Like everyone I know, I want to see less drinking, especially less abusive drinking, and more responsible behavior regarding alcohol among young people. That is why I signed the Amethyst Initiative with college presidents around the country to reopen public discussion about our drinking laws. My action was a personal one, not a matter of institutional position or college policy, based upon my experience in addressing alcohol issues at several colleges as a faculty member and administrator.

Simply put, current laws — created with the admirable goal of curtailing youthful drinking and its abuses — are not working as intended. Today, underage men and women who want to drink can readily secure and consume alcohol, and they do so regularly in clear disregard of the law. What the law actually does is to drive underage drinking underground, separating it from the moderating influence of adults with more experience and wisdom. On their own, underage drinkers too often drink to excess, frequently harming themselves or others as a result.

Unfortunately, such behavior is increasing, despite our best efforts to prevent it and to educate young people for responsibility. Most colleges have extensive alcohol education programs beginning at freshman orientation, and often the first judicial response to breaking alcohol rules is educational. But it hasn't stopped the drinking. Campus security forces everywhere spend a lot of their time enforcing rules prohibiting underage drinking and dealing with the harmful behavior that results from alcohol abuse. That hasn't stopped it either.

Some people have said we presidents are just giving up on addressing the alcohol issue, but nothing could be further from the truth. We are deeply concerned about the trends in alcohol behavior among students, and we raise this issue because we believe we could address the issue more successfully under different legal circumstances. Currently, when we engage students first-hand in settings where they use alcohol, we must act as enforcers of the laws they seek to break. If instead we could actively model responsible behavior at the point of their decision-making, or intervene to promote healthy choices rather than to police their law-breaking, we could shape their behavior more positively, limit bingeing, and reduce its harmful consequences.

Obviously, changing the drinking age alone will not solve the problems of irresponsible drinking. It is part of a web of social, cultural and policy factors that should be considered together in order to address this issue most effectively. To be effective, any change would need to be aligned with and supportive of those complementary influences as well. Reopening discussion of the drinking age is therefore just a starting point for a larger conversation about what we as a society must do to change the destructive equation of youthful drinking and to better support young people in building the habits of responsibility.

Contrary to much press coverage, Amethyst presidents have not taken any position on what changes might work best and do not have any specific legislative agenda to advance. We are united only in the view that current law should be reconsidered because of its adverse, unintended consequences on the drinking behavior of young people and on our capacity to promote responsible behavior regarding alcohol. Undertaking the public dialogue we propose will enable us to highlight both the limitations and the advantages of current policies and to determine together how best to achieve objectives that are widely shared in our society. As concerned parents, educators and citizens, we can do no less for the next generation and for our society.

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Theodore E. Long is president of Elizabethtown College.