Lowering the Drinking Age

In my honest opinion the drinking age should be 18 if you serve in the military and 21 if you do not. If you are old enough to die for your country then you should at least be able to drink.


www.usatoday.com...

I actually agree with you.

I don't like the 18 for everyone, but definitely for our fighting men and women.

[edit on 10-6-2008 by elevatedone]

I think they should lower the drinking age to 18 and raise the age at which you can get a driver's license to 21.

It should be 18. Along the lines of military, if you're old enough to get drafted, you should be old enough to get drunk. On a side note, all the people who I met that ended up going to hospitals in college for binge drinking, had little prior experience. The age doesn't matter as much, as the example shown. If people learned how to recognize their limits with alcohol earlier, it takes the novelty from the action. Old enough to vote, join the military, get drafted, be charged as an adult, and smoke but not drink, just doesn't make sense.

AGAIN OH COME ON THIS IS JUST SAD!!!!! Give up the beer/alcohol man there are MORE things in life! You are in a conspiracy chat room and all you give us is threads on drinking age and vetoing beer and race riots!

GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!

They raised it for a reason. The EMT crew's got tired of picking up pieces and parts of drunk driving teenagers on the roads and highway's.

No one forces you to join the military and the same goes with smoking and voting.
And none of the above alter your preception to the point to where you can't keep a 2 ton automobile on your side of the road.

Personally i think it should be lower. (at least for supervised home use) Putting big 18 age stickers on things just gives it a stigma,and makes it more attractive to younger people who see it as something cool cos they're not old enough. Remove the restrictions and remove the stigma attatched to booze. Then maybe people wouldn't feel the need to go out and get hammered,cos they've been brought up in a place where booze isn't seen as a bad thing.

The drinking age is stupid, period.

In much of Europe there is no drinking age, yet they have fewer alcoholics.

Our society has been expanding the definition of childhood ever upward as the population ages. I'm convinced that by the time I am an old man, we'll all be considered legally "children" until we're in our mid-30's.

The old folks are taking over, and soon the speed limit will be 21, the drinking age will be 55, and the age of consent will be 35

Originally posted by Darth Logan
They raised it for a reason. The EMT crew's got tired of picking up pieces and parts of drunk driving teenagers on the roads and highway's.

No one forces you to join the military and the same goes with smoking and voting.
And none of the above alter your preception to the point to where you can't keep a 2 ton automobile on your side of the road.

AHAHAHAHA! How little you know of history. First, the age a person was considered an adult was pretty much set at 21 throughout American history. What has changed is that OTHER THINGS (contracts, weddings, etc.) have been lowered, but the drinking age has stayed the same.

Originally posted by elevatedone
I actually agree with you.

I don't like the 18 for everyone, but definitely for our fighting men and women.

[edit on 10-6-2008 by elevatedone]

Drunk and killing?

Anyway in the uk it is 18, I guess that's ok, but the uk has a big problem with drunks. So.. dont know really.

Drinking age should be 25.This is complete ridiculous,aside from now days most accidents are people under 25.People now with todays social networking technology they text,cell phone babble,use mp3 players..and aside let they do it at age 18 drunk?YEahhhhhhhhhhh righttt.They dont have enough responsibility to do such things.Once your drunk people dont care if they get behind the wheel or not.They think it will never happen to me.You just say that to someones family that had a member lost because some stupid drunk 19 year old was texting a friend and didnt see them.

[edit on 11-6-2008 by alienstar]

Well the way I see it is (i'm 17) we are going to drink either way. It is not hard at all to get alcohol. The drinking age thing is stupid. It does not keep anyone from drinking because all we have to do is ask a friend. Or ask a stranger and provide a little incentive. The law is pointless we drink. It's not stopping anyone.

I guess it just makes parents feel more secure.

If there was no drinking age than teens would not be afraid to ask for help if they have been drinking. If you've been drinking illegally and something happens to you, your probably not gonna go ask for help because than you get busted. If you are allowed to drink and you hurt yourself than no big deal.

The drinking age does not prevent anyone from drinking. WE ARE GOING TO DO IT EITHER WAY.

As a parent who is on the tail end of raising 8 kids...just one left and he's 13!...whooohooo!..anyway

The drinking age should stay 21 period. The thing most dont consider and I have seen it first hand having lived in the US and NZ and traveled Europe...is there is a drag along age for lack of a better way to put it...

If the age is 21 then you have people as young as 19, 18 or so who drink in the shadows of the law...if you lower that age to 18, you move that drag along age with it...now you will have 16 and 15 yr olds drinking in the shadows of the law.

It's true and every parent of teens knows it!

As to the military drinking age...I served in the early 80's (Navy)...it's always been 18 on a US base...whenever your out "local" wherever "local" might be, your subject to the local laws...

my2cents

The drinking age jumped from 18 to 19 in 1982.

Originally posted by sir_chancealot
How little you know of history.
....
What has changed is that OTHER THINGS (contracts, weddings, etc.) have been lowered, but the drinking age has stayed the same.

Er, no. When I was a teenager the drinking age in Connecticut was 18. Each State set it's own drinking age.

It was an act of congress in 1984 that blackmailed the States into adopting a "national drinking age" by threatening to lower their portion of federal highway funds -- a move that was clearly unConstitutional.


That being said, I'll support 18-year-old service members being able to drink on military bases. But, when their out on the town, they must obey the laws of whatever State they're in.

All us states are now 21.

I'm serious you guys, the teenage drinking culture is huge now adays. I'm sure any other teen can tell you to. I'm not making fun of or anything, but at the high school I went to, the religous kids were the only ones who didn't drink.

People would like to think that alot of teenagers don't drink but they do. Most of them have their parents completely fooled.

I know kids who started drinking when they were 14, and their parents still don't realize that they drink. It really doesn't matter what the legal age is, KIDS ARE STILL GOING TO DRINK.

Ok so since your a soldier and 18 thats a given right over any other member of society thats under 21 to be able to drink?Not!

reply to post by deadbang

As to the military drinking age...I served in the early 80's (Navy)...it's always been 18 on a US base...whenever your out "local" wherever "local" might be, your subject to the local laws...

The drinking age on many military bases is now 21 due to numerous problems.

In fact Ft. Bliss was the last army base that allowed under 21 to drink. NO more:

www.topix.net...
Fort Bliss Raises Drinking Age To 21
The military base in the far West Texas desert stood as the last Army post in America where if you were old enough to fight and die for your country, you were old enough to drink a beer.

But the party is over at Fort Bliss.

Citing too many drunken-driving crashes and arrests and too many fights, the new commanding general has raised the drinking age on base from 18 to 21, bringing 17,000-soldier Fort Bliss into line with what has been the law in the rest of Texas since 1986.

At the base I am at now....alcohol used to be allowed in the dorms (barracks) but due to out of control drinking and lots of underage drinking, leading to various issues, it is now banned in the dorms.



[edit on 11-6-2008 by greeneyedleo]

[edit on 11-6-2008 by greeneyedleo]

reply to post by theendisnear69


Funny you say that, in school today during our finals these guys were talking about taking a bus and the bus driver not caring about underage drinking and they were also talking about how they were "tripping out" on ecstasy the previous night. And these guys were 16-17 years old. I really dont care about the drinking age, as long as you are able to drink before you drive. Instead of driving and then going out on a all out drinking binge when you are 'legal' and then going out and driving. But instead, you know when enough is enough and you can go out and drive if you're allowed to drink before you're allowed to drive. And yes, you cannot stop the people who will drink and drive no matter what the law is.