CAPITAL REGION — College presidents throughout the country are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying the law encourages binge drinking on college campuses, but so far no Capital Region colleges have signed onto the movement known as the Amethyst Initiative, though some college presidents are considering it.

It’s under discussion at Union College, according to Stephen Leavitt, vice president of student affairs and dean of students.

“Basically, as dean of students, I think it would be an advantage if the drinking age were 18 because of the conflict we get into knowing that drinking is going on and knowing it’s against our policy and tolerating it. It puts us in a bind,” Leavitt said.

Lowering the drinking age to 18 would make it easier for the college to enforce a drinking policy, he said.

As it stands now, it’s difficult to enforce the 21 drinking age with any real reliability.

“We know people are drinking and we are not able to stop it,” said Leavitt. “It puts us in an awkward position. It’s hard to police something like this 24 hours a day.”

Union College President Stephen Ainlay has asked Leavitt to initiate a conversation among staff and make recommendations on where the college stands.

University at Albany Interim President George M. Philip “has a petition and is taking it under advisement,” according to university spokeswoman Gina Muscato.

The College of Saint Rose just became aware of the movement, spokesman Ben Marvin said on Wednesday. “We have not had a chance to study it,” he said.

Launched in July, the Amethyst Initiative is made up of college presidents from across the country who have signed their names to 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 their campuses.

John McArdell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, started the organization.

According to the Amethyst Initiative, it’s time to rethink the drinking age and those who have signed on are calling upon lawmakers to weigh all the consequences of current alcohol policies and to invite new ideas on how best to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol use.

Amethyst Initiative’s Web site notes that Congress in 1984 passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which imposed a penalty of 10 percent of a state’s federal highway appropriation on any state setting its drinking age lower than 21.

A culture of “binge-drinking” — often conducted off-campus — has developed, according to the Web site.

Union’s Leavitt said he agrees with part of the argument that contends that the current laws put drinking behind closed doors and encourage binge drinking. “[Students] want to load up on alcohol before going out. They hole up in a room where no one else is and drink a lot very quickly and go out.”

If they could obtain the alcohol when they go out, they would be less likely to do binge drinking, he argued.

Union College officials have to police who can and cannot drink at parties held by the college’s 11 fraternities and five sororities or at other campus events.

However, Leavitt said, he doesn’t agree that binge drinking is caused by the 21 age rule, and he said other factors make binge drinking more attractive. He said these are connected to the “extreme culture” we live in.

“It’s cool to do things to the extreme and max. There’s this idea that there is a certain machismo in drinking more than anyone else.”

For now, Union College officials will continue to discuss the Amethyst Initiative and develop a position on it.

Leavitt said arguments against it are significant. Mothers Against Drunk Driving can point to the decrease in deaths that coincide with the time the legal drinking age went to 21. They worry that if the law is repealed the DWI death rate will return to what it was in the ’70s, he said.