The United States is one of the few countries in the world where the legal drinking age is as high as 21 (in most, it's 18). But then few nations have had the same troubled history of trying to come to terms with alcohol -- witness that great social experiment known as Prohibition.

In a sense, Prohibition lives on for young adults, because at its core Prohibition was an attempt to encourage social responsibility by imposing total abstinence. That effort failed for the mass of Americans with many anti-social consequences. Does it work when only some adults, the younger ones between the ages of 18 to 21, are legally prohibited from drinking?

No, according to a group of distinguished college presidents. Their firsthand experience on the front lines of the underage drinking epidemic is that the drinking age of 21 needs to be reconsidered because it isn't working. Indeed, it is encouraging "a culture of dangerous, clandestine 'binge drinking' -- often conducted off-campus" and erodes respect for the law.

The so-called Amethyst Initiative is an effort backed by more than 100 college and university presidents, representing some of the nation's finest academic institutions (in this region, the presidents of Chatham University, Robert Morris University and Washington & Jefferson College have signed on). The group explicitly poses the question: "How many times must we relearn the lessons of Prohibition?"

The facts do suggest that the drinking age of 21 has failed to curb alcohol use. As The Associated Press reported, there's research to suggest that more than 40 percent of college students have reported at least one symptom of alcohol abuse or dependence.

One study estimates that more than 500,000 full-time students at four-year colleges suffer injuries each year related in some way to drinking, and about 1,700 die in such accidents. Some die of alcoholic poisoning -- a recent AP analysis found that 157 college-age people, 18 to 23, drank themselves to death from 1999 through 2005.

The question is whether any of this would change if the drinking age were lowered. According to The New York Times, experts believe there's little hard evidence to suggest that binge drinking became worse after the drinking age was raised to 21 in 1984.

The statement signed by the college presidents calls for a public debate on the drinking age but doesn't specifically mention lowering it to 18, which is nevertheless implied because when the federal government decided on 21 -- using the obnoxious threat of withholding highway funds from objecting states -- 18 was the legal age to drink in many jurisdictions (although not Pennsylvania).

If it were done at all, it might be smarter to reduce the age to 19, the legal age in a number of Canadian provinces, so that at least most high school students would still not have the right to drink.

Still, logic argues that 21 is too high. We live in an age when children grow up more quickly than perhaps at any time in history -- and no more so than in America. It seems naive to set up alcohol as the forbidden fruit of young adulthood and expect everything to be pure and rosy in the garden of youth. On this, no amount of legal coercion will change human nature.

Then there's the unfairness: You can argue all day that the maturity needed to handle alcohol is not the same as that required by a young soldier carrying a gun in battle, and you might be right. But the anomaly still does not sit right.

All that said, American exceptionalism when it comes to alcohol does need some respect. Alcohol education programs, especially in college, need to be part of any change, as should stricter enforcement of drinking laws.

In the end, you don't teach responsible adult behavior by denying young adults the chance to be responsible. These college presidents know the problem better than almost anyone. Their call for a debate should not be ignored.