The presidents of five private Virginia colleges have joined a national initiative calling on lawmakers to study whether the drinking age should be lowered as a way to combat binge drinking.

The presidents of Hollins and Washington and Lee universities, and Randolph-Macon, Hampden-Sydney and Sweet Briar colleges are supporting the Amethyst Initiative, which seeks to reopen debate on the national drinking age.

They're among about 100 presidents from such schools as Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State who have signed a statement in support of "an informed and dispassionate public debate" over whether the drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18.

"Certainly we should talk about it, at a minimum," Walter Bortz, president of Hampden-Sydney College, said yesterday.

Bortz said he's not yet ready to say whether the drinking age should be lowered to 18. But he said he thinks it would be safer for drinking to "happen in a more confined arena, with more adults around."

The founder of the Amethyst Initiative, John McCardell, brought his campaign to Virginia Commonwealth University last fall, telling students and staff that the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act is "bad social policy and terrible law" that has led to an epidemic of binge drinking on college campuses.

That law imposes a penalty of 10 percent of federal highway appropriations on any state with a drinking age lower than 21.

McCardell, president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont, says the law forces young people to drink to excess in secret.

"He presents some compelling questions," said Dawn Watkins, vice president for student affairs at Washington and Lee University, whose president, Kenneth Ruscio, signed the initiative.

But Watkins said the issue has two sides, and groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving -- which has launched a counteroffensive against the move -- should be "part of the discussion."

Randolph-Macon President Robert Lindgren signed the statement last month "to raise awareness, re-examine this issue and open it up for a serious, informed and responsible public debate," spokeswoman Anne Marie Lauranzon said.

The initiative's name, Amethyst, is derived from ancient Greek words meaning "not" (a-) and "intoxicated" (methustos). The purple gemstone was considered an antidote to the negative effects of intoxication, according to the group's Web site, www.amethystinitiative.org.

Other schools that have signed the initiative include Syracuse, Tufts, Colgate, Morehouse and the University of Maryland.

The schools are facing sharp criticism from MADD, which says lowering the drinking age would lead to more fatal car crashes.

MADD accuses the presidents of looking for an easy way out of an inconvenient problem and urges parents to think carefully about the safety of colleges whose presidents have signed on.

"It's very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses," said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD.

Christopher J. Murphy, chairman of Governors Highway Safety Association, also criticized the initiative.

Murphy said the group strongly supports the current drinking age, and "we are dismayed that some college and university presidents have signed onto an initiative aimed at repealing this life-saving law. . . . Underage drinking remains a serious problem that needs to be addressed, but lowering the drinking age would be a gigantic step backward for highway safety."

Contact Karin Kapsidelis at (804) 649-6119 or kkapsidelis@timesdispatch.com.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.