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In Your Opinion.
Should the drinking age be reduced to 18? or remain at 21 and why?
The debate over whether the drinking age should be lowered to 18 or remain at 21 strikes me as interesting on several fronts. It doesn’t affect me personally,lol. I am well over 21 and I don’t.However, I find the drinking age debate interesting, because I remember growing up when the drinking age was 18,as I lived then in the United Kingdom. I see now living in the USA that it varies from state to state, but there is also even “dry” counties, to which I have just moved from Elizabethtown KY. A “dry” county is where drinking is completely prohibited.Once forced to let go of the dry laws many Southern states instituted, and many still retain, blue laws. Blue laws prohibit selling alcohol on Sunday. If you buy it Saturday before 12:00:01am, you can drink it, but you can’t buy alcohol on Sunday.Prohibition was lifted years ago, after an unsuccessful attempt to dry out the nation, but it was never lifted from kids. Bringing this back to the drinking age debate, I guess we have to establish whether 18 year-olds are adults.
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There are two ways of looking at it.*
For one, 18 year-olds can be drafted, are forced by law to sign up for the draft, and can serve in the military. Because 18 year-olds can carry these great responsibilities we give them the right to vote. If they are going to serve, they should have a voice in who is going to be their commander in chief.If 18 year-olds can vote and serve in the military maybe they should be legally able to drink. If I had to point an oozy in someone’s face, I’d probably want a drink after work.On the other hand, is the debate to lower the drinking age to 18 reasonable? Not by academic standards to which the very universities calling for the change hold their students. All data points in the opposite direction, that the higher the drinking age the fewer alcohol related deaths. Experts estimate that approximately 900 less people a year die because the drinking age is 21.
Anonymous
Our culture has placed too much emphasis on drinking as a milestone. If you are legally an adult at 18, then it should be 18. Now, if our country feels that 18 year olds are not responsible enough to vote, fight for our country and serve adult penalties for violations - then change the age when one becomes an adult to 21.
Education and other laws have curbed drinking in teens, not their legal drinking age. Teens still drink; but today, more responsibly. I know: My daughter will be 21 next month and my son will be 18 next week.
When I was a teen, the drinking age was 18, you could actually drink and drive (without a seat belt, no less!); and the laws and penalties were negligible.
Keep the laws and penalties in place but change the age (one way or another).
I think the reason there is such a problem with drinking is because kids are rebelling against what they can not do. Kids are constantly looking to cross the line and in this case, alcohol has caused many kids to go overboard when drinking to look cool. Too many time we hear that a teen over drinks, ends up in the hospital getting their stomach pumped, and more.
I think the drinking age should be 19, like in Canada.
If a parent takes their child out and allows them to have a drink or a glass of wine, I think this should be legal as well.
Where I live the drinking age is 19 and it seems to be a good one. There are more issues with older adults and drinking than younger. Except for impaired driving, it seems to be from 17 - 25. I think 19 is a fair age for everything that is important and dangerous like drinking, guns or anything else.
Unfortunately, due to travel for work and school the driving age cannot be raised by I sure wish it were at 18 or 19, being the mother of a 16 yr old.
I have a 19 year old daughter and I really think the drinking age should be 18! I don’t understand why you can fight in a war and lose your life, but you can’t buy a beer! She is now in college and she doesn’t drink very often. All 18 year olds still drink. They just do it illegally!! I just got back from Italy & France and there is no teenage drinking problem over there!! They have been having wine with dinner since they were 5. After all, the forbidden fruit is always better!
My mom is the daughter of Italian immigrants and we spent a lot of time with Grandma and Grandpa as children. At dinner, not every night but on holidays and on nights when we had Italian food, the kids were given a very small glass of wine to sip with the family. Alcohol wasn’t consumed all the time in our home and it was not considered a big deal.
In high school, I wondered what all the hooplah was about. My friends were obsessed with drinking for the buzz and I thought it was strange. Consequently I became the designated driver to all the parties.
On the other hand, My husband has 400 students at his school grades 6-12. After knowing some of the kids, even though they‘re good kids, I don’t know if I’d really want to allow or condone drinking in their teens. This may not be the case everywhere but from where I sit I doubt the maturity level in them to include the responsibility of drinking. It’s a tough call. I don’t know if any established age can be imposed across the board.
I do agree 100% with Michelle66, they can go to war and get kill at 18 but they cannot buy a beer...
The drinking age should be 18, weather they are responsible or not it’s all in the eye of the beholder and bottom line is if they are not responsible enough at 18 they are probably will not be at 21 either...
I worked for a company that was European based and owned and so a lot of my co-workers were European, mainly from Germany. They all said that they grew up drinking beer from childhood. As young as 10 years old when they were given that first glass, and none of them thought anything of it. It was part of their life and that was all.
Here in the U.S. we’ve just got so many different people with so many opinions that it would be very difficult to lower the drinking age. A lot of people might be shocked about what I just said about the people I knew from Germany, and there will be that spirit of what is “right” and what is “not right” that is forever debated in this country. I don’t think that the majority of people here would agree that a drinking age of 16 would be “right” enough to be legalized in the U.S.
There is also the matter of driving a car. In Europe many people use bicycles to get around, or walk or in the cities take a train or trolley etc. None of those things present as much as danger as driving would after a drink or two. So, there’s another reason that a lower drinking age probably wouldn’t work out here. It’s too dangerous.
Drinking age limit? Well, I would say it all depends on so many factors. However, on the whole I truly believe that the restriction should be left primarily on the understanding of the parents of the child more than the State itself.
As some others earlier remarked here, if children of 18 are enlisted and allowed and encouraged to fight the war, I see no harm in parents introducing the aspect of social drinking in their children. I recall having my first glass of wine at a celebration party at home at age 10 and I don’t think it has affected me negatively in any way.
Most parents know their children well. They could help them to learn how to drink responsibly. If today’s college/ high school kids are totally forbidden, they may do it on the sly. This is indeed so rampant in this country. They may even experiment with cheaper and more dangerous stuff. I even read somewhere that some kids not having a permit, buy bottles of mouth wash like Listerine{it supposedly has a small percentage of alcohol] to get high.
Wise parents would let their 16 or 18 year old begin with drinking wine or beer at-home parties. Then wait and watch how the child is able to handle it. If he/she overdoes it, then the paretns need to explain the consequences and perhaps temporarily stop the practice till the child learns the importance of being responsible. The child needs to understand that under no circumstance they would be allowed to violate his/her parent’s trust and good-will.
Yes, reduce to 18!!! That would partly eliminate the appeal for teens to want do something so seemingly forbidden. Although I find that 16 might be a little too young, I do find that 18 is appropriate. Teens that are age supposedly old enough to vote but not to drink a beer? Like everything else, and this is such a cliche, it’s all about balance and moderation. This is certainly what we preach in our home where, every now and then, our kids do take a sip of wine out our glasses, but they also see us drink wine for pleasure, not for binging. Allowing them to taste alcohol has certainly demystified a lot of notions about it and has most probably cured their curiosity. Who are we kidding? We all know that the age limit will not prevent anyone under 21 to drink if that is what they are bent on doing. Like with any other substance, some will consume reasonably, while a minority will get out of control, no matter what the rules are.
I don't know if it can be so easily changed in the culture we live in today. In the States we have established the drinking age as 21 because we have articulated that drinking is dangerous and we want to be sure people are safe. This is not to say that it seems virtually illogical when you can be sent to war but can't have a beer. However, if we quickly shifted the drinking age to 18 or 19, we might have more difficulty on our hands because of the mentality around drinking today among youth. There is a "forbidden" fruit issue to some degree but I certainly recall when I was 18 and you could legally drink there being plenty of bingeing and blackouts among my friends.
I am afraid that if the age was shifted we may have just more of what we see today - young people who somehow have convinced themselves that drinking to the point of passing out is just "part" of growing up. We need to change a whole mentality on what it really means to grow up - to become a person who sees a world bigger than themselves, who sees that they have a part in that world, that no one can replace who they are in the world and to live like that. A drinking age won't change that - and that is what needs to be changed - from the inside out.
The drinking age should be 18. My son just received his letter from The Selective Service. So he had to register for the draft, can join the military and even fight in a war but cannot have a beer. That seems silly to me. Also, taking some of the mystique out of underage drinking may curb some of the binge drinking that goes on.
Change it to 18.....it is the legal age of adulthood. The consequences should fall on the individual, but, the education of responsibility should start at home and continue through school, all the way through college.
Anonymous
In all honesty if you look at the European countries, they don’t have so much of a problem of kids sneaking out to drink because of the fact that parents allow them to drink alcohol with a meal while they are young. It’s not made such a big deal about not drinking so therefore the kids don’t sneak around.
Here in the US we make such a huge deal about the no-no’s that the kids feel that need to sneak around.
So, why not drop the age back down to 18 where it was years ago...
If a “child” is willing to defend the country than “he” should be allowed to drink. After all how or why would we request such a large commitment and not allow a bit of legal partaking!
If they are in college, working, or still living off the parents - then NO, let’s worry more about saving money, getting an education and getting out on your own before you start killing off those braincells!
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