Comments on: A Spirited Debate On A Lower Drinking Age

More Than 100 College Presidents Say Reducing Drinking Age From 21 May Cut Binge Drinking

[aggiekat2004]

The problem is enforcement. Right now it''s a slap on the hand if you get caught, and the law is not a deterrent.

A sad situation happened a couple of weeks ago in College Station, Texas. 15-year old girl gets new RX-8 sportscar. Too young to drive, lets 16-year old boyfriend drive. 18-year-old brother of driver is in car, and they end up with a keg in the back seat. When the cops are summoned for a suspicious vehicle cruising in the neighborhood, the 16-year-old guns it, and runs into tree at 100 miles an house. All three kids die, burned to death. Over a keg.

[rytom64]

Any time they consider passing a law, the first thing the politians and govt. officials ponder is :"How can we make money off of this ?" , that''s your bottom line. If there were no more drunk drivers to fine, they would be crying.

[midvale3]

to WhyAfghan:

It''''s not only the Libs who would cry but the "social elite" ie . . . rich b@stards would too. No one from zip codes such as 90210 volunteers for the armed services.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by endpcnow at 12:11 PM : Aug 20, 2008

No they wouldn''t, they would get deferments or their daddy would get them into the Reserve.

[rytom64]

We forget the fact that drinking and fining/drinking and driving is a HUGE cash cow for the local and state govts. They won''t let that money go away, (as if they cared about public well being).

[marcpcbs]

This is solid proof that the USA produces some of the dumbest smart people in the world.

[jennmarikp]

I believe that if you are considered responsible enough at 18 to risk your life for your country you should DEFINETLY be able to drink a beer at 18!

[docpeter-2009]

Why are the ages choices 18 or 21? It seems to me that the appropriate drinking age is 19. That way there are no high school kids old enough to drink.

Posted by sunspro at 12:02 PM : Aug 20, 2008
________________
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

I have known several 19 yo highschool seniors and juniors.

[motherk-2009]

If the drinking age is lowered, then:

As in Great Britain, zero tolerance for driving with alcohol use.

As in some European countries, no driver''s license until the age of 21.

Might be some good ideas ~

[rytom64]

When I was 17, turning 18, they raised the age to 19. When I was about to turn 19, they raised it to 21. I was drinking at 15. Laws never stopped me. I hardly drink at all now, special occasions maybe. These laws are designed to make these fanatics feel better, that''s all.

[rytom64]

If you can go off to a foreign land and die for your country, you should also be able to relax and have a beer IN your country. The ages need to be the same, one way or another.

[whyafghan]

Good response, I appreciate your thought, BUT instead of rolling back the drinking age to 18,how about a novel approach and idea. Lets up the age for voting, enlisting in the armed services, etc. to 21. if you raised enlisting to 21, no one would join. With youth there is impulse. With age there is rational decision.
------------
Posted by jeff-fla

If no-one volunteered, we would have a draft and I am quite sure that those flaming Liberals out there would cry like their was no tomorrow.

[culturechang]

This is an uphill, Capital Hill battle. Washington drives the train on this with the granting of state highway funds. Its the way they extorted all the states to change from 18 to 21 in the 80s. It was simple....change or loose your federal funds. Congress is too stupid and stubborn to make sensible changes.....in any arena. They prefer the March of Folly that we have pursued since the 1970s. The March of Folly was defined in a 1984 book as "the perverse persistence in policies demonstrably unworkable and counterproductive". But they still cant budge....and they wont until the poeple vote differently.

[docpeter-2009]

if you raised enlisting to 21, no one would join. With youth there is impulse. With age there is rational decision.

Posted by jeff-fla at 11:45 AM : Aug 20, 2008
_________________________
Finally another reasonable, rational thinker.

[ozonmojo]

John MacCardell must be congratulated for mining antiquity for such a colorful name for the drinking initiative on behalf of the young.

[jeff-fla]

-Good response, I appreciate your thought, BUT instead of rolling back the drinking age to 18,how about a novel approach and idea. Lets up the age for voting, enlisting in the armed services, etc. to 21.

if you raised enlisting to 21, no one would join. With youth there is impulse. With age there is rational decision.

[docpeter-2009]

At 18 you can vote,be drafted,enlist in the military,fight in a war,but you cannot drink because you are to young to decide for yourself if you want to take a chance of drinking and dying.
But you don''''t get the choice when you enlist of whether you want to go into a war zone and die.
Put the drinking age back to 18 they are going to find a way to buy it anyways.

Posted by GodzFan at 11:28 AM : Aug 20, 2008.
______________________________________
Good response, I appreciate your thought, BUT instead of rolling back the drinking age to 18,how about a novel approach and idea. Lets up the age for voting, enlisting in the armed services, etc. to 21.

[joberg03]

With the fact that if you are old enough to serve your country, your old enough to drink. They either, should change one or the other.

But in reality, I believe they should lower the drinking age. This is because at 18 you graduate from high school, should be considered an adult, whether you join the military or go to college. Its an important time in life and its a learning experience.
From what I get here, people belive that 18 year olds today are not resposible enough, and this is not true at all. We all make decisions in life, whether it is good or bad. Mistake can be made, thats life. When the drinking age was 18 back in the 1970''s , what changed?
In retorspect, we all have to look at the rest of the world, because it seems to me that American''s are most targeted for our mistakes rather, that what we do good, such as that of our high rate of drunk driving.
If drunk driving teenagers are the biggest concern here, lets get our governement to start actuallly running more public transportations, at all times of the day, 24 hours.
This is what Europe does! And their drinking age over that is 18! Its the government who is a fault, if kids today were given more options of public transportations, that ran all the time, again 24 hour services AND AT A LOW COST, our changes of drunk driving inccidents would decrease dramatically.
The European''s know what they are doing. They don''t put 16 year old KIDS behind the wheel either, which is a another topic for another day.

[marcpcbs]

The reason for binge drinking is that they sell alcohol in little containers so you have to drink several of them. Binge drinking would stop if they only sold all alcohol in 2 and 5 gallon containers.

this makes as much or more sense as lowering the drinking age.

[haoli25]

Yeah, sure, the age 21 law has worked SOOOOOOOO Well.

[godzfan]

well credibility,That argument would work except as a nurse I have seen way more adults over the age of 21 treated for alcohol poisoning or die from it, than I have 18 year olds. Tell me again who has the impaired judgement sober.