Should the Drinking Age be Lowered to 18?

[MadBadger]

Poll question: Should the Drinking Age be Lowered to 18?

STandard question. I'm watching a 60 minutes report on it currently and just wanted to test DU's feeling for this issue.

As a kid who is at the end of four years in College, if Hell yes were an option, I would choose it. Since I wont make it one, then just yes.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. We have enough trouble with drunks above the legal age

I grew up on a college town, and lived in an apartment house owned by my grandmother. It was surrounded by frat houses, and I saw first hand some of the stuff that went on there. The only thing that kept it more or less in hand was the legal age--if a house violated it, they were in deep trouble.

[Warpy]

2. Other: lower the drinking age to 15 and raise the driving age to 18

I can tell you from the experiences of my misspent youth that getting drunk while bicycling is a bad idea and road rash will soon disabuse any kid of the idea he does anything better while plastered.

Lest anybody be tempted to post the right wing lie that lowering the legal drinking age means lowering the overall drinking age even more, I discovered drunkenness at the age of 13 at a time when the legal drinking age was 21.

You could raise it to 40 and kids would still find a way to experiment. You might as well reverse drinking and driving ages to give most of them a better chance at surviving it.

[leftyclimber]

8. GMTA, Warpy.

Although I was a little more extreme in my gaps in age (posted below), I completely agree with you. :hi:

[TheWraith]

3. Yes. If you're old enough to join the military, vote, and sleep around, you're old enough to drink.

Anything else is hypocrisy.

[noamnety]

9. Let's raise the enlistment age to 21. (nt)

[Peregrine]

12. 21 without military ID or 18 with military ID

and how about when you vote you get issued an ID card good for 2 years that permits you to drink.

[rrneck]

15. Then how about

raise the draft age to 21?

[elocs]

18. How about if you actually ARE in the military, then you can drink with a military ID.

Nobody today is in the armed service unless they want to be. I had always thought the old "if I'm old enough to die for my country, I old enough to drink" argument was lame. For most of the people who were of age to benefit from that argument, the last place they want to be is in the armed services and risking their lives for anything so that is what I thought was hypocrisy.

My godson who turned 22 today is in the Army and stationed in the mountains of Afghanistan. He enlisted and was in the Army at 17 so at that age he was old enough to join the military, but not to drink. So why not drop the age to 17 then?

[aquart]

4. It was lowered to 18. Kids croaked in droves. We raised it up again.

To save your miserable ungrateful lives.

[Kahuna]

5. Yep! When I was 18 (many many moons ago) it was lowered to 18..

Not a good idea. I know from experience. }( After a couple of years, the drinking age went back up. Whew

[Incitatus]

17. From my experience in those days, not very long ago,

it was actually very easy for 18-21 year olds to get alcohol. In fact, I and nearly all my friends drank far more when we were between that age than since we turned 21. What you say is interesting, I will have to look into that to see if there are any credible studies.

Of course, we are talking about is personal freedom. If you are an adult in every other legal aspect, it should be no different. There are far too many laws that protect people from themselves. If the case is that 18-21 year olds are more likely to kill others in drunk driving when the age is lowered, there might be a case.

[leftyclimber]

6. I'll raise you.

Make the drinking age 16, and the driving age 21. Then those with the desire to go crazy because they can finally legally drink can have a ball, but they can't operate a motor vehicle until (hopefully) they have toned it down a bit. (I'm being facetious, FWIW, but only because it's not really feasible.)

Non-facetiously, I was very impressed at how much more maturely Canadian undergraduates handled alcohol than American undergrads -- where I was living most students started college at 19 and became of legal drinking age at the same time. Most of them went to a bar, had a beer or two, then walked home or took a cab. There wasn't any of this sneaking around and defying the parents mystique, because the law had taken that away. Sure, some of them did things they regretted or got alcohol poisoning or experienced some other side effect of too much booze, but so do some 21-year-olds who can purchase alcohol legally in the States.

(This was in the early 2000's, and more students start college at 18 now because high school is now four instead of five years. I'd be curious if/how anything has changed with freshmen who can't purchase alcohol and everyone else who can.)

You can vote at 18. You can join the military at 18. You can sign a legally binding contract at 18. But you cannot buy alcohol at 18. I think that if you're mature enough to decide to sign up to work for an organization where you can get shot at, you're mature enough to buy a beer. This whole reefer-madness approach that's been taken with youth and alcohol would have to stop, though. Responsible consumption would have to be taught. I mean, it's not like one day drinking will make you sprout horns and make your genetalia fall off, and then the next day, when you're of legal age, it magically won't have that effect. However, with the screaming crazy fundie brigade wanting kids to think those kinds of crazy things about sex and alcohol and whatever rather than teaching them the truth, I don't know how likely such a change would be.

Drinking age is unfortunately tied to highway funding -- a lot of states had legal drinking ages of 18 or 19 (and others didn't) until the 21-to-purchase alcohol string was attached to federal highway funding some years ago. Their argument in doing so were so-called "blood borders," where kids from states with a higher drinking age would drive to an adjoining state with a lower drinking age, have a few, and get into alcohol-related car accidents. I was too young for this change to affect me so I didn't pay it a lot of attention at the time, but maybe someone a little older than me can expand on this. I'm sure there's more to it than what I recall here.

[Book Lover]

7. Yes

Grow some ovaries and teach your kid how to drink responsibly, just like you teach them how to have a checking account and how to drive. Then, when they reach their majority, they are ready to be the young adults they are; and we can re-bundle (if you will) recognition of all adult rights at the age of 18, instead of the disjointed "marry at 18, drink at 21" laws we now have.

[Still Sensible]

10. I voted yes. I can certainly see both sides, but

in the end if a person is old enough to enter into a contract and serve their country, it doesn't seem fair that we would withhold other things as being too 'adult' for them to handle.

Do countries where drinking is not considered such an age issue have the same problems?

[Bluebear]

11. Or raise the enlistment age to 21.

Fair is fair.

[zagging]

13. Ya, they drink anyways.

Why not.

[TahitiNut]

14. I think it should be raised to 35.

:hide:

[blue_onyx]

16. Yes it should

I never had an issue because I'm not much of a drinker. I've tasted alcoholic drinks several times but I don't like the taste. I didn't even have a drink on my 21st b-day. I think if our society views 18 as the age of adulthood then it should apply to everything.

[Selatius]

19. If you're old enough to get your legs blown off or come home in a coffin, why not? nt

[Raine]

20. No

we have enough problems with people 21+ who don't know how to handle their alcohol and have no concept of moderation. :-(

[etherealtruth]

21. how can 18 year olds be held accountable by all other measures

... yet not be legally allowed to purchase/drink alcohol?

With that said, I don't really WANT my kids to drink at 18.

[marksmithfield]

22. As an old fart I vote hell no

When I go into a bar to sit and drink, I do not want to be disturbed by a bunch of amateur drunks.

[w8liftinglady]

23. when I was 18(in High School),we would go to the pizza parlor and order a pitcher

at lunch break.We had a lot of young alcoholics.Bad idea.

[Earth_First]

24. Absolutely not. n/t

[emilyg]

25. No.