Debate on lowering legal drinking age

<p>I'm not talking about driving and drinking, I'm talking about drinking. Again, maybe we should ban African Americans from owning weapons, yeah, because then everyone would have a safer environment STATISTICALLY, amirite???</p>

<p>I'm 19(20 in two months) and drank moderately on a vacation in Europe back in June. I see it like this: I can die in a foreign land for my country, I bear financial responsibility for myself, I can sign contracts, I can smoke, I can do a plethora of "adult" activities and can hold "adult" responsibilities yet I cannot ingest alcohol legally. That makes little sense to me. </p>

<p>Still, alcohol has never been a big deal to me. I had my first drink a few months after I turned 19 and have never been drunk or wasted. Instead, I appreciated a glass of wine with dinner or some nice Irish whiskey before bed when I was on vacation. I don't drink currently, but I ought to be able to with no interference from the government.</p>

<p>Regardless of any age restriction to drinking, individuals will always find ways to sip when they get a chance. It all comes out of the washer at the end.</p>

<p>I can't help but believe that the college deans and presidents who are supporting the lowered drinking age are doing so to get put from under the obligations to monitor student drinking (which is no doubt hard to do). Indeed, binging is probably associated with immaturity, lack of self-confidence and suseptability to peer pressure, and inexperience whether first-hand or by watching others. All of these things are, in turn, associated with a younger age. Who can argue with the idea of letting those brain cells mature a bit before bathing them in alcohol?</p>

<p>but what makes 21 the right age? brain development continues into mid-20's, so that entire argument is suspect at best</p>

<p>Contrary to popular belief, brain cells are more or less physiologically mature at age 18. Character maturity and execution of a genetically-written schedule are quite different. </p>

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to get put from under the obligations to monitor student drinking (which is no doubt hard to do).

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<p>Actually it seems that at times the entire institution turns a blind eye to it, and intervenes only when it results in a problem (like people getting really trashed, etc.)</p>

<p>This thread = full of lulz</p>

<p>The law has never stopped teenagers and it never will, no matter how 1984 the government goes on its population. </p>

<p>And we must ask why, in countries in Europe where there is no drinking age, do they have substantially less drinking problems? My old psych teacher says that my forbidding alcohol consumption, we make it very exciting and intriguing, fueling students to charge into the bottle knowing only what some old fool came into their school and said would happen if they drank. This makes alcohol the "cool" thing that kids are indoctrinated into thinking they must do. (Watch Dazed and Confused and see how that freshman kid is taught that drinking/onenighters are the epitome of coolness). Teens have created a culture in which teens are ENCOURAGED TO DRINK BY THE PEOPLE WHO TEENS TEND TO LISTEN TO, OLDER TEENS. </p>

<p>Live and let live, people, or live and let die, whatever. Let eighteen year olds, adults, make their own decisions. In my old school, if you were found with any drugs or alch you were straight expelled. No tolerance. I think 90% of our kids are either stoners or drunkies and this is a fairly affluent school. </p>

<p>Laws that the government doesn't have the power to enforce are useless and exacerbate the problem.</p>

<p>And I would prefer that universities dedicate their effort towards granting a better education than cybering policing for facebook annouced drinking parties and busting .5% of their drinking students.</p>

<p>who cares? If people want to get drunk, their not going to care about the government. Besides let them drink. It'll give those of us who don't drink a better chance at Grad School cause everyone else is so keyed!</p>

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It'll give those of us who don't drink a better chance at Grad School cause everyone else is so keyed!

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<p>I wish this were true...but sadly it's not.</p>

<p>Where I live, the drinking age is 16 for beer and wine, 18 for everything else, and I don't think people and any less (or any more) responsible about their drinking. I am in favor of lower drinking age, but there is a big reason that it works here and would probably not work in the states:</p>

<p>You can't drive in Germany until you're 18, and the public transportation is stellar. Therefore, you can drink and still get safely home. If kids in the states could drink, they'd either have to be VERY responsible about designated drivers, or the DUI rate would skyrocket.</p>

<p>You don't need no metro in a university ... in UVA there are all sorts of past-midnight services to bring students back home.</p>

<p>I'm not encouraging lowering the drinking age simply because people do it, as this would mean promoting legalization of cocaine and heroine etc. What i do believe is that 18 year olds are forced into a world of legal responsabilities and 18 is the official age to be eligible for military service. With these burdens thrust upon them, have they not the right as in all other countries to claim this priviledge or right or whatever you'd like to call it? If you can choose to expediate your death with cigarettes at 18, why not a lesser evil, alcohol? Creating this unnecessary extra 3 years wait even causes the psychological sentiment at 18 that one is not yet held accountable for their actions since they clearly aren't taken seriously enough to have a few drinks and it is through this feeling that inability to reach full maturity arises, inhibited by strictly psychological barriers. The 'immature bahavior' of 18 year olds standing in the way of a lower drinking age is nothing more than a creation of the ridiculous drinking age itself. And as for marihuana (causing far less medical problems than either alcohol or tobacco), we should realize the harm it causes because it is illegal as opposed to the good it could do if the U.S. chose to gain money off it rather than spend taxpayer dollars to prevent its use. In simpler terms, it should be noted that during temperance years with prohibition on alcohol, more problems arose than were fixed. Gangs created rivalries in delivering the illegal alcohol to the thirsty masses, and this caused a significant increase in crime throughout cities. The status of both alcohol's drinking age and the legality of marihuana should seriously be reconsidered.</p>

<p>The U.S. was founded by prudes and religious fascists. Drinking age should be 16.</p>

<p>In most other countries, the drinking age is much lower, and it seems to work fairly well for them. Also, in the US, you are considered an adult responsible for your actions when you turn 18, why then, must you wait 3 years before partaking in a perfectly legal activity. It seems they do not trust the youth of American to manage their own health. The problem is that this encourages young people to drink "underground" and take more risks to hide the fact that they've been drinking. For example, if the drinking age were lower, teens who go to parties and have too much to drink and a curfew wouldn't have to make a choice between calling home or driving home. By keeping the drinking age high, we are actually creating a riskier situation.</p>

<p>I think if the age were lowered, people would drink to have fun...and less so of drinking as a right of passage. I mean, of course people have fun in drinking in college, but a lot of it is the hype, eh?</p>

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not talking about driving and drinking, I'm talking about drinking

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<p>True, that this thread is about legal drinking age, and not about driving. But fatalities due to drinking are significantly higher than not due to drinking. And, of course, many of those fatalities are people who were not involved with the drinkers. So in this important sense drinking below some designated age becomes interesting to the general public. Therefore the state also has an interest in regulating the cause of DUI fatalities.</p>

<p>Similarly, the only reason the State imposes smoking restrictions in public places is because of the adverse effects of second hand smoke to non smokers, and not because of an American, prudish, puritanical ground.</p>

<p>Hey, the smoking ban also seems rather practical and based on statistics, doesn't it?</p>

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Hey, the smoking ban also seems rather practical and based on statistics, doesn't it?

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<p>Second-hand smoke is ALWAYS harmful.</p>

<p>Alcohol consumption is not always so.</p>

<p>Difference++</p>

<p>Again, a deontological framework of rights (the only TRUE and JUST way to establish a rights framework, screw you all spineless consequentialists :p) does not generally accept statistical arguments for law. Nay, there must be truer principle behind it. </p>

<p>Again, why not use racial profiling to ban certain ethnic groups from having access to certain items, based on pure statistics? Keep Asians from being drivers, blacks from owning guns, white folks from dancing ...</p>

<p>Then we could castrate poor people...</p>

<p>(Not in support of eugenics, except to a very limited extent, but along galoisien's lines of thinking.</p>