A petition signed by 129 university presidents, including University President Dan Mote and University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan, calls for an “informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age.”

But just weeks after the petition has become public, the debate has already proven to be quite passionate.

The signatories of the petition, called the Amethyst Initiative, say a dangerous culture of binge drinking has developed on college campuses, and the drinking age isn’t working. However, advocacy groups and elected officials disagree, saying science shows the drinking age saves lives by cutting down on drunken driving and binge drinking.

For example, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said wanting to lower the drinking age “defies common sense.” And Mark V. Rosenker, the acting head of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the repeal of the drinking age would be a “national tragedy.”

“Parents should think twice before sending their teens to these colleges … that have waved the white flag on underage and binge drinking policies” said Laura Dean-Mooney, the president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, in a press release.

Mote said his office has received hundreds of e-mails from people about the petition, which he said he doesn’t understand because all he plans to do so far is discuss – not change – the drinking age.

“It’s so unfortunate the discussion got so polarized so quickly,” he said. “It undermines having a clear, civil dialogue. Just staying in the status quo doesn’t seem to be a solution.”

The Amethyst Initiative, which is named after a stone believed by ancient Greeks to prevent intoxication, is associated with Choose Responsibility, an organization that advocates lowering the drinking age to 18. It was formed by John McCardell, a former president of Middlebury College in Vermont.

However, the Amethyst Initiative petition calls for only a debate about the merits of the 21-year-old drinking age, not for lowering the age to 18.

And according to Grace Kronenberg, assistant to the director of Choose Responsibility, MADD is trying to stifle that debate before it starts.

“They don’t think the debate should happen; they think the debate happened in 1984,” she said. “We definitely anticipated MADD to react negatively to this, because they react negatively to the fact that we even exist.”

Officials at Choose Responsibility said some of the studies that indicate keeping the drinking age at 21 lowered drunken driving fatalities are flawed, because they don’t account for other improvements in automobile safety, such as the spread of airbags and seat belts.

But James Fell, a senior program director at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in nearby Beltsville who also serves on the board of MADD, said multiple studies have shown the higher drinking age decreases drunk driving deaths. He said a study he recently completed accounted for more variables and showed a 11-percent decrease in drunken driving deaths.

“All the variables we could think of were accounted for,” Fell said.

Furthermore, MADD said research has shown drinking has a negative impact on the development of young people’s brains and that drinking can lead to date rape and sexual assaults.

“To hear that the person who is responsible for [the] health and safety of every student on campus took this position makes it difficult for law enforcement at University of Maryland to do their jobs,” said Caroline Cash, the executive director of MADD for Maryland and Delaware.

To help cut down on binge drinking, MADD officials would prefer more education for students. But Warren Kelley, an assistant vice president for student affairs at the university who chairs the Campus Alcohol Coalition, points out the university already does a lot: Every student has to complete AlcoholEdu before attending the university, and the university has several staff members dedicated to preventing alcohol abuse.

“Poster campaigns are helpful at one level, but it’s not really going to change the culture,” Kelley said. “The university does a lot,” he continued. “I’m not sure it has the impact we want.”

Both the College Park City Council and the USM’s Board of Regents may discuss the issue in the future, but have not taken stances yet.

Regardless, some politicians said the effort to lower the drinking age may be a fruitless one.

“I strongly support this lifesaving law, and will not consider any effort to repeal or weaken it in any way,” said U.S. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), who chairs the committee that would consider any changes to the current drinking age, in a statement released by MADD.

Because of Oberstar’s position on the committee, lowering the drinking age would be difficult without his support.

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