CONS: The backlash

The promotion of lowering the legal drinking age from 19 to 18 will bring a considerable amount of backlash from parents, the public, health experts, transportation officials, government leaders, opponents of drunk driving (MADD), and the state surgeon general. These groups of people are very passionate about maintaining the legal drinking age (LDA) as high as possible because of the statistics of drunk driving in North America (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082003626_pf.html).

To exemplify the response that will be anticipated by the public awareness campaign, partnerships, school media project, and media outreach plans, it is important to look at the response to Universities which are advocating for lowering the LDA in the U.S.

Clark University and Dickenson College, in the United States, are part of the lowering the LDA movement called the “Amethyst Initiative”. When these Universities went public with their campaign to lower the drinking age, one college president stated “I've received 600 e-mails in the last 24 hours…most of which chastised me for supporting a national push to rethink the legal drinking age (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-183768831.html).

Moreover, parents are livid over this idea because they are to trust the College presidents of the Universities where their children attend, who are potentially putting them in danger. MADD is also very disappointed because they claim College presidents are not doing their homework on this issue and are supposed to be playing leadership roles on campuses. Other critics are stating that this initiative leaves other educators prior to University with a huge responsibility to educate about alcohol (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082003626_pf.html).