Should the drinking age in the United States be lowered to 18?
A group of university and college presidents in California and across the country this week pushed for a national debate over whether the drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18.
The current limit ignores the reality of drinking during college years and drives it underground, making binge drinking more dangerous and students less likely to seek help in an emergency, according to a petition signed by more than 100 campus presidents. Though they don't call for an outright age rollback, the campus chiefs said they support "an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age."Their statement provoked some controversy as critics contend that a lower drinking age will cause an increase in drunk driving deaths.
Of stupid course it should be reduced to 18. Not because it will reduce binge drinking (it probably won't), or keep drinking from being 'underground' (um, OK), but because it's fun. Eighteen is the age when you don't have to get permission for that anymore.
If you really want to reduce drunk driving, make the drinking age 35. Or make alcohol illegal. Or make cabs free after 10 pm. Or a million other things that are objectiely less retarded than banning Friday Night Awesome for every citizen's final fun-surplus years. After 21, it's not long before we sag into our cubicle-shaped hamster wheels, staring into the 'Return of the Jedi' mouth-monster of one weekend per seven days, two weeks vacation per year until retirement. At least acknowledge our right to a few headaches and regrets before you attach the harness to the treadmill.
Comments
As the alcohol council here says, ‘It’s not the drinking, it’s how we’re drinking,’ which is the ultimate problem. The French, of course, drink from a younger age in moderation so they have less of a problem. (This example plays on why I agree with your initial premise: if one is sensible about drinking then who really cares what the law says?) We (Californians and Kiwis) still treat booze as some great, mind-bending adventure for Friday nights.
In a practical sense it might not be a bad thing to, say, keep it at 21 but just don’t criminalize 18- to 20-year-olds. From memory, the cops just used to come in and scare us, but they never did anything about it unless you were really disturbing the peace.
We're legal to drink at 18 here in australia so we start our binge drinking at about 12. Because we are a country of alcoholics there was talk of putting the legal age up to 21 but there was such outrage they scrapped that idea in fear of a revolution. I always wonder what the hell teenagers do in the US at night time until they hit 21.