<p>John M. McArdell, Jr., president emeritus at Middlebury College, presents a rather convincing argument as to why the United States needs to consider lowering the drinking age from 21.
Commentary:</a> Drinking age of 21 doesn't work - CNN.com</p>
<p>It is a stupid law, but who cares. It is easy to break, and drinking is more fun when you are looking over your shoulder.</p>
<p>What should we lower it to? 18? So now more high schoolers can drink?</p>
<p>I think the drinking age is fine where it is now. Even if you’re in college and underage atleast you’ll know more and have more self control than in high school. However, we need better education about alcohol.</p>
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<p>High schoolers drink anyways-always have and always will. Nothing is going to change that.</p>
<p>Germany does just fine with a drinking age of 16 (18 for hard liquor). Lowering the drinking age wouldn’t drastically change the number of 18 year-olds drinking. If you recall, Prohibition didn’t exactly stop people from doing what they wanted.</p>
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<p>That’s because Germans, and Europeans for that matter, treat alcohol differently - it’s a part of their culture. Alcohol is just another drink, like tea or coffee or soda, that can complement certain foods and certain occasions very well. Pubs are down the block, so driving is not a necessity if one is going to get completely plastered. They teach kids at a young age the pros and cons of alcohol, so that way when they are in the range of 18-21, they can make more informed decisions. </p>
<p>Now compare that with the U.S… they have it much better off. And that’s part of the reason their age is so much lower than ours.</p>
<p>Well, speaking as somone who grew up in Germany… In my area it was common for 14-year-olds to go to open-air festivals and get pass-out/throw-up drunk (whichever came first) on a weekly basis. We are talking about events with 2000 guests, a third of them younger than 18, which were guaranteed to happened in some town or village in a 10-mile radius every weekend in the summer time. And since we did not have a car at that age, we would camp there and be more or less sober by the time our parents picked us up the next day. (My parents assumed that I occasionally had alcohol at the festivals, but they did not know just how wasted I got.)</p>
<p>By the time we turned 18 and could legally purchase hard liquor, most of us had grown out of partying and were very responsible with alcohol - but that was certainly not because we were taught the pros and cons at a very early age… </p>
<p>Though I do agree that society as a whole is much more open to alcohol (and less protective of teenagers) than in the US. Most American parents would never let a 14-year-old attend (or camp at) a festival unattended, or be fine with them consuming small quantities of alcohol.</p>
<p>Alright, let’s compromise. Drinking age can be lowered to 18, but driving age has to be raised to 21. I’d rather have a bus full of drunk 18 years old than an ambulance carrying another DUI victim.</p>
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<p>You really need to be able to drive to function in large parts of this country, so I don’t think that would work. Maybe both ages could be changed to 18? Our society would be fundamentally changed if we raised the driving age 5 years, and we don’t have the infrastructure to support that right now.</p>
<p>whoever said that high schoolers already drink yeah you are right they do it because its illegal and exciting. So logically lowering the drinking age to an age that no longer makes it illegal seems like an option. But you overlook many very possible consequences. Do you seriously think that as soon as the age is lowered kids will go “Hey, you know what this is no longer fun lets be responsible!” NO! The amount of teenage automobile alcohol related accidents will increase DRAMATICALLY! Secondly, the average kid starts drinking at around 14-15. What will happen when high school seniors can readily purchase alcohol? The age will drop to 12-13, to some maybe even 11-12. You cannot possibly think that having kids begin drinking that young is a good idea</p>
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<p>Most high school seniors have no trouble getting alcohol as it is. I don’t think we should be giving people criminal records for doing something that their parents were able to do legally. High schoolers are going to drink regardless; better to use our cops to stop real crime (including DUI’s) than waste them busting high school and college parties.</p>
<p>“Alright, let’s compromise. Drinking age can be lowered to 18, but driving age has to be raised to 21. I’d rather have a bus full of drunk 18 years old than an ambulance carrying another DUI victim”</p>
<p>There is no public transportation throughout MOST of the state of Michigan. I would rather go back to prohibition than raise the driving age here. Not being able to GET A JOB until 21 would seriously screw me, and no one would be able to commute to college-- which would mean I’d have not been able to go at all.</p>
<p>If we made it 19, it would be illegal for all high schoolers and most college students would be able to midway through their freshman year, a good compromise in my opinion.</p>
<p>EDIT: Also, this is my 200th post.</p>
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<p>That’s not strictly true. There were a number of people in my graduating HS class who turned 19 before the end of the school year. Also, you seem to assume that everyone is in college. However, many people go straight from high school to the armed forces or the workforce, and it hardly seems fair to them to ban them from drinking because of the assumption the the drinking age law will limit drinking to college students.</p>
<p>Furthermore, high school and underage college students have never had a problem with finding alcohol, and making it illegal means that they must consume their alcohol quickly and in an unsupervised place so that they don’t get caught, which leads to extremely unhealthy drinking habits that persist throughout their life.</p>
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Yes but the majority of students aren’t 19 in HS - I didn’t turn 19 until my Soph year of college and i have friends who are still 18.
He was saying the drinking age should be 19, not that the drinking age should be 19 just for college students! I agree 19 is a good age; most people have finished HS and are either working or in college. </p>
<p>It’s laughable that Americans have to wait til 21 to drink, especially when most of our beer is the equivalent of water in most countries! 
By the time you’re an adult, you should at least be able to pick your own beverage! </p>
<p>But it’s not going to change since then the drunk driving rate for 18-21 age range will go up by a lot. Not only do Americans binge drink more, we also have terrible drunk driving rates. What works for one country doesn’t always work for another;p eople always say “In ___ they do this!” but guess what, their culture is different. </p>
<p>Plus the structure of the US is so different from Europe, Asia, etc. I’m from NY where we walk everywhere and most people don’t drive, but in much of the country, a car is a necessity. Public transportation is lacking and buildings are physically spaced far apart. In many nations, the drinking age and driving age are 18, but that would probably be disastrous here.
Europe/Japan are ridiculously safe compared to the rest of the world. America’s not exactly a 3rd world country, but our crime rate is pretty high. I would raise my kid differently in the US than in say, Switzerland.</p>
<p>I agree with all the people who are comparing us to European countries. My mum is from Spain and grew up in England, on top of a pub no less! She has never kept me from drinking alcohol. Therefore, alcohol was never off limits to me and I never felt the urge to “rebel” and drink. I’ll have beer once in a while that a friend brews but on top of that, drinking has no appeal for me. </p>
<p>We should lower the drinking age, in theory. However, in practicality, the alcohol culture that has developed in America over the last century is not easily reversible. If we lower the drinking age, in practicality, there would be a ton more drunk driving accidents, etc because a lot of American teenagers simply don’t know how to stop, and that isn’t going to change by lowering the drinking age.</p>
<p>Most other countries do not have age limit for drinking. They do not have as much problems with teen drinking like we do. When a rule is set to ban certain age groups from something, it usually encourages them to do it more.</p>
<p>I’m all for the drinking age being set to 19. I am not a huge fan of high school drinking. Overall, access to alcohol in high school is a lot more limited than in college (obviously depending on who you know)</p>
<p>“Most other countries do not have age limit for drinking. They do not have as much problems with teen drinking like we do. When a rule is set to ban certain age groups from something, it usually encourages them to do it more.”</p>
<p>Correlation does not imply causation.</p>
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<p>[no,but</a> it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing ‘look over there’](<a href=“http://xkcd.com/552/]no,but”>xkcd: Correlation)</p>
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<p>His reasoning on why the drinking age should be 19 was based on the activities of high school v college students. This isn’t fair because, as I pointed out, not everyone goes to college, and if people can join the military, and in fact be drafted (it’s still on the books, that’s what the Selective Service is for) at 18, it seems incredibly unfair that they would have to wait another year just for the privilege of drinking. It’s legal for 18 year old high schoolers to smoke, and you never hear about nicotine binge parties.</p>