Category: Let's talk
Should the drinking age in the united states be lowered to 18, or lower? Why or why not?
hmmm, I think it should be lowered, 18 is a good number, when I was 18 and younger it didn't stop me from getting it anyway! But on the same course I think drinking laws and penalties should be stronger. In some Europe countrys one DWI and your license is history! do not pass go and no 200 dollars. this might be a little bit to harsh maybe if your involved in a crash that kills or engers someone you should get it pulled. we've all seen the shows on tv where someone gets drunk get's in a fight with a wife or friend. then goes to jail and the next day is out! I think a better approach is maybe a rehab center for repeat offenders. I don't mind people having fun, drinking or what ever. but you need to be responsible just the same!
That's a bit of a tricky question. I mean, people drink illegally anyway, so maybe lowering the age would solve that issue, but I don't know what difference it'd make in terms of people being more responsible drinkers.
well, lowering the age wouldn't solve the responceble part, however you can vote, smoke, drive and be drafted at age 18 so why not drink.
well, in the u.s.A you can smoke, drive, be drafted, and, even exicuted at age 18, so, what makes drinking so different?
I doubt people listen to that rule anyways.
lower it to 18 like others have said, every responsibility is put on you at 18 so why shouldn't you be able to have a drink also
just adding my voice to the calls to lower the legal drinking age to 18. it does seem just a little bizarre that you are classed as an adult at 18 yet not deamed responsible enough to drink for another 3 years! i mean seriously, what's that all about?
either lower the legal drinking age, or up the age for everything else! that sounds fare! lol.
In opposition to lowering the drinking age, consider this. at 21, the people you associate with are ages 18 and older. If we lowered the drinking age to 18, then the likely hood that you would give drinks to minors would increase, because your peer group is somewhere between 14 and 20. Consider where an 18 year old is at that point in their lives. Most haven't finished high school yet. Most still live at home with parents. Most don't have many bills but have jobs. This means that they will have money to purchase drinks. If the idea of under age drinking is bad now and is happening so much think about if we lowered the drinking age.
Another thing about not lowering the drinking age: The reason they will et people vote and sign up for military service at 18 is probably because they need more people for that. Instead of going to college or getting a job when they graduate from school, they can sign up for the military. If they waited 'til 21 for people to be able to do that, those people would probably already have they're minds/lifestyles set in a way. I mean, how many people would drop college or work after 3 years just to sign up for the military. With voting, they're already teaching Government in schools, and like I mentioned adding people under 21 means just that more people can vote. And for driving, at that age, people can start working and/or going to college, so driving at that age (being that they're going to have to be formally tought that anyway) makes sense. As for smoking and the death penalty, I can't think of the reasoning behind that. But DF has a point about the drinking: most 18-year-olds would probably still be hanging out with other teenagers which would be more of a chance to give drinks to people younger than 18. At 21, though, most people probably already have their own places to live, have a job and/or are going to college, hang out with older people around their ages, and are (or should be) more mature by then and therefore would be able to think more responsibly about their actions. More responsibility is given at 18, but honestly, an 18-year-old is likely still thinking like a teenager, and at age 21, they've had 3 more years to have other responsibilities that can't directly affect others (except for maybe the driving). So, yeah, the drinking at 21 thing makes sense to me. Just my thoughs on this. *smiles*
um, that almost sounds as though your saying that it is fine to send immature kids away to war, give them guns and high explosives to play with, but god forbid that they should ever be allowed to touch alcohol! heavens they might do something dangerous with that stuff! lol.
as for the under age drinking issue though i'm really not sure. it would be interesting to see figures for the levels of under age drinking in countries where alcohol is legally accessable to 18 year olds compared to the levels in the US. i guess then you'd have a better answer.
i know that in the UK the age is 18 and we certainly do have a big problem with under age drinking. but whether or not it is a bigger problem than experienced in the states i really have no idea. it also has to be said that the problem may not be directly related to the legal drinking age either. the problem could equally be caused by there simply not being enough control over kids of a younger age. speaking from personal experience i know of very large clubs in some places where i lived that were notorious for allowing kids as young as 13 to get in threw the doors on a friday or saturday night! there's no point in having laws if nobody is going to pay any heed to them! we need some internet boffins to go and do some researching for us! lol. any volunteers?
One thing I might add to harps message, is at least in the U.S. you can drink in the military on base!
so, not only do you have a bunch of kids loaded, and flying planes but they can drink some beer while there at it!
As america is a country of far too many guns and too little common sense, definately not.
Why not just completely scrap the age thing altogether. Why should everything be dertermined by age? Surely something better to determine things by is IQ. A 29 year-old with a low IQ who likes getting drunk and been all big and hard, is far likely to be irresponsible than a sensible 15 year-old who does all their school work on time, is punctual, well-behaved and so on. It's also stupid that a 97 year-old who can't even remember where they put their glasses 1 minute ago can vote in a presidential election yet a 14 year-old who's brain is functioning correctly and who understands the political stuff can't vote.