As a father of two teenagers I agree the real age many students start drinking is in 7th or 8th grade at 13. Unfortunately that is when they also try pot. So does this argument of; we can’t control it so lets just legalize it extend to pot? I think we all agree that kids are not old enough to make good decisions at 13, and not everyone has a leave it to beaver family. So where does this camels nose under the tent lead to?
Just out of curiosity, if the drinking age were lowered to 18 today, do you think there would be no effect / a decrease / an increase in the number of alcohol related driving accidents? And if we were to adopt the “European” way of thinking about alcohol, how long would it take for that to have a positive effect on the # of alcohol related driving accidents? Everyone is saying it is attitude, not age that is the problem. We have attitudes here in America and I honestly think that lowering the drinking age will create more problems than it solves.
Personally I’d start with altering attitudes before we started altering the legal age, but the two have become so intertwined in our culture that I don’t know if we could ever successfully do that.
Our attitude on drinking age is a throwback to puritanical times. We force our “adventurous” teenagers into their cars to drink. It’s nuts. Alcohol is inherently dangerous but if this is a free country, we should be able to imbibe if we so choose. If you are old enough to defend this nation, you are old enough for me to buy you a drink.
I’ve been to a number of European countries. Italy, Germany and Austria don’t restrict drinking if with parental consent. A parent may serve drink to their children and purchase a drink to be served to their children. This makes sense to me in that these youths are exposed to and learn to drink before they drive. This certainly has an advantage when you find someone who can’t handle alcohol and you don’t give them a drivers license. On the other hand we let our youth drive for a couple of years then expose them to learning how to handle alcohol. Then if they mess up we try to take their license away. Seems a little backwards to me. Just a thought.
Re European drinking customs, usually children can be served drink (mainly wine, not spirits) if it accompanies a meal.
The United Kingdom’s legal drinking age is 18, and this does not stop under 18’s drinking and buying alcohol from bars and stores, usually using fake ID. No matter what the age is, there will always be underage drinking.
Issuing everyone in the US and UK, with some form of national ID card – which has security features to make it difficult to forge, may be a solution.
IMHO, if you are old enough to go to Iraq, carry fully automatic assault weapons, and be authorized to use lethal force, you’re old enough to have a beer. Either up the military age to 21, or drop the drinking age to 18.
And, re: European Attitudes, here in Texas you can legally order a drink as a minor if your parents are with you and give their approval.
I know you’re being sarcastic, but this is a real issue. At what point do you consider something worth preserving? At what point does a law need changing?
This is about legalizing a crime to make statistics better, but could be turned into something more. It could be turned into a chance to talk about our values, our society and what we consider worthwhile policing. Do we truly need to have victimless crimes (such as underage drinking)? Or do we need to say “as long as you don’t hurt anyone else, you’re fine”? At what point do we consider ourselves adults and responsible for our actions? How do we define “responsible”? These are important questions that should be asked and talked about.
There is a world of difference between legalizing murder and rape, and making it so a legal adult can purchase beer and vodka.
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As a father of two teenagers I agree the real age many students start drinking is in 7th or 8th grade at 13. Unfortunately that is when they also try pot. So does this argument of; we can’t control it so lets just legalize it extend to pot? I think we all agree that kids are not old enough to make good decisions at 13, and not everyone has a leave it to beaver family. So where does this camels nose under the tent lead to?
Just out of curiosity, if the drinking age were lowered to 18 today, do you think there would be no effect / a decrease / an increase in the number of alcohol related driving accidents? And if we were to adopt the “European” way of thinking about alcohol, how long would it take for that to have a positive effect on the # of alcohol related driving accidents? Everyone is saying it is attitude, not age that is the problem. We have attitudes here in America and I honestly think that lowering the drinking age will create more problems than it solves.
Personally I’d start with altering attitudes before we started altering the legal age, but the two have become so intertwined in our culture that I don’t know if we could ever successfully do that.
Our attitude on drinking age is a throwback to puritanical times. We force our “adventurous” teenagers into their cars to drink. It’s nuts. Alcohol is inherently dangerous but if this is a free country, we should be able to imbibe if we so choose. If you are old enough to defend this nation, you are old enough for me to buy you a drink.
I’ve been to a number of European countries. Italy, Germany and Austria don’t restrict drinking if with parental consent. A parent may serve drink to their children and purchase a drink to be served to their children. This makes sense to me in that these youths are exposed to and learn to drink before they drive. This certainly has an advantage when you find someone who can’t handle alcohol and you don’t give them a drivers license. On the other hand we let our youth drive for a couple of years then expose them to learning how to handle alcohol. Then if they mess up we try to take their license away. Seems a little backwards to me. Just a thought.
Re European drinking customs, usually children can be served drink (mainly wine, not spirits) if it accompanies a meal.
The United Kingdom’s legal drinking age is 18, and this does not stop under 18’s drinking and buying alcohol from bars and stores, usually using fake ID. No matter what the age is, there will always be underage drinking.
Issuing everyone in the US and UK, with some form of national ID card – which has security features to make it difficult to forge, may be a solution.
IMHO, if you are old enough to go to Iraq, carry fully automatic assault weapons, and be authorized to use lethal force, you’re old enough to have a beer. Either up the military age to 21, or drop the drinking age to 18.
And, re: European Attitudes, here in Texas you can legally order a drink as a minor if your parents are with you and give their approval.
Why don’t we legalize all crimes, then there will be no underground criminals.
I know you’re being sarcastic, but this is a real issue. At what point do you consider something worth preserving? At what point does a law need changing?
This is about legalizing a crime to make statistics better, but could be turned into something more. It could be turned into a chance to talk about our values, our society and what we consider worthwhile policing. Do we truly need to have victimless crimes (such as underage drinking)? Or do we need to say “as long as you don’t hurt anyone else, you’re fine”? At what point do we consider ourselves adults and responsible for our actions? How do we define “responsible”? These are important questions that should be asked and talked about.
There is a world of difference between legalizing murder and rape, and making it so a legal adult can purchase beer and vodka.
Brovo! Or the short answer…you can’t (shouldn’t) legislate morality.