By Kellie Doligale

To drink or not to drink? That’s the question that will be raised concerning people under the age of 21 in a campus debate.

On Thursday, UK will host two experts to debate the current drinking age and whether there is sufficient evidence to lower that age.

Dr. John McCardell, director of the Choose Responsibility campaign and former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, and Dr. Jim Fell, senior program director of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, will speak to students and faculty at 7 p.m. in Worsham Theatre on the history of the drinking age debate and the merits of each argument, citing statistics and popular opinion.

“The purpose of this debate is to make students more aware of the rationale behind the 21 age limit as well as the basis behind the proposition to lower the age limit,” said Andrew Smith, director of the Alcohol Education Office at UK. “This is a topic where many people sit on the fence … Hopefully, this debate will also help educate those who have chosen a side solely based off a knee-jerk reaction.”

Fell and McCardell will each give a 15-minute presentation, will answer questions from Smith and will take questions from audience members.

McCardell, who will propose the drinking age should be lowered, will elaborate “on the consequences of the current drinking age,” said Nick DeSantis, a staff assistant at Choose Responsibility, a non-profit organization founded in 2007 by McCardell.

The group proposes “a series of changes that treat 18, 19 and 20-year-olds as the adults the law says they are,” according to the program’s Web site.

In contrast, Fell, who worked at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 1969 to 1999 and has 42 years of traffic safety and research experience, will present data that supports the effectiveness of the current drinking age.

“Many (young adults) think, ‘well as long as I’m considered an adult at most things when I’m 18, I should also be able to drink,’ but it’s just not true,” Fell said. “I’m going to try to educate them on the reasons why we think (the drinking age) should be 21, including a reduced number of alcohol-related injuries.”

Fell said about 80 percent of students under 21 want the drinking age lowered. He said many people see Europe as a standard the U.S. should follow in drinking age, but Fell said that line of thinking is a fallacy.

“They’re brought up drinking beer and wine and such and there aren’t very many problems with that,” Fell said. “I’m going to show some data that (says) that’s not true.”

The debate is sponsored by the Alcohol Education Office and is free and open to the public.