Lowering the Drinking Age

[otakuneko]

While I was out at dinner last night, the restaurant had 60 Minutes on the tv. The top story was about how a bunch of college presidents -- and one chief of police -- had petitioned congress to consider returning the drinking age from 21 to 18.

Here's a link to an online article about it: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...n4813571.shtml

The basic reasoning behind it was that raising the drinking age in fact encourages underage drinking and drives it further underground into less supervised and manageable situations. MADD points out that raising the drinking age reduced highway deaths of 18-20 year olds. Supporters of lowering the age limit argue that while highway deaths have been reduced, deaths from other alcohol-related causes have increased.

The chief of police of Boulder, Colorado said that he'd rather have his cops getting drunks off the street than writing tickets to underage drinkers. He also implied that drinking among 18-20 year olds in his city hasn't really decreased, despite hundreds of tickets being written.


I'm inclined to agree that lowering the drinking age is a good idea. What say you all?

[Greenday]

Lowering the drinking age was meant to deter younger people from drinking? I had no idea. Seriously, the laws mean nothing. I don't know anyone that has said, "I'd really like to drink, but darn those laws, I'm just going to wait til I'm 21." It's pointless. We drink regardless. Personally, I feel having the higher age just makes it more of a taboo and so people do it even more just to be bad and break the law and be cool.

Greenday, who's 20 years old and has been drinking for a while anyway...

[AdminAssistant]

Exactly. Not being able to legally buy alcohol means these kids are drinking at house parties, frat parties, and, in my case, cast parties. Places where you are much more likely to binge drink. Once I was legal (and got over those few months of "Wooo...I can be whiskey all by myself!") my drinking calmed down a LOT. 1) I was paying for it myself - always. And that gets expensive. 2) The allure was gone.

Do I still drink? Yes. Do I occasionally get blasted? Yes. But not nearly as much or as often as I did when I was 19-21.

[Evandril]

I've always said that raising the drinking age was a *bad* idea...I saw quite a few people go from drinking beer at 18 (Which they could legally at the time), to drinking whatever would get them 'wasted' the fastest, after the laws changed (The people already drinking were able to keep drinking...but the next group who missed it...yeah)

I've been able to drink at home if I wanted to, basically since birth...and I've most likely been totally trashed from drinking under 10 times total in 38 years. That's including a couple years in college, and 15+ in the military as a mechanic.

[AFPheonix]

I figure if you're old enough to vote and take a bullet for your country, you're old enough to buy a beer.

That, and you can start drinking at an age when you can be with your parents and learn to drink responsibly.

[DesignFox]

I figure if you're old enough to vote and take a bullet for your country, you're old enough to buy a beer.

This is my philosophy.

Also, I think lowering the drinking age would take some of the novelty out of getting wasted your first few years at college. While I personally didn't touch the stuff until I was 20, I knew a lot of kids that went off to college, had the attitude of "Woooo party! No adults to stop me!" and went nuts.

[Sylvia727]

I started drinking when I was 16-- in my mother's house, at family get togethers when most of the adults were drinking a glass of wine or a vodka cocktail. Now that I'm in college, I will indulge in a beer or a vodka mixer when with friends in a controlled environment. I have never had more than two servings of alcohol at a time. I am most definitely the exception to the rule. My mom wanted me to understand alcohol, and not glamorize it. As a result of her matter-of-fact attitude, I've never felt the urge to get wasted. Most of my classmates' parents don't know that they drink, and never told them about alcohol except that "you can't have it". As a result, everything they know about alcohol they learned from their peers, who are also underage.

The worst (non-abusive) behavior that a parent can exhibit to a teenager is hypocrisy. Teens are finalizing their knowledge of the real world and people's behavior, getting ready to leave the nest. Consistency and honesty are very important to them in this stage. ("That's not fair! Last week you said...") When a teenager perceives an authority figure to be acting hypocritically, they shut down, either from the message or from the adult entirely. The main argument in favor of lowering the age, "they're old enough to buy guns, vote in elections, get married, and die in battle, but not to drink alcohol," is important for more than its surface meaning. 18- to 20-year-olds feel resentment in this argument. In their minds, this law is inconsistent and therefore unjust. Which is why the majority, I would even say the vast majority, of 18- to 20-year-olds who drink feel morally justified in breaking the law. And since the law is wrong on this count, who's to say it isn't wrong on other counts?

The fact that the MADD spokesperson didn't see a fundamental difference between 21-year-olds buying alcohol for 18-year-olds and 18-year-olds buying alcohol for 15-year-olds tells me that he simply does not understand teenagers. 18 is a magic number. You become an adult on that day. Denying alcohol to an 18-year-old is denying them one right out of all the rights they've just obtained. Denying alcohol to a 15-year-old, or a 17-year-old, is internally consistent with denying them all of the other rights of adulthood. They feel that it's harsh, but it's fair. I've even talked to high schoolers who feel justified in drinking at 14 because the law is unfair in denying to them at 18. Again, the authority figure exhibits hypocritical behavior, so the teen stops listening altogether.

I don't like the idea of alcohol licenses, most especially not if they're reserved for the 18- to 20-year-olds. If they're age restricted, it's just another hypocrisy, and if they're all-inclusive then it's an eroding of personal rights and responsibilities. The chief's metaphor is inaccurate; when I get behind the wheel, I take control of a half-ton mass of machinery that requires constant supervision and direction to avoid killing others on the highway. When I drink, I merely affect my own thoughts and judgements, and poison my own body. I also don't like that his cops have tried ticketing every underage person at a party where alcohol is served. It's not illegal to be around alcohol, merely to injest it. If you want to have a social life in college, and don't want to hang around with the pious weirdos, you have to be around alcohol. I don't drink at parties, because I don't feel safe there. But I still go, to be with my friends and have fun.

[MadMike]

I figure if you're old enough to vote and take a bullet for your country, you're old enough to buy a beer.

That's how I've always felt. Either you're an adult, or you aren't. Either you should be allowed to drink at 18, or the military should have to keep their damn hands off of you until you're 21.

As for the "novelty", I agree with this one as well. I probably drink more often now than I did before I was legal, but I'd drink a lot more at one shot when I illegal than I do now. These days, I'll normally have 2 or 3 beers when I'm relaxing at the end of the day, where back then it wasn't uncommon for me to down two six-packs in one shot, and back then I was about 50 lbs lighter than I am now.

[Giggle Goose]

Would it sound terrible that I first got drunk at a family party when I was 12?

It does to a lot of people, but I think I turned out ok. I was with people I trusted and learned about how to do it responsibly. I'm only 22, so you think I would be going crazy with the drinking but I only have a few drinks per week. Many people I knew whose parents thought drinking was evil and didn't allow their kids to do it at ALL got busted at high school parties, drove drunk, dropped out of college, etc., etc.

I'm not saying that all kids should get drunk as preteens, but maybe my parents were on to something...

[MadMike]

Would it sound terrible that I first got drunk at a family party when I was 12?

You only got me beat by 2 years. My dad would let me have small amounts since as long as I can remember, but one night he had some friends over, and one of them thought it would be funny to get me drunk. I tried to hide it, but since I was that young and had never been drunk before, I failed miserably.

He didn't get mad. He just seemed disappointed in me. I think I'd rather he had yelled at me. I actually felt bad about it. Looking back now, I think he was scared of my mom finding out.

Once I got to be about 16, it became "use your own judgement" as far as drinking, just as long as I didn't try to do something stupid like get behind the wheel of a car. He wasn't too worried about the cops, since we lived in a small town, and the closest cops were 45 minutes away.

[guywithashovel]

There have been many good things said in this thread. It is a fact that a high drinking age causes problems instead of fixing them. The same goes for pretty much all drug laws.

However, you cannot explain this to the right-wingers to save your life. They don't think we can have a functional society without the government micro-managing our social lives. And then they turn around and talk about how they want LESS government.

[Boozy]

I got drunk when I was 15 on a beer my dad gave me while on a family camping trip.

It was a lite beer.

And I only drank half.

It alarmed him that I was such a light weight. He made me swear on a stack of Bibles that I'd never drink on a date. He wanted me to keep my wits about me when I was around boys.

Oh, how far I've come...

*Goes to refill wine glass*

[Rapscallion]

I got drunk when I was 15 on a beer my dad gave me while on a family camping trip.

It was a lite beer.

And I only drank half.

Ironic considering your screen name.

Rapscallion

[DesignFox]

Ironic considering your screen name.

Rapscallion

Where's that laughing smiley at?

[Greenday]

Well, I only have 1 day 7 hours 5 minutes and 30 seconds until my drinking is no longer illegal.