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Should the drinking age be lowered?

???

  • 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
Viktyr Korimir said:
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.
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Equal... hmmmmmmmmmmm. Interesting so many seek equality, too bad the majority of Americans don't believe that about taxation.

I think the drinking age could be lowered with no harm, and the voting age raised with one exception. Military gets to vote at 18, and 21 for the remainder. They can all drink at 18. If they get caught driving over the limit of .02 they lose their license until 21.

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Back in the decade of the Seventies when we did lower the drinking age in many states to equal that of the new age of majority - it did not last long and many quickly restored it to 21.

WHY?

It seems that we want to forget the more practical lessons of history in favor of some statements about beliefs.
 
haymarket said:
WHY?
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Because the Federal government, spurred on by MADD, blackmailed the individual States by threatening to withhold highway funding.

As for Zimmer, I believe that old enough to work is old enough to pay taxes is old enough to vote.
 
Alfons said:
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!
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It's evolution if you ask me. Let the careless ones destroy themselves (that's their individual prerogative) so that others may move on. I know several who have gone off the edge of the cliff, their problem.
 
Hoplite said:
I'm against lowering the drinking age. I dont feel our social attitude towards alcohol is mature enough to handle younger kids drinking.
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And why is that, do you think? Maybe it's because alcohol is seen as "taboo" and therefore, more appealing for kids to binge drink.

How do we go about changing attitudes about alcohol and the responsibilities of drinking?
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
Because the Federal government, spurred on by MADD, blackmailed the individual States by threatening to withhold highway funding.

As for Zimmer, I believe that old enough to work is old enough to pay taxes is old enough to vote.
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and WHY was there the political impetus and community support to do those things?
 
haymarket said:
and WHY was there the political impetus and community support to do those things?
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If there had been political impetus and community support to do these things, Federal blackmail wouldn't have been necessary.
 
TheGirlNextDoor said:
And why is that, do you think? Maybe it's because alcohol is seen as "taboo" and therefore, more appealing for kids to binge drink.

How do we go about changing attitudes about alcohol and the responsibilities of drinking?
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It's less about being taboo and more about the end-goals of drinking.

Europeans tend to be much more about drinking socially and drinking for taste whereas Americans tend to drink to get smashed and that's the ONLY goal. Obviously this is not an absolute rule, but this tends to be the way drinking is handled in the respective areas of the world.

There's very little emphasis on moderation and knowing your limits and the objective of an occasion where there is drinking is often just to get royally ****ed up and do stupid things.

We might be able to change it by de-emphasizing the "coolness" factor of the getting smashed aspect of drinking. It would require that we re-structure parts of our social psyche, but I dont think it's impossible. Until we have a more responsible attitude towards drinking, I am not in favor of lowering the drinking age.
 
haymarket said:
and WHY was there the political impetus and community support to do those things?
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Might I ask, where in his post did you see ANY mention of community support? Or local political impetus?

Where?
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
If there had been political impetus and community support to do these things, Federal blackmail wouldn't have been necessary.
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Look, put aside the paranoia and political axes to grind and instead examine the historical record. The facts were pretty simple that many bar owners themselves lobbied to have the age raised back up. The guy I worked for testified before the state legislature with a bunch of other club owners asking for the age to be raised back up because the fights from kids were ruining his business as older patrons started to stay away. People were genuinely concerned and scared about the rise in drunk driving arrests and accidents. These had not a damn thing to do with ideology or politics or government and had everything to do with public safety. I find it amazing that as time goes on, the people who were not there are so in a rush to redefine history for us based on their current beliefs.
 
hallam said:
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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I don't agree with you but I respect how you feel, because we'd probably see things eye to eye on some areas...
 
I'm really torn about this.

On the one hand, you look at how alcohol is involved in something like half of all fatal crashes, and about half of all murders. Also, consider the issue that the impulse-control center of the brain doesn't fully develop until early 20's.

OTOH, I very much agree that it is hypocritical to say that at 18, you can join the army, marry without parental permission, vote, buy guns and ammo, but you can't drink.

Then there's the societal issues, where as some have said the purpose of drinking (at least for most 20-somethings) is to get completely smashed.

How do we, as a society, get to the point where people understand that while it is fine to have a beer or two, or a couple glasses of wine, or a small drink... but that getting ****faced is usually a Bad Idea? We seem to be too much inclined to an on/off switch about drinking... its either getting drunk, or at least "buzzed" (ie slightly drunk), or not drinking at all, for many.
 
You can be drafted, sued, convicted as an adult and sent to the gas chamber at 18. You should be able to buy alcohol at 18.

The 21 y/o drinking age is just more nanny-statism.
 
Goshin said:
I'm really torn about this.

On the one hand, you look at how alcohol is involved in something like half of all fatal crashes, and about half of all murders. Also, consider the issue that the impulse-control center of the brain doesn't fully develop until early 20's.

OTOH, I very much agree that it is hypocritical to say that at 18, you can join the army, marry without parental permission, vote, buy guns and ammo, but you can't drink.

Then there's the societal issues, where as some have said the purpose of drinking (at least for most 20-somethings) is to get completely smashed.

How do we, as a society, get to the point where people understand that while it is fine to have a beer or two, or a couple glasses of wine, or a small drink... but that getting ****faced is usually a Bad Idea? We seem to be too much inclined to an on/off switch about drinking... its either getting drunk, or at least "buzzed" (ie slightly drunk), or not drinking at all, for many.
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The gene pool has to get cleaned out somehow.
 
I agree with lowering the drinking age to 18, for the reason Viktyr expressed.
 
I agree that some 18 year olds can be really really stupid, immature, annoying, irresponsible, etc. etc. I even remember when I turned 21, and I had my first legal drink. It was a frozen strawberry daiquiri, because I didn't know what I would like... and I barely drank anything the rest of the year.

I wasn't big on drinking at 21... it seemed like when I was 16, 17, 18, etc. I couldn't wait until I was 21.. :2razz:

Now I just drink a little wine before I go to sleep. :)
 
I also believe teenagers should be allowed to drink under parental supervision. One problem facing teens and college students is that they are never taught how to drink responsibly. Instead, their peers serve as teachers and judges that are not mature and do not have drinking responsibly in mind. I really believe that allowing teenagers to drink under parental supervision and guidance will help lower alcohol abuse and prevent reckless drinking in high school and college.
 
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