Todd’s lack of stance a ‘cop-out’

President Todd’s assertion that the Amethyst Initiative does not have information that they can bring forward to support a proper debate is demeaning to the movement and its supporters, and quite frankly a bit of a cop-out. Although the Amethyst Initiative does not provide easy information, there is plenty of peer-reviewed research to back their claims.

From George E. Vaillant’s study in 1983, in which “it was found that young men who grew up in homes where alcohol was forbidden at the dinner table were seven times more likely to become alcoholics” (Micaela, Richard, Colleen, and Caitlin’s wording on Neuroanthropology), to Jeffrey Miron and Elina Tetelbaum’s 2007 stat-crunching NBER paper, in which it was suggested that the lowering of the minimum legal drinking age by the Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act had little impact on traffic fatalities, the information is out there to support the claims of the Amethyst Initiative. This is not even to mention the myriad of sources cited directly by groups such as Choose Responsibility.

In short, to claim that the Amethyst Initiative doesn’t have the information backing it to re-open public debate is nothing more than intellectual laziness. While they don’t provide direct access to such sources on their Web site, they no doubt know of the studies out there. If Todd is honestly opposed to the initiative, as such a cop-out would lead one to believe, then he should simply express his lack of support and be done with it.

Tyler Smith

biology junior