As a high school junior beginning a college search, I can't help but be wary of schools whose officials signed a recent petition calling for lowering the drinking age.

Choose Responsibility, a nonprofit organization supporting an 18-year-old drinking age, recently launched the petition with the Amethyst Initiative. This growing group of more than 120 college chancellors and presidents opposes the 21-year-old drinking age and holds it responsible for illicit campus binge drinking.

Each year 599,000 college students – who may or not drink themselves – suffer alcohol-related injuries, of which 1,700 are fatal. Other immediate consequences of drinking include impaired social and mental abilities and unwanted sexual harassment and rape.

Then there are long-term issues: Studies at the National Institutes of Health have proven that the younger people are when they first drink, the more likely they are to develop an addiction to alcohol at some point in their lives. Forty percent of drinkers age 15 and younger become dependent on alcohol.

Obviously, young drinkers aren't easily dissuaded, and even the college representatives who signed the petition don't really expect binge drinking to stop just because students' partying is legal. They want to bring the issue to light in hope that underage drinkers who no longer fear legal consequences would become more responsible and approachable.

But trying to stop binge drinking by legalizing underage drinkers is like legalizing robbery to stop teen shoplifters. If anything, rather than dropping the practice, some students who stay sober for legal reasons might decide to start drinking.

I have trouble imagining what Choose Responsibility plans to do if the drinking age is lowered. It would be able to assess the binge drinking on campuses more accurately, but then what?

"Hey there, kiddo – you in the beer hat – we know you're binge drinking. It's really bad for you. Please stop."

"Sure thing! I see how appallingly damaging it can be to bright young minds like mine, now that the government's said it's OK."

Unless Choose Responsibility has a fantastically effective curriculum hidden up its sleeve, how will education and reform efforts have any impact on the kids who've heard and ignored it all before?

Allowing kids to drink openly would be more or less telling them alcohol isn't that bad after all. Students attending schools supporting the new drinking age would feel they have their administration's blessing.

Then those schools that were so eager to stop binge drinking would have to deal with the students now boozing openly on their campuses. Strong precedents almost guarantee they'll drink more: States that lowered their drinking ages before 1988 found that their youth drank significantly more than their counterparts in states with the 21-year-old drinking age.

Logically, when the youth drink less, the nasty stats drop. According to the National Institution of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities in 16- to 20-year-olds has dropped at least 45 percent since all 50 states adopted the law in 1988. Mothers against Drunk Driving (MADD) estimates the law has saved 25,000 lives since President Reagan signed the Uniform Drinking Age Act in 1984.

The colleges that signed the Amethyst Initiative petition have been under a lot of pressure from reputable organizations like MADD, Students against Destructive Decisions, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the America Medical Association. Representatives of two Georgia schools, Morehouse College and Georgia Southwestern State University, withdrew their names after overwhelming community opposition.

As the opposition keeps coming, signee schools look more and more as if they're in the deal for another motive, such as an escape from legal obligations in the case of an alcohol-related mishap on campus.

An 18-year-old drinking age would affect high schools, too. Eighteen-year-olds who might have had some difficulty finding alcohol could now easily buy the booze that gets the freshmen and sophomores wasted. That may not be of immediate concern on college campuses, but supporters of the Amethyst Initiative have an obligation to every kid susceptible to potential law changes.

I can only hope for the sake of my classmates' and my own future well-being that the signees reconsider and choose their position based on actual proof.

Elizabeth Barnes is a junior at Episcopal School of Dallas and a Student Voices volunteer columnist. To respond to this column, send an e-mail to voices@dallasnews.com .