• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

What should the legal drinking age be?

What should the legal drinking age be?

  • 16

    Votes: 8 11.3%

  • 17

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 18

    Votes: 45 63.4%

  • 19

    Votes: 1 1.4%

  • 20

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 21

    Votes: 9 12.7%

  • never

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 8 11.3%
  • Total voters
    71
21. Lowering the drinking age makes it easier to access. Studies demonstrate that the earlier one starts to drink, the more likely one may become addicted. In conjunction with this, we also know that adolescent brain structuring creates a pattern of increased impulsivity and emotional based behaviors, lowering the drinking age increases the potential for problematic behaviors.
 
MyOwnDrum said:
What should the legal drinking age be?
Click to expand...

Should be lowered to 16 simply because taxes can be taken at that age and a individual can join the Army.
The legal limit is 18 in UK and boy does it fail, teenagers can access alcohol easily.
I would want alcohol introduced at the parents discretion from a young age to teach them responsibility and taking away any 'cool factor' which comes from keeping it away from them for so long and the side effects to be taught in schools PHSE.
 
Last edited:
Laila said:
I would want alcohol introduced at the parents discretion from a young age to teach them responsibility and taking away any 'cool factor' which comes from keeping it away from them for so long and the side effects to be taught in schools PHSE.
Click to expand...

This is a nice theory on paper but there are significant problems with its translation into good practice.

In Australia, the legal drinking age is 18 as Spud said earlier. However, this is no impediment to the legions of youths who are exposed to alcohol beforehand. Teenage binge-drinking gets a lot of publicity here as it is becoming a growing part of many young peoples' lives. Most of the 100-odd people who were in my school grade began drinking at around 15 or 16, some even earlier. Amongst them, there was zero correlation between those who were introduced to it by parents at a young age and the level of responsibility demonstrated when drinking. One friend of mine has been drinking since about 14 at the behest of her (well-educated) parents, and they are one of my least responsible friends when it comes to alcohol. All this is despite the fact that Phys Ed classes in school devoted a lot of the curriculum to the perils of alcohol abuse.

The fact is that, regardless of what schools or parents say, alcohol has an intrinsic cool factor for young people that cannot be removed. Once they try it and find out, they want more.
 
Last edited:
CaptainCourtesy said:
21. Lowering the drinking age makes it easier to access. Studies demonstrate that the earlier one starts to drink, the more likely one may become addicted. In conjunction with this, we also know that adolescent brain structuring creates a pattern of increased impulsivity and emotional based behaviors, lowering the drinking age increases the potential for problematic behaviors.
Click to expand...

Ah, the closet conservative comes out.

If those studies are correct, can you explain me why the US doesn't have fewer alcoholics than f.e., France?
 
Djoop said:
If those studies are correct, can you explain me why the US doesn't have fewer alcoholics than f.e., France?
Click to expand...

The French Paradox, Health and Alcohol Use in France

This comes from an anti-alcohol website but I've seen it corroborated elsewhere.

Alcohol is the number one health problem in France, according to Dr. Michel Craplet, a psychiatrist who repre sents France at Eurocare, a coalition of European alcohol policy advocacy groups. "Many people who come here for holi days think France is a paradise. But the French have paid a big price for drinking alcohol. The problem is that every French person is a lobbyist for wine. It's in the head, in the culture. We don't need the alcohol lobby here because we view wine passionately. We have a conflict between the figures about drinking that prove our mortality and morbidity and the positive symbolic value it has."
Click to expand...
 
MyOwnDrum said:
What should the legal drinking age be?
Click to expand...

16 in the company of parents (beer and wine only). 18, otherwise.

Just like the UK. [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age]Legal drinking age - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Ours is one of the oldest in the world, and definitely the highest in the Americas and the civilized West.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
21. Lowering the drinking age makes it easier to access. Studies demonstrate that the earlier one starts to drink, the more likely one may become addicted. In conjunction with this, we also know that adolescent brain structuring creates a pattern of increased impulsivity and emotional based behaviors, lowering the drinking age increases the potential for problematic behaviors.
Click to expand...

On the other hand, making drinking a rite of passage and a taboo act increases its allure to young people, leading to binge drinking. Our alcoholism rates are some of the highest in the world. If your claims were true, our rates of alcoholism would be lower than those in Europe. But they are higher.

In my opinion, learning to responsibly use alcohol should be TAUGHT in families, by the example of parents, not hidden from parents in cars on dirt roads and at parties where the parents are out of town.

Our laws are a last bastion of prohibitionism, and they are ridiculous.

When I was 18, it was actually legal to buy and drink beer at 18. I don't believe that rates of alcoholism were higher in 1984 than they are now. But, if you want to make this claim, you should prove it.
 
Seems kind of stupid to tell someone they can get married, enter into contracts (including buying a house), go to war, be treated like an adult in all respects vis a vis the law, get a full time job, open a bank account, and be sued, etc., but yet they cannot have a beer. How f-ing stupid is that?
 
stekim said:
Seems kind of stupid to tell someone they can get married, enter into contracts (including buying a house), go to war, be treated like an adult in all respects vis a vis the law, get a full time job, open a bank account, and be sued, etc., but yet they cannot have a beer. How f-ing stupid is that?
Click to expand...

maybe they realise that if they do all that drunk, it could lead to problems:mrgreen:
 
I would think 18 is fine. If you are old enough to vote and serve your country, you are old enough to drink.

I think drinking age laws are pretty arbitrary to begin with. Germany is a good example of no limit and yet not so many alcohol related problems as even here.
 
MyOwnDrum said:
What should the legal drinking age be?
Click to expand...

I think having a drinking age is based on false assumption that age correlates exactly to maturity. Make it 14 but with a licensing system, get in trouble with the police for drinking and doing something stupid, lose your drinking license. Drink reasonably responsibly from 14 and you should be left to it.
 
Red_Dave said:
I think having a drinking age is based on false assumption that age correlates exactly to maturity. Make it 14 but with a licensing system, get in trouble with the police for drinking and doing something stupid, lose your drinking license. Drink reasonably responsibly from 14 and you should be left to it.
Click to expand...

I agree 100% with your premise. I think we just need to stiffen the law on alcohol related offenses. Licensing would be overkill in my humble opinion.
 
digsbe said:
I think it should remain at 21. Personally I think 18 year olds are far to immature to be drinking. I also think they should raise the driving age.
Click to expand...

Ironic that we have devolved with regard to age and responsibility...'children' have been defined as old as 25 years old...and under the new health care rules mommy and daddy will have healthcare obligations til 26...
 
Late into this conversation. But for me, I grew up in countries with extremely different attitudes towards alcohol. In South Africa, parents dip their babies pacifiers into whiskey to get them to sleep lol. In Britain kids start binge drinking from 10 years old, there were times when I would drink my face off and go to class in England no problem, maximum control :)

In Canada the drinking age is 19, but from the age of 16 when I moved there, all we did every weekend was get **** faced without any penalty. And you know what, it's funny that those of us that drank earlier, were far more responsible later on, than those that only drank when they turned 19, they went nuts and lost all control because they didn't know how to handle it yet. But this coming from the province I lived in where the premier (governor) said

"In America they call it Soda, In Canada they call it pop, in Nova Scotia they call it mix" - Darrell Dexter Premier of Nova Scotia
 
Whatever the individual state decides it should be, without coercion from the Nannies in Washington.

I grew up when the drinking age was 18. I survived just fine.

So 18 sounds like a dandy number.
 
Jetboogieman said:
Late into this conversation. But for me, I grew up in countries with extremely different attitudes towards alcohol. In South Africa, parents dip their babies pacifiers into whiskey to get them to sleep lol. In Britain kids start binge drinking from 10 years old, there were times when I would drink my face off and go to class in England no problem, maximum control :)

In Canada the drinking age is 19, but from the age of 16 when I moved there, all we did every weekend was get **** faced without any penalty. And you know what, it's funny that those of us that drank earlier, were far more responsible later on, than those that only drank when they turned 19, they went nuts and lost all control because they didn't know how to handle it yet. But this coming from the province I lived in where the premier (governor) said

"In America they call it Soda, In Canada they call it pop, in Nova Scotia they call it mix" - Darrell Dexter Premier of Nova Scotia
Click to expand...

When I was about sixteen I remember some of the kids who used to scorn me for drinking mad dog 20/20. A lot of them did turn into alcoholics later on.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
They're not mature enough to vote. The voting age should be raised to 30.
Click to expand...

And then, within a generation, thirty-year-olds wouldn't be mature enough to vote either and we'd be forced to raise the age to 45. People do not become mature enough to properly exercise a privilege until they have experience with it.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
They're not mature enough to vote. The voting age should be raised to 30.
Click to expand...

It's been my experience that people who aren't mature enough to vote don't vote.
I mean, it typically requires going somewhere, and standing in line, and produces no tangible benefit or reward.
It's not something immature people are likely to do on a whim.
 
I would love to see the drinking age dropped to 18. There is really no logical reason to restrict the drinking age to 3 years over legal adulthood, except to pacify a group like MADD.

I also agree with 10. I would love to see the driving age raised to 18. I won't argue higher, because that would be hypocritical of me. I will say though that it would be nice to see stricter standards on issuing licenses.

I also don't have a problem with having a drinking license, I just don't see it happening in the foreseeable future. I think that it would be far more likely for us to just get the highway funding issue the federal government holds over the states repealed. I think that the states will mostly, if not all, change their drinking ages to 18. Especially considering how many states have laws that do allow minors to drink in the company of their parents and/or at certain private locations.
 
roguenuke said:
I would love to see the drinking age dropped to 18. There is really no logical reason to restrict the drinking age to 3 years over legal adulthood, except to pacify a group like MADD.
Click to expand...

If I could trust 18 year olds to not sell the alcohol to even younger minors, I'd be for it... however, I don't.

This is why I'd be OK with them drinking at 18 but not buying the alcohol.

I believe 21 being the legal drinking age encourages those under 21 to drink in secret and can lead to irresponsible drinking habits.
 
Jucon said:
If I could trust 18 year olds to not sell the alcohol to even younger minors, I'd be for it... however, I don't.

This is why I'd be OK with them drinking at 18 but not buying the alcohol.

I believe 21 being the legal drinking age encourages those under 21 to drink in secret and can lead to irresponsible drinking habits.
Click to expand...

When I was sixteen my young friends and I would always get an an old burned out wino to purchase our spirits for us.:)
 
Old enough to join the military, old enough to drink I say.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom