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Should the drinking age be lowered?

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  • It should be lowered to 18.

    Votes: 26 60.5%
  • It should be lowered to 13.

    Votes: 2 4.7%
  • It should be abolished.

    Votes: 3 7.0%
  • It should remain the same.

    Votes: 5 11.6%
  • It should be raised to an undetermined age.

    Votes: 1 2.3%
  • Alcohol should be banned

    Votes: 2 4.7%
  • other

    Votes: 4 9.3%

  • Total voters
    43
It should be lowered to 18. If you can buy tobacco, join the army, and own a gun, you should be allowed to purchase alcohol. I'm 20. I'm licensed to deal with controlled substances like oxycodon, pseudoephedrine, and other drugs that are far more potentially harmful and abused than alcohol. The state deems that I am mature enough to handle, count, and sell controlled substances. Yet I still can't buy alcohol for another 6 months.
 
The legal drinking age should be lowered to 18. It makes no sense that you can join the military, smoke, own property, buy firearms, and almost every other privilege of adulthood at 18, but you have to wait until 21 to drink.
 
I don't recall the law being an obstacle to underage drinking. It does cut down on public drunkenness and rowdy public fighting (see haymarket's post, top of page). Still, the drinking age was 18 when I grew up. I've got to go with what I know.
 
I believe it should be legal for a 16-year-old to drink beer or wine, in the presence of their parents. 18 for purchasing beer/wine on their own. I think our puritanistic ideas about drinking are half the problem. I think teenagers should be taught, by their parents, to be responsible drinkers, rather than learning with their peers where binging is the norm.

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good job I agree 100%
 
I think it should be lowered to 18.

If you can vote and fight for your country and buy cigarettes at the age of 18 then you should be able to drink alcohol and have the same rights and privileges as older adults.
 
If you can vote and fight for your country and buy cigarettes at the age of 18 then you should be able to drink alcohol and have the same rights and privileges as older adults.

actually, you have to be 19 to buy tobacco. another stupid restriction.
 
I'm against Alcohol, at best it will be allowed at 25 or later.How many kids have destroyed their bodies and souls with early drinking of alcohol!
Vehemently disagree; its been proven over and over that repressive , poorly conceived laws are counter productive.
There are better, more effective ways.
We should use the Australian example.
 
Really? I didn't realize there were any places in the US where the age to buy tobacco was anything other than 18.

The tobacco purchase age has been raised to 19 in Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey, Utah, and Nassau, Suffolk, and Onondaga counties in New York.

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I think I remember when the age was raised to 18... they argued it was because 18 year olds were not responsible with vehicles and drive drunk the most..
 
I know you can drink in Canada at 18.. because a lot of them go to Canada here and drink for the weekend.. lol

But I heard in the south, it's usually legal to drink in and around Mexico when you're 18. I am not sure if it might be related to a lot of people there not having proper ID, but that's what somebody told me... and her husband was Mexican
 
Who voted that alcohol should be banned??? :2mad:

Screw you people. :2razz:
 
I think it should be lowered to 18.

Yes, and the voting age raised to 21, unless you serve in the military.

Also, they should have a law that between 18 and 21 the legal alcohol limit while driving is .02.

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IMO, drinking should be fully legal at age 18 (or whatever the age is set to for getting all your other “adult” privileges).

Before that point, it should be legal for parents to give their children alcohol under supervised conditions, such as in the home or perhaps when on a family outing (family reunion-type thing?) if they so desire.

Of course, if they choose not too…

A caveat on the alcohol in home bit: If problems occur, such as children running drunk and wild due to parents simply giving them alcohol and not supervising, there needs to be a way to punish the parents for such – I’m not too clear on the laws that might apply…
 
Who voted that alcohol should be banned??? :2mad:

Screw you people. :2razz:

I voted that it should be banned. It is a drug and should be treated as such. But since this will never change what the hell. Might as well vote your beliefs.




For everyone:
Has anyone considered maybe raising the draft entry and raising the drinking age. So you can purchase tobacco and alcohol at age 20 and you also can't be drafted until 20 either. That usually is the rationale "you fight for the country, you should be treated as an adult and should be able to drink." But if we increase the enlistment age, that rationale becomes moot.

I am fully aware that the military will not let the enlistment age increase.
 
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Personally, I think the fighting age and the drinking age and the driving age and the working age should both be equal to the age of majority, and that the age, on the whole, should be lowered.
 
who is the government to tell me how I can raise my children? Whether or not I let them drink is my decision. I wish they'd just step out of my life and stop making decisions for me. We don't think of it like that because we've given up the idea that it was our decision to begin with. But it was. And now it's not. So much for protecting my liberty.
 
Honestly, things like drinking, smoking, all of this should be dealt with by upbringing, rather than law. But the fact remains, parents are stupid. Making the public drinking age 18 seems quite sensible. An adult is an adult is an adult. However, that real change needs to come from society at large. The idiocy that children should be sheltered rather than education... It's pure nonsense. Someone doesn't magically become a responsible drinker by having a birthday. They become responsible by being irresponsible a few times. Ensuring that kids have a safe environment in which to drink is far better than keeping them from it until they are out on their own. Arresting kids for drinking, and arresting adults for allowing it... If a parent allows their teenager to drink with friends at their home, that parent could be arrested and imprisoned. What safer place is there to learn how to drink than surrounded by people who would look after you? Making kids drink in secret exposes them to far more danger than allowing them to do it in a safe place.
 
Personally, I don't think anyone ought to be able to do any of those things until they can rationally prove they are mature enough to handle it. That might mean that some people can drink and vote at age 12, some may never get to do any of it. Prove you're capable, then you can go ahead.

But yeah, that makes sense so we'd never do it.
 
Personally, I don't think anyone ought to be able to do any of those things until they can rationally prove they are mature enough to handle it. That might mean that some people can drink and vote at age 12, some may never get to do any of it. Prove you're capable, then you can go ahead.

But yeah, that makes sense so we'd never do it.

I think the fact that it'd be a logistical nightmare is more the reason why we'd never do it.
 
I think the fact that it'd be a logistical nightmare is more the reason why we'd never do it.

Certainly that's true. Doesn't make it a bad idea.
 
I am all in favor of adulthood being measured by the ability to pass an examination, rather than strict calendar age.
 
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