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Jerome Newsome, 18, does not drink beer. He drinks liquor. He doesn’t buy alcohol at popular bars like Fred’s and Reggie’s. He buys it at a gas station near his apartment where cashiers don’t ask for his ID.”I’m 18. I’m allowed to get credit. I’m allowed to go to war. But I can’t drink alcohol,” he said. “Well, I can drink it — I just can’t buy it. When I do want to drink, I have to find some way to get it.”The electrical engineering sophomore is among thousands of students who do not let the legal drinking age interfere with their weekend fun. But now, university and college chancellors and presidents across the country share Newsome’s view of the law and are exploring the implications of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.More than 100 presidents and chancellors from universities and colleges have signed the initiative which aims to reopen discussion on the legal drinking age. The initiative “supports informed and unimpeded debate on the 21 year-old drinking age,” according to its Web site.University Chancellor Michael Martin is tracking the initiative. He knows a handful of his peers have signed it, but he hasn’t taken a stance on it yet.”It’s worth a national debate,” Martin said. “There are some bigger issues facing higher education than this one thing, but it’s on the agenda.”This is a research university, and before arriving at a conclusion experts should be consulted, Martin said.”I’d like to know what those people who studied this more deeply than I have to say about it,” he said. The Daily Reveille contacted the other 11 Southeastern Conference schools. Seven of the presidents and chancellors are aware of the initiative — none of them have signed it, nor would they publicly support it. The University of Alabama declined comment. The universities of Auburn, South Carolina and Tennessee were not available for comment. Of LSU’s 49 Flagship peer institutions, two universities — Ohio State University and the University of Maryland — have signed the initiative.Martin didn’t sign the initiative when he was president of New Mexico State University before becoming LSU’s chancellor on Aug. 1.Mothers Against Drunk Driving, a nationwide non-profit organization aiming to decrease drunk driving fatalities and underage drinking, said in a news release that lowering the legal drinking may result in high school students developing drinking problems. The organization commended Louisiana leaders for not signing the initiative.C.D. Mote, Jr., president of the University of Maryland and signee of the initiative, called for an engaged discussion between all involved parties. The current legal drinking age hasn’t solved alcohol-related problems, he said in a news release.”After all, airing critical social issues for a reasoned hearing is what universities should do,” Mote said.One concern about the initiative is 18-year-olds buying alcohol and give it to their underage friends, said Tom Jackson, spokesman for the University of Georgia. Georgia is one of several universities refusing to sign the initiative. Administrators at Georgia do not support the research behind the initiative, Jackson said. Steve Voohries, spokesman for the University of Arkansas, said the school doesn’t agree with the premise of the initiative, and he said alcohol is not permitted on their campus. “We also don’t feel that parents sending their kids to the University of Arkansas would support such an initiative,” Voohries said. Nick Kreger, biology freshman, suggested alcohol culture in the U.S. should mimic the alcohol culture in Europe.”When kids are drinking a glass of wine with their parents every night at dinner when they turn 18 they’re not freaking going crazy getting drunk everywhere,” Kreger said.Martin said the initiative deserves a national debate to re-examine the current drinking laws. “We need to think about this in an orderly, analytically sound fashion,” Martin said. “I’m not going to get caught up in reputations or emotions.”—–Contact Linsey Meaux at [email protected]