Lowering the Drinking Age?
 

Well,


I know what everyone's views are concerning alcohol and their chapters, but the idea of lowering the drinking age isn't as far-fetched as one would imagine.

http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcoholinfo/...Interview.html


This sort of debate is interesting, each country seems to have different arguments for the pros and cons.

So, what's your position ???


- RUgreek

NOPE!
 

Sorry, I think teenagers are so overfed, overindulged, and spoiled as it is, they wouldn't be able to handle alcohol. I am NOT for lowering the age at all! I am actually for stiffer fines. I vote for taking away licenses until they are 21 if caught drunk three times. Sorry, I guess coming from a family where alcoholism was rampant and painful, I am anti alcohol consumption. Yes, I drink, but I don't get drunk, I am 27, and I didn't even drink the night I turned 21....Alcohol isn't my thing...Guess I am for people finding happiness and bliss in themselves and not in a bottle or a chemical reaction!

I think the drinking age should be lowered to 19. I would say 18 but most 18 year olds are still in high school. I'm 26 now but I never drank until I was 21 so it never really made a difference to me.

If you are old enough to vote and to die for your country you shouldn't have to wait until you're 21 to have an alcoholic beverage legally.

I pretty much agree with everything Dr. Engs says in the article.

I think we shouldn't have a drinking age, period. If kids could learn from little up to appreciate alcohol and not misuse it, it would cut down on overconsumption. The way it is nowadays, alcohol's so hard to get that kids go crazy when they do.

I agree with the idea of lowering the drinking age.

It's wrong that we can put a gun in an 18-year-old's hand and tell him to go out and fight and die for our country and then tell him he can't go have a drink.

Young people have to learn how to handle alcohol. The best way to do that is at home with your family or out with friends, not locked in your room with a bottle of vodka that some 21+ friend bought for you.

Perhaps the best solution is to modify the law so that 18-20 year olds can't buy alcohol at package stores or supermarkets, but they can order a drink at a bar or restaurant, where there is a responsible bartender and other people around to make sure the young person doesn't overdo it. A few years ago in England, a law was proposed that would allow 16 and 17 year olds to have a beer or a glass of wine with dinner (drinking age is 18 there) - maybe something like that is a good approach.

Exactly!

I'm only 17 and yes, i drink, but I am also responsible about it. That doesn't mean that i think that the drinking age should be lowered to 16 or anything but i think 18 is the perfect age. At this age, one is supposed to be considered an adult. When you're 18, you can vote, smoke, fight in war, get hotel rooms, buy a car, etc etc etc. If you have all of this responsibility already and you are old enough to be able to handle it, why can't you drink? It's insane in my eyes. And yes, there are going to be exceptions that go off and get slammed all the time. They're alcoholics and it's not like there aren't alcoholics that are of legal age. Right? Well that's just my underage two cents.

Well, eventhough I am anti-alcohol, I think the drinking age should be lowered to 18 because:

1. You can go to war, h*ll if you can die for your country, you should have the right to appreciate a cold beer if you want to.

2. You are considered as an adult, nuff said.

3. H*ll, people under 21 drink anyways, why not make it legal?

one of my buddies said in wisconsin, you can drink at a restaurant if your parents are with you and obviously they consent. i think you have to be 18 for this.

I apologize if I've posted this before, but it's one of the best if not THE best articles I've ever read about the futility of the 21 drinking age for college students in particular.

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW
The Battle Of the Binge

Why do college students drink so stupidly? Because drinking intelligently is against the law.By JACK HITT

Back in the 70's — my college time — an English professor I barely knew named Ted Stirling spotted me on the quad and invited me to a small, informal reading after supper. Maybe he felt sorry for me. I had marooned myself in the French ghetto of la litterature comparative, and had further exiled myself in the cul-de-sac between Latin and Spanish. So I went that night to sit on stuffed sofas beneath scowling bishops in gilt frames and to discuss Wallace Stevens's poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Afterward, Stirling bought the students a pitcher of beer at the pub, and we strained to act intelligently and comfortably while drinking with an elder. ("Stevens an insurance agent! Surely you jest, Professor. Why, that would make poets the unacknowledged underwriters of the world, wouldn't you agree?")

I started thinking about how I learned to drink at college — I went to Sewanee, in Tennessee — when I read about a recent Harvard study that found that 43 percent, nearly half, of all college students today "binge drink," defined as regularly pounding down four or five stiff ones in a row in order to get blasted. The pandemic is so severe that 113 college presidents united a few weeks ago to publicly admit that a generation is in peril. They have also rolled out a public-service ad, which employs that brand of sarcasm Madison Avenue thinks young people find amusing. "Binge Beer," it says. "Who says falling off a balcony is such a bad thing?" See, you're supposed to realize that falling off a balcony is, in fact, a bad thing.

Other educational tactics include dry rock concerts, abstinent fraternities, "mock 'tail" parties, a Web site of course (www.nasulgc.org/bingedrink) and a new CD-ROM called "Alcohol 101" and featuring a "virtual party" that segues into an anatomical lecture about how quickly the bloodstream absorbs alcohol. Look out, Myst.

What no one seems to have noticed is that the rise in binging has occurred at the very same time that the legal drinking age has been raised everywhere to 21. If you're 18 to 21, it's the 1920's again and a mini-Prohibition is in full swing. As a result, moderate drinking has almost vanished among students and, more tellingly, from school-sponsored events. How anachronistic it feels to describe what used to be routine college functions, like a Dizzy Gillespie concert or a Robert Penn Warren reading, followed by a reception, with drinks and hors d'oeuvres, at which students were expected to at least pretend to be cool about it, i.e. practice drinking. I frequently received dinner invitations from faculty members like Tom Spaccarelli, a Spanish professor who served up tapas while uncorking a Rioja for a few students. We handled the long stems of our wineglasses as confidently as a colt its legs.

And there was always another occasion. Sewanee had dozens of those inane college societies like Green Ribbon, a group whose invitation to membership I haughtily trashed after Professor Paschall, my sponsor, explained that the point was nothing more than "getting dressed up and having cocktails with some alumni."

But I began to see the point about 10 years after graduation when I returned to Sewanee to give a little talk. Afterward, I took some students to the pub where they sheepishly ordered cider. At first, I thought this new college life — clean and sober — was a good idea. Then my nephew, a junior there at that time, explained the typical partygoer's schedule: drive off campus or hide in the woods (often alone), guzzle a pint of bourbon, eat a box of breath mints and then stumble into the dry sorority party serenely blotto. My nephew knew two students who had died — falling off a cliff, blood poisoning — and five others who had been paralyzed or seriously injured in car accidents because of binging. For a college with roughly 1,300 students, this constitutes a statistical massacre.

We drank wildly in the 70's, too. The Phi's had their seasonal Screaming Bull blowout. Kegs were easy to find on weekends. I have drunk tequila only once in my life, and this being a family newspaper, my account of that evening can proceed no further. I was a member of the Sewanee Temperance League, whose annual outdoor party pledged to "rid the world of alcohol by consuming it all ourselves." But all those events were crowded social occasions, almost always with professors and their spouses in attendance — not prowling alone in the woods with a pint. After college, when you got a job, Screaming Bull opportunities quickly tapered off; the working world was different yet, in time, quite familiar, like an evening with Ted Stirling or a dinner at Tom Spaccarelli's.

This year, Ohio University's zero-tolerance program has proudly outlawed empty beer cans in the dorm. Nearly 7 percent of the entire 16,000-student enrollment last year was disciplined for alcohol abuse, often handed over as criminals to the Athens Municipal Court. Despite all the tough bluster, the binge rate among students there hasn't budged from an astounding 60 percent.

For college students, booze has been subsumed into the Manichaean battle of our drug war. It's either Prohibition or cave into the hippies' legalization schemes. And it seems fairly unreversible. Legislatures raised the drinking minimum in reaction to the raw emotion deployed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Then colleges were bullied by insurance companies that threatened to jack up liability rates if administrators didn't take aggressive action. The old days of looking the other way, when the police used to pick up toasted students and quietly drive them to their dorms, seems like collaboration in today's harsh light.

There probably is a way out of this, but it is going to require some larger cultural changes that will make us see the irony, even cruelty, of infantilizing certain young adults. The very people who have urged this situation into existence are too often the people who vent about the increasing lack of "responsibility" in our society (demanding, for example, that juvenile offenders be treated in court as adults). But for middle-class kids in college, they make responsibility an ever-receding ideal, never quite grasped in the pampered ease of an extended adolescence.

In the early 70's, the big political fight among college students was for the right to vote. The argument held that kids who were considered old enough to die for their country and order a drink in a bar should be able to choose their political leaders. It is back to two out of three again. But booze is not like the vote, which can be ignored to no one's immediate peril. Rather, alcohol consumption, like table manners or sexual behavior, is a socialized phenomenon, which if not taught, yields up a kind of wild child. By denying the obvious pleasure of drinking and not teaching it by example, is anyone really surprised that we've loosed upon the world a generation of feral drunks?

Jack Hitt, a frequent contributor to the magazine, last wrote about campaign finance reform.

October 24, 1999

Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company

I believe that is the way it is here in Texas; I'm not positive though.

I am 20 and I tried testing this out by ordering a glass of wine with my meal when I went to dinner with my parents at an Italian restaurant a few weeks ago. The waitress did not even ask for my ID, so either A) she figured I would not try to order a drink if I were underage and with my parents or B) she could tell I was underage, saw that my parents didn't mind, and chose to serve me.

I do think she may have asked for my ID had I been ordering a martini or some other drink from the bar.

That's the Key!
 

1) Would they actually enjoy A, ONE single beer? No, it's the drinking to excess that they want, the excuse for drunken behavior and rowdiness.

2) Are you telling me that these teenagers want to drink because they ACTUALLY APPRECIATE THE TASTE AND BOUQUET of a fine merlot? Or the craft of brewing a fine micro? No, of course not! It's the feeling of invincibility, the being free to say and do what they normally feel too nervous to say and do, the sexual freedom and openness they feel, the not worrying about the consequences of their actions, the inflated self assurance.

3) And I wish people would stop with the whole "You can die for your country" crap. Since the 60's, not one person has been drafted. Military service is completely voluntary. And frankly, I don't want my military slamming back a few. Aren't you supposed to be the Few, the Proud?? An Army of One? Strong and Of Sound Mind???

Please, it's all crap. Alcohol is a mind altering drug that you just want access to for the influence and change to your demaenor, not for the health benefits. If donuts and bagels gave you the same effect, alcohol wouldn't have the same draw. Don't bull$hit a bull#hiter!

sigmagrrl,

I'm sorry that alcohol has been a problem within your family, but please don't use that experience to assume things about others. Not everyone who touches alcohol becomes completely irresponsible. Yes, some people will become alcoholics if they start drinking at 18...they would also become alcoholics if they started drinking at 21, or 35, or 59.

And the last I checked, men MUST register with Selective Service at age 18 or they are denied school loans, among other things. i don't consider that "completely voluntary."

While I know that people have a point about the serving your country and not being able to be served a drink, I still don't think believe that the drinking age should be reduced. Think about how most people act on their 21st birthdays...they don't say "cool, I'm 21, I think I'll have a drink", they think "alright, I'm gonna go to the bar with my friends and drink shots until I can't walk!" I feel about alcohol, how I feel about cigarettes and cursing: if it wasn't such a big deal, kids/young adults wouldn't care about. Now, that may sound contradictory, but it's not like we can say, "okay, starting tomorrow, it won't matter anymore and we're not going to make an issue of it" because it does and we will.

Part of me wants to agree with aephi alum about being able to drink with your family, because I know I did. I grew up being able to have a glass of pina colado, etc., at family functions and now, as an adult, I don't really care much about alcohol and I've never been drunk in my life. However, not everyone has responsible family members. What if your parent is an alcoholic? While having wine at a restaurant with your family doesn't sound bad, I still don't believe alcohol should be able to be purchased under the age of 21.

I also think Sigmagrrl has an excellent idea about taking licenses away from young adults until they are 21 if caught drunk three times.

Would you allow your child to drive a car without first teaching her how to drive? The drinking age needs to be lowered in order for parents to take responsibility for teaching their kids how to drink.

1. The thrill of driving fast = how many can I drink before I feel good. Teach your child how to stay within the speed limit, know their personal limits, and how much is too much

2. Think of understanding the "subtleties of alcohol" as knowing the difference between an automatic and a stick shift. Kids just want to experience the alcohol (the thrill of the drive), so they just learn the automatic. Do parents teach kids the subtleties of wine/beer/hard liquor like they teach their kids how to drive a stick shift? NO. They need to have time to learn the difference between a fine merlot vs table wine, import vs domestic, Smirnoff vs Stoli - now they buy whatever they can get and therefore drink it as if it's their last glass of water (hit the gas and hope you don't hurt yourself).

3. Would you feel comfortable having her friends teach your kid how to drive a car? I don't understand why this to allowed to happen with something as mind altering as alcohol. Parents can't closely monitor after their child goes to college/moves out.

4. Why aren't there alcohol education courses required before being allowed to drink like there's driving education courses? They can be a prerequisite to college entrance/driver's license renewal/lowering of insurance rates.

It's irresponible behavior to think that someone who hasn't been educated to act like they have that knowledge. If you expect people to act responsibly, then we as a nation need to educate them and not expect them to know how to stay within the limits, how to shift gears, and how to drive without giving them a controlled setting so that they can learn while being monitored.

Signing off,
Amy

Such a good point! Think about it...if a kid who's never been exposed to alcohol before (binge drinking is not as prevalent in high school) goes off to college and doesn't even have an interest in drinking, there's a chance they'll want to try it out, anyway. The first time they drink they're surrounded by other kids who drink past their limits and then they think it's normal and they should learn to do it. If they've had some access to alcohol while they're still living at home, they might be better off.

At least with 18-year-olds some are still in high school, so if they come home trashed their parents will know about it and will be able to address the situation. I started drinking my senior year but never came home drunk...I knew when to stop. Now in college when I'm around new people in different situations, I know how much will make me buzzed or totally wrecked. There are so many new things to deal with when you first go off to college...experimenting with alcohol is too risky for overwhelmed kids.

Plus when you turn 21, I don't think many parents bring up the subject with their kids anymore, b/c by that time the kids are sophomores or juniors and they've probably already had the "It's my life, I've been away from home, I'm an adult now" talk.

18 would be a good age.

ps: I'm trying to remember what the statistics are about alcohol related deaths and accidents since the drinking age was raised. I'm pretty sure they told us at the mandatory programming the Greek community had at my school last fall. I'll check it out.

I see your point, but I don't feel that the car analogy works because there's an age limit on driving too.

But your parents teach you how to drive responsibly, and they do it over a period of time. You don't learn how to drive with your friends or random kids, like you would learn how to deal with alcohol. ;)

Again, I see your point, but not really. Many parents just send their kids off to drivers' ed. Most teens probably spend more time driving around with their pals than learning from their parents.

Scary statistics from site for Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free (dedicated to keeping alcohol away from kids 9-15): I know the issue is involving college-age kids, but still...

Seventy-one percent of eighth graders and 88 percent of tenth graders believe that alcohol is readily available to them for consumption.

Forty percent of ninth-grade students reported having consumed alcohol before they were age 13. In contrast, only 27 percent of ninth graders reported having smoked cigarettes, and 13 percent reported having used marijuana before they were age 13.2

Forty-one percent of ninth-grade students reported drinking in the past month, while only 28 percent reported smoking in the past month.

Almost one-fourth of eighth graders and one-half of tenth graders have been drunk at least once.

One-fifth of ninth graders reported binge drinking (having had five or more drinks on one occasion) in the past month.

Rates of drinking differ among racial and ethnic minority groups. Among ninth graders, binge drinking was reported by 27 percent of non-Hispanic, white students; 30 percent of Hispano/Latino students; 15 percent of African-American students; and 5 percent of Asian-Pacific Islander students.

The gap between alcohol use by boys and girls has closed. Among ninth graders, girls consume alcohol and binge drink at rates equal to boys.

More than 40 percent of individuals who start drinking before the age of 13 will develop alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence at some point in their lives.

*If drinking is delayed until age 21, a child's risk of serious alcohol problems is decreased by 70 percent.*
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Makes me rethink my stand on lowering the drinking age, but I still believe parents should address this with their children like they do with sex or drugs, etc. and supervise their first exposures to drinking.http://www.alcoholfreechildren.org/

A couple more...
 

Sorry to inundate you with statistics, but with a topic like this, facts are important...

BTW, it wasn't stated within this document, but I'm guessing 1982 is the year they raised the drinking age? Sounds like it.

Percentage of College Freshmen Who Drink Beer Frequently or Occasionally
Survey results indicate that the percentage of college freshmen who report drinking beer frequently or occasionally is 34 percent lower in 2000 than in 1982.
Source: The American Freshman Survey, sponsored by UCLA and the American Council on Education and conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies

Total Fatalities in Drunk-Driving Crashes
The number of people killed in drunk-driving crashes has declined 31 percent since 1990 and 41 percent since 1982.
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, 2000.

Total Fatalities in Teen Drunk-Driving Crashes
The number of people killed in crashes involving drunk teenage drivers (ages 16-20) decreased 64 percent from 1982-1999.
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, 2000.http://www.nbwa.org/advocates/statistics.html

I think that the age should be lowered to 18.
When I was in high school and college, the law in New York State made the purchase of alcohol under 21 a crime. I never purchased alcohol so I didn't break any law. One month before I turned 21, the legislature changed the law to make the consumption of alcohol under 21 a crime. It was supposed to make a difference. All it did was limit the social lives of everyone under 21. It didn't stop those who wanted to drink from doing so.

This is just anecdotal, of course, but ...

The kids I knew who had never drunk (esp. those who said self-rightously "I will NEVER drink") were the ones who drank the hardest when they got to college.

The kids I knew who had drunk a little, with their parents, may have drunk illegally when they got to college, but tended not to binge-drink.

Forbidden fruit is the most desired ...

The only thing you do by making it illegal is to force people to do it behind closed doors and without regulations such as a bartender that cuts you off.

Let's be real... Just because it's illegal doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

I personally think if you are able to be drafted and killed in the name of your country, they should at least allow you to buy beer.

Re: A couple more...
 

Good statistics, but the drinking age 21+ thing happened in 86/87 I believe and was implemented over the next 2 -3 years, because the way our constitution is written, the Fed Govmt cant pass those laws, it has to be done by the states, but the feds controll the purse strings for things like highway dollars. Ya want your $$? Lower the drinking age... Or so they say. It took a few years for state legislatures to write the laws. Some states, like LA are still batteling the issue.

SOOO, its a bit erroneous to use the '82 start date for comparison of stats. Since the fed age thing happened in 86 - ya cant use the above stats to dircetly prove your claims.

ALSO - the stats above are UNDER the curreent system, so ya gotta expect a slight raise in problems until the persona of the culture changes. The problem is the rules, NOT the culture. Change the rules, the culture will change. its simple as that.

some facts
 

"Based on statistics compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA), "alcohol-related"(1) traffic fatalities for people under 21 dropped by 43% (from 5,062 alcohol-related fatalities to 2,883) during the years 1987 through 1996.(2) This should be seen in the context of a 28% drop in alcohol-related traffic fatalities in the general population. From 1982 through 1986 when minimum purchasing and public possession age laws varied from 18 to 21, alcohol-related traffic fatalities for people under 21 dropped by 14% (from 6,329 alcohol-related fatalities to 5,455).(3) Alcohol-related traffic fatalities for the general population during this period dropped by 4%. In NHSTA's view, the minimum 21 age laws "have had greater impact over the years as the drinking ages in the states have increased, affecting more drivers aged 18 to 20."(4)"

What do people think of this?

Also, in regards to Europe where the drinking age is lower, the WHO (World Health Organization) conducted a study stating:

"Britain, with few abstainers even in its adult population, is notable for the low numbers of adolescents who have never tried a drink. Well under 10% of 13-year-olds say they have never had alcohol. In addition, one in seven English boys aged 11, one in four Welsh boys of 13 and around a half of 15-year-old boys in England and Wales drink wine, spirit or beer once a week, putting them among the highest youthful consumers in Europe.

Cees Goos, WHO regional adviser for alcohol, drugs and tobacco, said: "We are receiving signals from all across the region that many young people are turning to alcohol as a drug. There is an increase in high-risk drinking, such as binge-drinking and drunkenness."

Europe under the influence

Belgium
6% of workers have drink problem; 40% of violent crime and vandalism linked to alcohol

Denmark
Drink-related deaths doubled 1970 -94 despite national consumption stagnating since 1983

Finland
Nearly half male and one in five female suicides involve alcohol abusers

France
40% of fatal traffic accidents - 4,000 deaths a year - and overall 43,000 deaths, 9% of total, linked to drink in 1997

Germany
2.7m people between 19 and 69 misuse alcohol. Alcohol-related mortality estimated at 40,000 a year

Hungary
Cirrhosis among men rose from 19 per 100,000 in 1970 to 208.8 in 1994

Norway
80% of crimes of violence, 60% of rapes, arson and vandalism committed under influence

Poland
1,446 fatal alcohol poisonings in 1996

Russia
40% of men and 17% of women suffer from alcoholism

Spain
25% of domestic violence drink-related

Sweden
87% of attempted suicides attributed to alcohol in 1992

United Kingdom
50% of violent crime, 65% of attempted suicides linked to alcohol; 33,000 deaths a year linked to drink in England and Wales alone


So these countries with lower drinking age minimums faced a lot of problems. America which increased its drinking age minimum, benefited it seems in the sense of less accidents. Of course, this doesn't address countries where there is no minimum at all, but I just wanted your thoughts on it.

-Rudey

The period that they kept those statistics though.. They started in 1970!??

I seriously have to believe that these stats are pretty skewed due to the fact that in those days these types of things usually weren't reported and wouldn't make it to the statistic books.

And really these numbers I'll bet aren't too far off from the US.

I think a lot of the reason why college campuses have so many problems with alcohol is actually because alcohol is illegal to those under the age of 21.
Maybe this statistic has nothing to do with alcohol but I will use it anyway. It has been said that if a person does not start smoking by the time they are 18, they most likely never will. Why is that? I think a lot of that has to do with the legal age of purchasing cigarettes is 18. Once someone is of legal age, the thrill is lost. I believe the same goes for alcohol.
Sure, the first few months of being 21 are fun. You can go to a restaurant and order a drink, you can go to parties and not worry that the cops will bother you, and you can get into all the dance clubs. But, the fun eventually wears off. Now that I'm 21, I find that I drink less than I did back when I was 18-20. And there are many people I've talked who are the same way. My roommate and I were discussing it earlier today and she said, "Wow...I was so dumb when I was a freshman. I went out every night and got drunk. Now, that I'm 21, it's just not as fun anymore." The thrill of doing something illegal and the fear of getting caught heightens the appeal of alcohol. I believe that lowering the drinking age may actually prevent some of the binge drinking occurences on campuses.

When I was in college, the drinking age for "low" beer (3.2% alcohol by volume) was 18. The age for anything else was 21.

So, I drank in high school. And figured out ways to get liquor and wine before I was 21.

So, I suspect that if the drinking age were to be lowered, we would be seeing statistics about how many more high schoolers were drinking.

I'm also a little leary about the surveys. How many respondees are truthful? It's "cool" to break the rules when you're a teenager. It certainly isn't difficult to claim that your totally blitzed nightly at age 15 -- even if you've never touched a drop of alcohol. You simply fill in the right spot on the survey.

Back to The Garden of Eden -- whether you believe that story to be fact or fiction -- the way to make people desire something is to forbid them from having it. Remember, an apple a day...oh well.

I think it would be a good idea to allow beer consumption at age 18. A fraternity chapter advisor I know who is also a city attorney agrees. Of course, that's only opinion -- but a somewhat learned one in his case.

By the way, quit whining. Before 1968, you could be drafted, but weren't allowed to vote. And, yes, a whole lot of us were drafted.

Which, of course, brought about some of the neatest signs and bumper stickers, "Draught beer, not students."

Finally, I'll bet a lot of cops would love to see the drinking age changed. I don't think they really want to be bothered busting college students for alcohol violations. I think they'd rather be doing something constructive, and also something at which they have a chance of making a difference.

I actually did a 10 minute persuasive in my speech class in the fall that focused on why the drinking age should be 19. Gutsy move in a Southern state school known for being conservative. I researched and researched and even polled my classmates as to their habits (anonymously, of course) so I could be as well informed as possible. The statistics given by some of the previous posts have been about 50% "good" and 50% "bad". Ok, for starters...yes, people who start drinking when they're in their early adolescent years do tend to have a higher rate of alcoholism than do people who wait. And there is another statistic running around saying that people who don't drink at all until they are of legal age have a smaller probability of being an alcoholic later on. I believe that both of those facts are true, if somewhat skewed, for a few reasons. 1...What on earth kind of parents are so negligent of their 11 and 12 year olds that their kids are binge drinking??? 2...How many people can honestly say that they took not a drink until the day they were 21? Not many, but some I'm sure, and they likely live in areas where alcohol isn't as prevalent. 3...There really are no statistics to determine the probability of people who start drinking between the ages of 15-20, which is presumably when most underage people start. So why is this left out? Because for the most part people who start in this age bracket tend to sow their wild oats quickly and then settle into more responsible drinking patterns. Underage drinking does and will happen. We tried Prohibition for all people back in the 20's. And it didn't work. Crime rates were obscene due to the black market nature of alcohol in this time. The 21 MLPA (min. legal purchase age) is another form of Prohibition that also does not work. If parents teach their children healthy attitudes toward alcohol, a lot of grief can be spared. But sometimes that doesn't happen. However, I don't believe it should be up to our justice system to legislate morality or take the place of the parents. People of legal drinking age should take care to demonstrate responsible habits to underage people. And no one regardless of age should ever tell anyone that being drunk is cool.

Its actually in the constitution that states have the right to set their own legal drinking age. It seems crappy that the gov't gets around that by threatening to withold fed. highway money. That's what happened to LA.

Its just not that big of a deal around here. Most parents I know are just really cool about the whole thing. Sure, a lot of those kids may still binge drink on occasion, but I think that has more to do with the 21 age limit rather than an overall attitude towards alcohol.

I think it has a lot do to with Louisiana's French and Spanish history, as opposed to the Puritain foundings of a lot of the other states. Its just a totally different attitude towards things. I was always allowed to have wine with dinner if I wanted it. I'd usually just drink 3 sips and give the rest to my mom. Most kids don't like it that much. So, drinking wasn't a really big deal for me in college, except when it was the forbidden fruit, something I couldn't get until I reached 21. I have a friend, however, who's parents kept alcohol a big taboo. And she was all wierd about drinking. She'd talk about it all the time - fixate on getting some from a 21+ friend, etc. Now that she's over 21, she'll go to bars and do 5, 6, 10 shots - and this girl is like 5'1 and 90lbs! Her dad is a psychologist, so you think he'd know better than to make something so forbidden that it becomes attractive :rolleyes:

I defintely think that the more you make somethiing forbidden, the more kids will want it!

Re: NOPE!
 

Now this is your opinion and as such it should be respected, and I will respect it, but I find a few things disturbing in your post that I want to address or ask you. You think that teenagers are "overfed, overindulged, and spoiled as it is?" I find it hard to agree with that because I feel for the most part that our government today gives a little more responsibility and/or credibility to these teenagers that turn 18.

***When you turn 18 you now have the right***

*To give legal consent to have sex
*Are given the right to vote on the future leaders of your government
*Are allowed to be shipped off and fight (and possibly die) for your country (pending h.s. diploma).
*Some states you are old enough to buy a firearm.

To me some of these things give teenagers A LOT of power. I also take it to mean that at this age teenagers are entrusted with some of the things stated above, and possibly somethings I did not state. How twisted is it to be old enough to have the opportunity to pick or help a government, and to be old enough to fight and die for the country, but still have to wait a few years to legally have an alcoholic beverage? I don't understand it, it makes no sense to me at all.

If it is more of an issue about maturity, it is never a given that teh age of 21 is automatically associated with "maturity." I know people that are of legal drinking age and still act like they freshman in high school, so I don't buy the maturity argument.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Blaine

Cop Out Arguments
 

Sorry, but you are just saying to "Let 'em drink, cuz they're just going to do it any ol' way". WHAT ABOUT SELF RESTRAINT?? What about a little self discipline? What about consequences for your behavior? How about adults stop pawning off their parental responsibilities to teach kids right from wrong onto "society" at large, or why don't you punish them if they BREAK THE LAW?? And consequences, no one ever talks about consequences. Sure, let kids just have sex, that's fine, but guess what? Mistakes = pregnancy. Mistakes with alcohol? THAT CAN EQUAL DEATH!

Geez, also, why can't we just let kids be kids for a while? Enjoy having less worries than an adult and stop trying to grow up so friggin' fast!

I guess I am just tired of seeing kids and teens, treat adults and authority with such disrespect and irregard. My mother told me the other day (she's a guidance couselor in a HS) that a parent called her to talk about something and tacked onto the sentence, "Well, little Janie (I don't remember her name) tells me to just 'Fu*k off' when I tell her stuff anyway, so it doesn't matter..." WHAT?!?!? IF I told my parents to fukk off, I would have gotten slapped in the face, practically chained to my bed except for school, and grounded for a month!!!!! NO ONE WANTS TO HURT KIDS FEELINGS THESE DAYS!! Oh, be careful, little Jonnie might put a gun to his classmate's head if he doesn't get to borrow the Beemer tomorrow! WHAT THE HELL!?!?! Sorry, kids are overindulged, spoiled little brats these days and they don't need, no DESERVE, any more priviledges....

AND STOP WITH THE BEING KILLED FOR THE COUNTRY!!!!! ONCE AGAIN, JOINING THE MILITARY IS VOLUNTARY! Yes, the Selective Service still exists. Why not fight against that?? DEAL WITH THE LAW!!!!!!

Hey, I think your capslock button might be broken, but that's beside the point. Get your point across without shouting, people might take you more seriously :)

In all honesty, it's the truth, if you can fight for your country, you should be able to have a beer. Self restraint comes from within in, no matter what the situation. It's up to the person that is drinking to control themself, or to the person that is having sex to be protected, or to the owner of the gun to be safe in how they handle it. You don't achieve "self restraint" by keeping "the legal drinking age" higher.

I see nothing wrong with letting kids be kids, but many in today's society want to grow up, and like it or not, when the turn that big one eight, they are granted such adult respnsibilites, that's called "the real world."

I think that it gets more personal for you about this situation which is understandable. Yet, you are involving a personal situation to argue for you, note that these are all opinions, and any argument is an argument, not a "cop out argument." If we were labeling arguments, yours could be noted as a "cop out" as well. I respect your opinion, a little respect given back doesn't hurt.

Blaine

No, but you have to exercise self restraint to not break the law! Sorry, but the law is the law right now. I highly doubt it's going to be lowered. And truthfully, the whole reason people want it to be legal is so that they can not stress about fighting their desires and cravings for this substance. And again, alcohol is only desired for the effect it causes, NOT for the taste and appreciation of it. Tell me the true reason and I will give that person credit: you want to get drunk and get loose without worrying about getting in trouble....If it's truly the taste, drink alcohol free! But it's not. This is probably where I have the most problems with the arguments people are putting forth: they are not being truthful, in my opinion. If alcohol didn't produce the physical effect it does, it wouldn't mean a darn thing...It doesn't even taste that good (that's probably why, when I do drink, it's an ice cream concoction with chocolate syrup and stuff). I'm so weary over this because, no matter what, people are still going to say "If I can die, blah blah blah..." and "You need to learn to tolerate it, so start earlier..." when they are avoiding stating the obvious reasons: getting wasted! And maybe this is exactly why you need to mature emotionally a bit more before you can legally get you hands on the stuff.

I haven't read every single post in this thread, but given the fact that I am from a country where some provinces have a drinking age of 18 (Quebec forsure, and I believe one other province does too) and the rest of the country is 19, I thought I'd chime in.

I'd be curious to know whether or not there have been comparitive studies between our countries to determine statistical differences between consumption, over consumption, underage drinking and drinking and driving stats in the U.S. and Canada. I think it's absolutely riduclous to go through college and be underage. You're legal to vote, you're legal to enlist and you're in your undergrad, but you can't have a drink? I completely agree that some kids drink cause it's deviant and illegal and therefore more interesting. You don't see a bunch of kids joyriding cars at 15. It's just not a rampant problem. Why? Because the driving age is completely reasonable. But it's completely hypocrital that the drinking age is as high as it is while the age of enlistment is so much lower.

The drinking age in Canada IS 19 and I don't really think we're a corrupt and uncontrollable society! I honestly think the drinking age is more an attempt to regulate what is deemed to be accepatable moral behaviour, rather than an attempt to control crime and deviance.

When there's a dispute about stuff on this board, there is also a lot of throwing around of statistics. I don't really listen to them, as they are usually manipulated, by whatever agency is publishing the results, to the point where there's little meaning. So, those statistics mean nothing to me. With that in mind, I believe the underage drinking problems, and alcohol-related health problems are still WORSE here in the good old U.S.A. than in Europe. Most of it is our Puritan heritage, like someone said. In Italy, there is no "drinking" age. If two 14-year olds order wine with dinner, they get wine with dinner. No biggie. Usually, the server will monitor their behavior, but that's up to the server. But, when I went out, which was about 3 times/week, who did I see puking behind the bushes, being generally loud and obnoxious and embarassing? AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS, that's whom! :rolleyes:

In response to the "I can die for my country" argument...the keys to the world aren't handed to you at the age of 18. In most cases, you are given more LEGAL accountability for your behavior, but you don't have a lot of the same economic and social priveleges that are afforded to someone slightly younger.

The drinking age is fine where it is. I say that as someone who grew up knowing how to drink responsibly, but saw the consequences of alcohol abuse. I don't think I would have had any more or less to drink on my 18th birthday as I did on my 21st if it had been legal, 'cause at that point drinking wasn't that big a deal. I do have HS classmates, however, whose parents were anti-alcohol, and most of them got booted from college after frosh year due to their alcohol use/bad grades. Oh well.

I still like the idea of 18-20 year olds being allowed to order a drink with their meal (possibly restricted to beer or wine, and possibly also only if their parents are with them), while still not being allowed to buy their own liquor at a package store.

Alcohol was never a big deal in my family. When I was growing up, I always (ever since I can remember) got a glass of wine with dinner when my folks had wine. Obviously, when I was little it was a tiny little cordial glass, then I graduated to half a glass, then a full glass. But I always had at least a taste. My father is a wine connoisseur (ok, wine snob :) ) and he taught me from a young age the differences between various grapes, why you chill white wines, why you let red wines breathe, etc. Most importantly, he taught me to appreciate wine for its taste and for its enhancement of the meal - not as a means to get drunk.

So, sigmagrrl, I have to disagree with your statement: "you want to get drunk and get loose without worrying about getting in trouble....If it's truly the taste, drink alcohol free!" Yes, a lot of people do drink to get drunk; but a lot of people also use alcohol in moderation as an enhancement to their meals or as a way to relax with friends. As for alcohol-free wine, it just doesn't have the subtleties that alcoholic wines have.

I'm taking wine as an example, but the same could be said for beer or hard liquor/mixed drinks. Growing up as I did, I learned to appreciate alcohol as part of a meal - and I still do. This, not the 21 drinking age, is what has made me a responsible drinker.

yuppers
 

I'd like to nominate sigmagirl to spearhead our prohibition initiative in greekdom...hahahah, j/k

Honestly, personal experience and raw emotions make for poor arguments. I come from a family with a long history of alcohol abuse, but does that mean me, my brother or sister (as well as cousins) are going to be future Barney Gumbels? No, definitely not. For my demographic, i drink very rarely. I fully understand the consequences of consumption, and this enlightenment didn't hit me just at 21/19.

Like Gphi2k,
I live in a Ontario with a drinking age of 19, but a short drive across the Ottawa river and we're in Quebec, where beer can be bought at any corner store assuming you look or have proof of being 18. In Ontario there's one of 2 places to purchase alcohol - the LCBO and the Beer Store. The age should be dropped a year, because it's very difficult for underage kids to purchase alcohol otherwise. Mind you, there's probably nothing stopping an underager's older sibling or chum from buying it for them. The point is, one way or another if they really want to, they'll get toasted. Better to get them drinking beer than vodka, or listerine.

One last argument, not everyone who drinks goes out to get completely hammed. After every game and practice on my touch football team, we usually sit back and enjoy one or two beers. It's good times to relax and shoot the #%.

Here's our website: http://www.frigginbeavers.com
more content to follow.

BTW, rudey -
How about some sources on those random numbers?

You talk about confused...

My grandparents raised me in a fundamentalist Christian home where there was no drinking, card playing, dancing, movies on Sunday or even wearing of shorts.

On the other hand, I would go to a family reunion with my mom or dad (who were divorced) and there were kegs and all kinds of other "terrible" things.

At those reunions (which seemed to happen every weekend between the two families), the kids (like me) would make the trip between the adults and the kegs -- and, with the adults tacit approval, take a sip or drink off the foam on the way back. I'm talking young kids here -- eight or ten years old.

So, I liked beer. I don't understand why people who don't enjoy it try to "learn" to like it. Except, they want to be one of the crowd. But I digress. Yet again.

As I moved through high school and college, I drank. But I'll bet I can count on one hand the number of times I've been drunk. So, what does that mean? Nothing necessarily, except that in my case, since I had a fair amount of experience with alcohol, I never really felt I needed to experiment and get blasted all of the time. Maybe, (that's a big word, and I have absolutely no clinical proof) because I started out drinking in moderation at a young age, I built up a tolerance -- or at least understood my limits. Remember, I said "maybe."

IF (another big word), it's true, though, it would seem to me to back up the notion of lowering the drinking age at least some.

In terms of the statistics, as a number of very wise people have pointed out to me, "figures lie and Lyers figure." They're just too easy to manipulate.

So, what's my point? What does this prove? What's my thesus?

Beats me.

It's just a reason for my feeling that it wouldn't hurt to lower the drinking age back to eighteen -- at least for beer. Maybe if it weren't "the forbidden fruit," kids would take one drink, make the famous "stale beer face," yell "Yuck, this is awful!" and go do something else and not "learn to like it."