Should The Drinking Age Be Lowered To 18?

no the drinking age should not be lowered because then that allows more alcohol access to high school students which isnt good. plus teen pregnancy rate will go up in my opinion....

I enlisted in the US Army when I was 17. While I didn't deploy at that age, I know many that have so 18 just seems like an arbitrary number.

I've also lived in Europe and I know that binge drinking was never as much of an issue as it was when I got to the USA. 

 -Kat

Tough Girl 101 ( http://toughgirl101.blogspot.com )No one likes a Sissy! Read about the Life of a skydiving, gun toting, fast driving part time soldier and full time student living life after Divorce.

I think that 21 is an absurd age because drinking is the only adult legal right that does not come at the age of 18.

Do I think that lowering the drinking age will stop binged drinking of those under the legal age? No.

I do think lowering it to 18 might have an interesting effect on college campuses, given that most people are 18 by the time they attend college and it would level the field and simplify across the board drinking rooms. At the university I attended, if you lived in the dorms and were over 21, you could only drink in your dorm room by yourself or with others who were over 21. You can see the problems if your roommate wasn't over 21 yet or how we used to joke that it encouraged the alcoholic to drink by himself/herself.

What I think would help underage and overagers too from binge drinking would be being raised to understand how to drink responsibly. Which is, by and large, the responsibility of parents. And, unfortunately, I think that's what's lacking in a lot of the US. I know my quite younger and underage brother got his drinking habits and attitudes from our alcoholic father, not his peers.

Erica

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Jill
Writes Like She Talks ( http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com )

For all the reasons stated above and more.

Look at other examples from around the world... (or even us just north of the border, though I think our age should be lowered as well).

I don't think it's the government's place to worry about when our children drink.  

Getting alcohol is easy, teaching responsibility with alcohol is hard.

We approach the problem from the wrong direction, like saying no is sufficient to end the issue. It isn't.

We take this rather draconian approach, all or nothing, demarcation line 21 years of age. We let young adults drive at 16, and it is far easier to stop a kid from driving than it is to stop a kid from drinking. The combination is all too often lethal.

Making it worse are parents who toss parties and half the teen world shows up to get smashed. How do we deal with that? Why... go after any parent who gives a drink to their kid. All or nothing.

When our eldest was winding her way through her teen years (she is 24 now) I approached this by allowing her to have a drink in our home, subject to these rules: one, no friends would ever be allowed to drink with her in our home, no matter if the parent gave me expressed consent. Secondly, if she had a drink, she was not allowed to leave the home the rest of the night.

She learned to drink responsibly, and in point of fact rarely did drink.

We need to stop this nonsense of extremes and start finding middle ground. No one should be allowed to die in defence of our nation yet be denied a drink - there is something very perverse about that circumstance.  

nelle ( http://refractivethoughts.org/ )

&

llhaesa ( http://llhaesa.org/ )

I think a good argument for lowering the drinking age even down to 16 or lower would be to give people a chance to learn to drink responsibly at home under parental supervision, rather than learning to drink like a frat boy at a keg party while at college.

PhD in Parenting - http://phdinparenting.wordpress.com ( http://phdinparenting.wordpress.com/ )

Sometime within the last few months, stats came out about how female drivers ages 16-20something are for the first time in a long time losing their status as the safest driving cohort.  Something to do with distractions, phones, texting etc.

I think we need to debate/discuss the impact of changing the drinking age on other societal responsibilities and environs, like driving.  Many readers probably recall that the age was rasied in the late 70s and early 80s because the federal government wouldn't fund state highway projects unless the states raised the age to 21 - this was in reaction to MADD and other realities about drinking and driving at early ages.

I agree with the reasons stated already about lowering the age and the emotional argument I know I feel for keeping it at 21 but I would urge us to think about, search out, the other places in which this change could affect us.

Jill
Writes Like She Talks ( http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com )

I know what you mean Pam. 

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
at catherine-morgan.com ( http://catherine-morgan.com/ ), The Political Voices of Women ( http://politicsanew.com/ ), Care2 Election ( http://www.care2.com/politics/features/ )

Just about any age is too young to go off and die in a war. 80, 90, 100 even. I digress, but I just wanted to be clear. It's the absurdity of it that bugs me. 

Nerd's Eye View ( http://www.nerdseyeview.com )

Hi Pam. I agree that kids shouldn't be able to go off to die in a war, when their not even old enough to drink. As far as I'm concerned, 18 is too young to drink, and too young to go off to war.

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
at catherine-morgan.com ( http://catherine-morgan.com/ ), The Political Voices of Women ( http://politicsanew.com/ ), Care2 Election ( http://www.care2.com/politics/features/ )

I asked a bunch of questions about this in my expat life. Where I lived, the drinking age was 16. Binge drinking was no more or less a problem where I lived than it was in the US. It was easy for kids to obtain alchohol, it was also not a forbidden thing.My husband told me this story about how when he was old enough to go to the bars, the parents sent the big sister along to make sure he didn't do anything stupid/crazy/toxic. Essentially, they taught him How To Drink Responsibly rather than locked the liquor cabinet. 

I do think it's absurd that you can go off to war but can't buy a beer in this country. That's just ridiculous. 

Nerd's Eye View ( http://www.nerdseyeview.com )

I've always thought that the drinking age is absurd and encourages the mystique of drinking in our society. I don't think there should be a drinking age at all, but it should ABSOLUTELY be 18 instead of 21. If you are legally an adult, it is absurd and insulting that you can't drink alcohol.

Of course, I started smoking on my 18th birthday just because it was illegal to me before, so I'm contrary like that. I quit in my 20s.

Liz Rizzo ( http://blogher.org/blog/liz-rizzo )

I blog at Everyday Goddess ( http://everydaygoddess.typepad.com/ ).

We all know how easy it is to get alcohol. Kids can pay someone five bucks to go in the store and pick up alcohol for them. Lowering the drinking age, as you said, will just make it much easier for people who are younger to get it, because their friends will be old enough to buy.

Instead, let's open the dialogue anyway. The kids don't have to be legally doing it in order to learn the detrimental effects. I think too often we tend to ignore things we aren't comfortable with, and that becomes the  problem. Letting kids drink younger, I believe, will just lead to younger people who have issues with alcohol.

Kathy

Mama Marathoner ( http://www.mamamarathoner.com )

Allbusiness:Working Mothers ( http://www.allbusiness.com/specialty-businesses/wo... )