshmen driving wildly through the streets. At least the current POSSIBLE penalties act as a deterrent to some kids. Remove the deterrent, and you open the floodgates. I wouldn’t want to be the college president who supported this the day after one of his drunk freshmen kills somebody with their car.
Christopher Huvelle Says:
March 27th, 2009 at 8:09 pmI disagree with the comment made about the 15 and 16 year olds. Think about the average age a teenager starts thinking about or actually start to drink, that age is 16. This argument needs to come down to facts and not opinions, young adults drink. Most of us here would agree with that statement. So the 16-18 year olds are already drinking, why not make it legal for the 18′s to drink so when they do go to college they are experienced. I have many friends who did not drink in high school, when college came around they could not handle themselves. Be realistic in your thinking about this subject.
Chris Huvelle
Lambda Phi 987
Texas State University