Each week, the UMBC police log tells several versions of the same tale: An underage student, drunk or drinking and observed by the UMBC police, promptly meets his/her fate in the form of a Civil Citation or Judicial Referral.

Several Maryland college and university officials raised new debate about these repeated stories of underage drinking when they publicly called for a rethinking of the 21-year-old legal drinking age in August.

The leaders joined other college university chancellors and presidents around the nation in signing the Amethyst Initiative. Launched in July, the Initiative is "a public statement that the 21-year-old drinking age is not working, and, specifically, that it has created a culture of dangerous binge drinking on [our college and university] campuses," according to the amethystinitiative.org statement.

Absent from the list of Maryland signatories is UMBC President A. Hrabowski III., who does not support lowering the drinking age below the current 21-year-old minimum.

Addressing UMBC freshmen at Convocation on Aug. 28, Hrabowski spoke about the decision to drink, and especially the dangers of binge drinking.

"Make no mistake about it," he said, "this is a matter of life and death, and it is essential that we talk about these issues regularly."

Of his decision not to sign on the Amethyst Initiative, Hrabowski explains, "Presidents who signed wanted the conversations...if I signed people would have assumed that I would have said lower the age, [when I would actually be trying to spark a conversation]."

Hrabowski, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), believes that lowering the drinking age in Maryland would lead to an increase in student fatalities, particularly related to drinking and driving. MADD cites findings that the 21 minimum drinking age, enacted nationally in 1984, cut the number of deaths caused by under-21 drunk drivers in half, from 5,000 deaths in the early 1980s to 2,000 in 2005.

Maryland supporters of the Amethyst Initiative include University System of Maryland Chancellor Kirwan, as well as the presidents of Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, College Park, Towson University, the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, Goucher College, and Washington College. The Initiative has a total of 130 signatures so far.

Though the Amethyst Initiative does not demand a lower drinking age immediately, the group's official statement "[calls] upon our elected officials to support an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age."

At least one Amethyst Initiative signatory, Washington College President L. Baird Tipson, argues that until the drinking age is lowered, frank discussion about drinking - and school-sponsored experiences in responsible drinking - are not possible.

UMBC students are also divided on the issue. A Retriever Weekly poll found that 55 percent of students favor a lower drinking age, while 45 percent do not.

Junior Brie Darland says the current drinking age is "ridiculous," insulting the maturity of under-21 students. "You can go to the Army [at age 18], and you can't drink a beer."

"When you turn 21, there's all this pressure to go drinking," adds junior Alex Calvin. She equates binge drinking on college campuses to getting a driver's license without training; growing up without a stigma attached to alcohol might provide exposure over time, and reduce reckless drinking.

But sophomore Nate Kim believes that "no matter what [the drinking age], it's still a problem. It's about responsibility." To Kim, lowering the drinking age would have "no effect."

All states made the drinking age 21 after the National Minimum Drinking Age Act became law in 1984. The law removes 10 percent of the federal highway funding given to states that lower drinking ages below 21.

Underage binge drinking remains high on U.S. college campuses. The Harvard School of Public Health national College Alcohol Survey found in 2001 that 44 percent of college students were classified as binge drinkers. According to the Core Institute of Southern Illinois, 84.5 percent of college students studied nationally took a drink in the survey year, 2005.

As for UMBC students, Nancy Young, vice president of Student Affairs, says the drinking rate is between 33-37 percent.

Some proponents of a lower drinking age point to the less restrictive attitudes toward drinking in model countries outside of the U.S., which they say remove both the legally underage label and the drive to secretively over-consume alcohol.

"Because it is a forbidden pleasure, underage drinking in the United States has a seductive mystique that it would lack if responsible consumption of alcohol were simply accepted as part of the ordinary behavior," Tipson's Amethyst Initiative online statement reads.

Sophomore Stavros Halkias agrees the current drinking age is indicative of "the way we treat drinking as an attitude in the country." In Greek culture, he says, "you don't binge and get out of control [because] drinking is not taboo until you're 21."

A study published by the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs and the U.S. Monitoring the Future survey found that, among youths age 15-to-16, Europeans (with the exception of Hungarians) actually had higher binge-drinking rates than Americans. But this study did not address drinking in college, where, Tipson's statement says, "Whether we like it or not, alcohol is part of student socializing."

And whether or not lowering the drinking age is the solution to binge drinking problems, most can agree that open discussion about drinking on college campuses is important.

Debate may be the first step toward changes in drinking behaviors and perceptions, says Halkias.

Hrabowski remains concerned that a lower drinking age would also decrease student safety, though he understands the importance of talking about the issue.

"We don't need to lower the age," he said, "to have conversations about the consequences of decisions to drink."

Andrea Thomson contributed to this article.