<p>I think part of the problem is it would be hard to have a varying BAC limit. There’s no quick and easy test to find out what someone’s BAC has to be for them to be blacking out. As such, I’m fine with having a set hard limit. It may inconvenience a few people who have high alcohol tolerance, but them’s the bones of living in a society where you can’t just think about yourself.</p>
<p>Can an adult offer an opinion here?<br>
There are many concerns with underage drinking that I talk about with my students (talk about, not preach). They will make their own decisions and have made pretty good ones so far. In a vacuum a few beers is pretty harmless, no big deal, but we don’t live in a vacuum. Alcohol is a gateway drug. Once you have had a few drinks, you are not making decisions you normally would. Someone offers you drugs you would normally turn down, you are more likely to say yes. You are more likely to take chances with unprotected sex. You are also more likely to get in the car with a driver who has also been drinking. </p>
<p>You have now gone from those few ‘harmless’ beers, to actions that can potentially be ‘game changers’. These are things in life that make a major change in the path of your life, weather it is your safety (hurt in an accident), health (STD), unplanned pregnancy, or failing a drug test at work.</p>
<p>With these things in mind if you choose to drink, do so in an environment with people you trust, where you will be safe, and try to ensure you do not make decisions that have irreversible effects.</p>
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<p>Ooo look at me, I reject scientific research in the face of annecdotal evidence.</p>
<p>I have a glass of wine every night for health reasons. And when I am having an episode friends/family must fetch it and make me drink. Doctors are baffled but it works like a charm. I wish the drinking age was a tad bit lower simply so I wouldn’t have to lug cases of wine with me to school this fall ;)</p>
<p>“Can an adult offer an opinion here?”</p>
<p>Sorry…this should have been</p>
<p>Can a parent offer an opinion here?</p>
<p>The large majority of college students are adults. My apologies.</p>
<p>blueiguana- that’s very wise advice. It’s definitely something everyone should consider, not just those drinking underage.</p>
<p>
Scientific research begets knowledge not wisdom.</p>
<p>Also those who tout scientific evidence rarely understand the actual science. The studies connected serious alcohol abuse with frontal lobe damage, not moderate amounts of alcohol. Reducing the drinking age to 18 and reducing penalties of underage drinking remove the badass appeal of getting drunk/binge drinking. Reduce the badass appeal of doing something and when it is done, it will be done more responsibly.</p>
<p>"Reducing the drinking age to 18 and reducing penalties of underage drinking remove the badass appeal of getting drunk/binge drinking. Reduce the badass appeal of doing something and when it is done, it will be done more responsibly. "</p>
<p>Sorry, that’s not true.</p>
<p>"WASHINGTON, D.C., July 19, 2001 - Young people from Europe do not drink more responsibly than young people from the United States, according to comparison data released today by the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).</p>
<p>In comparison with young people in the United States:</p>
<p>-A greater percentage of young people from nearly all European countries report drinking in the past 30 days.</p>
<p>-A greater percentage of young people report having five or more drinks in a row.</p>
<p>-About half of the European countries have intoxication rates among young people that are higher than the intoxication rates in the United States. "
[Study:</a> U.S., Euro Teen Drinking Compared](<a href=“http://www.parent-teen.com/newsreleases2001/eurodrinking.html]Study:”>http://www.parent-teen.com/newsreleases2001/eurodrinking.html)</p>
<p>"The government faced fresh calls today to increase the price of alcohol, after research revealed that young people in the UK reported some of the highest levels of teenage binge-drinking, drunkenness and alcohol-related problems in Europe.</p>
<p>British schoolgirls aged 15 and 16 are binge-drinking even more than their male classmates, with fresh evidence that their behaviour is contributing towards high rates of teenage alcohol-related accidents and unprotected sex. Yet British teenagers were more likely than those in all other European countries to claim that they expected “positive consequences” from drinking, such as “feeling relaxed” and “forgetting my problems”."
[Britain</a> near top of Europe’s teenage binge-drinking league | Society | guardian.co.uk](<a href=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/26/teenage-drinking-survey]Britain”>Britain near top of Europe's teenage binge-drinking league | Alcohol | The Guardian)</p>
<p>"A recent Facebook phenomenon in France is generating concern among police and politicians. The online social networking platform is being used to organize large public gatherings that often turn into mass binge drinking parties.</p>
<p>A young girl lying on a bench surrounded by beer bottlesBildunterschrift: Gro</p>
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</p>
<p>When I tried to find the actual study not someone’s report on it, I looked trough google, the OJJDP and their reports section and could not find it.</p>
<p>
had this little gen
Solving this would be a better idea than simply tightening up the laws. </p>
<p>
While the laws might be different, the attitude does not seem to be different.
</p>
<p>
And this article is self-contradictory, binge drinking went down with no change in the law, but a change in how the described the risks of drinking to people underage. And then it had this:
This statement gives no indication as to how they measure it, whether the alcohol is a couple of beers every day or 6 days nothing and a weeks worth of alcohol in one sitting.</p>
<p>Also don’t forget Europe in general has a different culture than the United States which would have a significant effect on alcohol consumption. Also a look at the driving age shows that Europe has a higher driving age, which means teens there will have less freedom and independence to do what they want, which given the article on drinking in the UK is apperent as the main reason behind the excessive amount of drinking.</p>
<p>^^^^^^</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.udetc.org/documents/CompareDrinkRate.pdf[/url]”>http://www.udetc.org/documents/CompareDrinkRate.pdf</a></p>
<p>Edit: Also, the idea that higher driving age = less freedom for teens is not neccessarily true. I think Europe generally has better public transportation and is friendlier to bikers and pedestrians. You can’t suggest that a teen is restricted to their house because they can’t drive a car…</p>
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<p>Some teens, like those in rural areas (howdy!) may be, especially if there are NO BIKE PATHS nearby and the roads don’t even have SHOULDERS. (We be a rural patch between suburb and city, and there be lots of traffic. It’s really dangerous.)</p>
<p>I respect that binge drinking is really bad, and current drinking laws help curtail it a little bit, even if I think that its side effect of cutting off goody-goody two-shoes like me from alcohol is unfortunate. (I would like to have a glass of wine now and again. I don’t.) So I don’t know my opinion on the actual question.</p>
<p>^^Okay, rephrase that as “You can’t suggest that all teens in Europe who can’t drive a car are restricted to their house and have no freedom, and thus are prone to binge drinking as a means of rebellion”</p>
<p>Thank you for the link.</p>
<p>Usually reduction in freedom based on judging a whole group of people by what some subgroup of them does lead to rebellion. </p>
<p>Physiologically 16 year olds are capable of reproducing and up until a couple hundred years ago were treated as young adults rather than old children. This lack of trust, independence and freedom contributes to the problem. The interesting thing to note on the report was that the only country below the United States was Turkey, which incidentally treats 16 year olds as young adults and not old children. Also italy and france were not much worse on the heavy drinking scale and are often the ones pointed to as examples.</p>
<p>Random question related to this thread-</p>
<p>Whenever I have a night of heavy drinking (say 12-15 drinks), the withdrawal(?) that hits me the next day is pretty aggravating. Usually it consists of anxiousness and heart palpitations; never a hangover. It only lasts for a few hours though, and I’ve been able to have over a dozen drinks one night and go the next entire month without drinking with no consequence (save for the symptoms the day after). I’m not worried about alcoholism because I don’t have an addictive personality (I can smoke cigarettes every now and then without ever having the desire to smoke another one). But are the symptoms the day after something to be concerned about?</p>
<p>@smilodon</p>
<p>So you are saying that the desire to be respected as an adult and given independence/freedom by a specific age is an inborn, biological trait? I’m not convinced that the sociobiological perspective (if that’s the perspective you’re arguing from) should be used to determine how societies function… what you are saying is getting close to the naturalistic fallacy.</p>
<p>A couple hundred years ago, people generally did not live as long as they do today; I’m sure they grew up much faster…society has changed. They also had more responsibilities than the youth of today. Teens are treated like old children today, because a great many of them ARE.</p>
<p>In my experience, all the folks I’ve seen get crazy with alcohol have been 40 and over.</p>
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They are because they are treated that way.</p>
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As a person gets older the desire to get independence from your parents is natural, supressing that has negative consequences, and the severity of the supression affects the severity of the rebelious behavior.</p>
<p>Yes, it should be 18 again. The issue is DUIs went down when they upped the age to 21. And I don’t think they want to lower it again because many people btween 18-21 binge drink and fail to drink responsibly. Maybe when there aren’t so many stories o alcohol poisoning at college and when young adults act like they could handle a lower drinking age things will change. There’s the cliche arguments that as soon as it’s legal it’s less fun, but I don’t buy into it. People of age drink as much and usually more often because they can drink whenever they want. I think it should be 19 instead of 18 to aviod the issue of massive drinking by high schoolers. If you are an adult under the law you should be allowed todrink and carry a firearm and buy a handgun. They should either move down the drinking age or make 21 the new age in which you are considered an adult, sine the gov plAys the whole your mind is developing until 21 card.</p>
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</p>
<p>Explain this.</p>
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</p>
<p>The problem is that so many kids want all of the freedom/independence of being an adult (which may be a biological desire as you say) but with none of the responsibility. I’m not sure of this, but 200 years ago, kids probably weren’t still in school at 16 and many more of them did not go to college, which has now become an extended adolescence for many students. Your regressive thinking would probably be better suited to a hunter-gatherer/early agriculturul environment.</p>
<p>You seem to like stating things as if they were fact, but never fully explicating or providing real evidence. I admit that your statements do have a sort of “common sense” appeal to them, but that is not enough. It is incumbent on you to offer rational support for your position.</p>
<p>I think the drinking age should be lowered or the age at which you are considered an adult should be increased. </p>
<p>Besides the usual argument of how it’s ridiculous that you can vote, own firearms, and fight/die for your country, yet not drink, I think that simply the fact that at 18 you would be prosecuted by law as an adult, yet not drink, is the most inconsistent. </p>
<p>Between the ages of 18-21 you are not permitted to drink, but if you were caught drinking you would be prosecuted as an adult, it would be put on your permanent record, and you could spend time in jail.<br>
This just does not make sense to me. If the government wants to prosecute you as an adult, then you should be provided with all the rights of an adult.<br>
Doesn’t it seem very hypocritical to say that you are old enough to be responsible for all of your actions, but we aren’t going to give you the right to drink because you are not responsible enough to handle that particular action?</p>