Quote :

"Durham — A retired college president is calling on states to lower the legal drinking age to help curb the problem of underage drinking. John McCardell, a president emeritus and a history professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, said lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 would remove the taboo status from alcohol for many teens. They could then learn how to drink responsibly at an earlier age, he said. "Drinking has been forced behind closed doors, underground, and in the case of academic institutions, off campus. There should be no surprise that serious, unsupervised, abusive binge drinking is taking place, creating an enormous health risk," McCardell said. States nationwide raised the legal drinking age from 18, 19 and 20 to 21 about two decades ago. Critics of the idea say lowering the drinking age would create more irresponsible behavior, not more responsibility, by teens. About 5,000 young people die every year in alcohol-related incidents, including homicides and car crashes, according to the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. Five Wakefield High School students, for example, have been killed since March 2006 in alcohol-related crashes. McCardell also suggested instituting a "drinking license" for teens, similar to obtaining a driver's license."

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1281361/

John McCardell founded Choose Responsibility, a group that promotes lowering the drinking age.
http://www.chooseresponsibility.org/

4/20/2007 6:10:40 AM

won't happen

4/20/2007 6:29:11 AM

No matter what they lower the age to, there is still going to be underage drinking. Even if it's 18, 16 and 17 year olds are still going to want to drink with their 18 year old buds.

4/20/2007 7:26:35 AM

Quote :

"remove the taboo status from alcohol for many teens. They could then learn how to drink responsibly at an earlier age, he said."

regardless of drinking age this is the root problem.....kids are told that alcohol is off limits until age x, and never taught to be responsible with it. So, they cut loose when they have the chance, instead of being educated and responsible with it.

4/20/2007 9:25:00 AM

Quote :

"Five Wakefield High School students, for example, have been killed since March 2006 in alcohol-related crashes."

4 of them were in one car that flipped off the overpass from 264.

I see no reason why they can't at least lower the age to 18 for anything available in a grocery store (beer and wine). If you can fight for your country you should be able to have a damn beer.

4/20/2007 10:29:54 AM

increased dwis and alcohol related deaths ftw!

4/20/2007 10:36:27 AM

^^agreed, and no matter how cliche that argument is, its still valid

nobody can argue against it, besides quoting statistics...

you know, if we raised the drinking age to 25, we could prevent x amount of deaths too

[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 10:38 AM. Reason : .]

4/20/2007 10:37:47 AM

a lower drinking age would allow kids to learn about alcohol at home, and not on their own in college. this would remove that taboo and reduce alcohol related deaths.

4/20/2007 10:38:23 AM

kids already learn about alcohol at home

4/20/2007 10:41:01 AM

yeah, when they sneak into their parents liquor cabinet.......

[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 10:43 AM. Reason : i mean cabnit.]

4/20/2007 10:42:45 AM

most kids do not learn about alcohol at home

4/20/2007 10:44:00 AM

so if they lowered the age to 18, kids would learn at home? why not lower it to 16, then they'd learn about it for a couple years before they went to college!

lets just legalize drugs to "remove the taboo status"

4/20/2007 10:45:56 AM

^my whole point is the legal age doesn't matter if the kids aren't educated at home at an earlier age....they're still going to go wild the first chance they get, whatever age that may be.

4/20/2007 10:57:43 AM

it used to be 18 in the not so distant past - the same problems existed then - there was an argument to raise it then and until it's invalidated i think this will be a hard battle to win

4/20/2007 10:58:47 AM

i knew people who got some of that out of their system in high school and therefore didnt go apeshit in college

some other people were kind of kept under control in high school and then at their first taste of freedom in college, went wild

i dont think the legal age really dictates that too much...also if 18 year olds want to drink, they'll be able to get beer/alcohol just like everybody else who wanted to drink when they were underage was able to

i just dont think its needed...maybe if you could somehow guarantee that they wouldnt be out driving around, but obviously you cant

4/20/2007 11:00:54 AM

while i agree with the 'old enough to go to war old enough to drink' statement i think you all know damn well that kids are NOT going to be more responsible with their drinking just because its legal to drink at 18.

i dont even hardly ever drink (never did until i was legal either) and i was educated enough about alcohol in HS before i was ever 18 and any of you that were smart enough to get into college were as well unless you live under a rock. Every freshman and sophomore in college who is 18, 19, 20 drinking understands the consequences and is just as likely to be irresponsible regardless.

So, while I agree moving it to 18 makes sense when looking at it from some angles, im pretty confident there would be basically no increase in responsibility, sorry.

[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 11:03 AM. Reason : ]

4/20/2007 11:02:30 AM

I think the only thing it would really decrease would be the number of underage drinking charges...but thats just a technicality

I mean you could raise the legal BAC limit from .08 to .18 and you'd have less DWIs...but I wouldnt feel any safer

4/20/2007 11:06:36 AM

exactly! lowering the drinking age to 10 would decrease the amount of underage drinking to next to nothing...but that doesnt mean you solved any problems.

4/20/2007 11:09:49 AM

The U.S. culture toward Alcohol and Alcohol education is what needs to change.

4/20/2007 11:10:23 AM

if people dont want to listen they wont learn no matter how many school programs, bulletin boards, tv commercials, parent interactions etc are out there. like i said, i fully understood the effects and consequences of alcohol by HS easily and I never drank until I was legal. So people claiming they werent 'educated' about it are stupid and just trying to find another way to blame society imo.

drugs and alcohol arent rocket science. Learn to start taking responsibility for your own actions people. 'omg another kid drove drunk and killed someone, we need more alcohol education, surely this 18 year old kid didnt understand what it would be like to drive drunk, its not his fault'

What our culture really needs is a backbone. people to act maturely and take responsibility for their actions.

[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 11:15 AM. Reason : ]

4/20/2007 11:13:18 AM

why not look at the example of other countries, like european countries, and china.

the drinking age there varies from 14 to 18, and they have a hell of a lot less drinking deaths and accidents by teens.

why wouldn't that work here in the US?

or are those of you in favour of a higher legal age saying that US teens are somehow genetically inferior when it comes to responsibility compared to european and chinese teens?

4/20/2007 11:17:40 AM

0EPII1 - the argument is that the culture towards alcohol is different over there

4/20/2007 11:19:45 AM

so why can't it (the alcohol culture in US) possibly change automatically to become like it is there? (given enough time, of course, like maybe a decade or two after lowering of age to 16)

4/20/2007 11:22:33 AM

once again while I am not for or against lowering the age, I fail to see any proof that lowering it will 'educate' kids anymore. EVERYONE I knew who wanted to drink in HS had easy access through their parents or friends or siblings. i know lots of people in HS whose parents would buy them and their friends alcohol if they drank it in the house under their supervision and were fairly 'strict' with them about that and tried to educate them.

However those same kids drank all over the place not just at their parents house and one ended up killing somebody and himself my sophomore year in college from drunk driving (he was probably a year away from being called up to the Men's US National soccer team too). so i dono, take that with a grain of salt, i just have been around drinking too long without drinking much myself and dont see how this change is going to make kids any better about drinking

4/20/2007 11:22:51 AM

If they lower the drinking age, I'm gonna make some investments in the alcohol industry

4/20/2007 11:23:49 AM

Won't happen, but I agree it should be lowered.

4/20/2007 11:23:56 AM

Pretty much everyone on heres parents could legally drink (in bars) at age 18 and most likely could get away with it younger than that. I know mine could.

4/20/2007 11:29:57 AM

yea. my parents grew up in souther upstate NY and just crossed the border into PA to drink (like 5 minute drive literally). and trust me, from the stories my dad's friends have told me they definitely werent any more responsible than kid's these days

[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 11:31 AM. Reason : ]

4/20/2007 11:30:21 AM

Quote :

"if people dont want to listen they wont learn no matter how many school programs, bulletin boards, tv commercials, parent interactions etc are out there. like i said, i fully understood the effects and consequences of alcohol by HS easily and I never drank until I was legal. So people claiming they werent 'educated' about it are stupid and just trying to find another way to blame society imo. "

when i talk about education, I'm not talking a school program, or one heart to heart with the parents about it...i'm talking a glass of wine with dinner when you're younger, and not proclaiming this is bad for you until you're age X. I fully understood the consequences when I was younger too, but I still drank, but never got totally shitfaced, and talked openly and even called my parents/other older relatives/friends numerous times when I thought I wasn't in good enough shape to drive....luckily I had a network of people who would allow me to ask for help w/o chastising me forever about it.



[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 11:43 AM. Reason : .]

4/20/2007 11:42:51 AM

well my parents never told me it was 'bad for me'. i really dont think most kids think that like. like its going to kill you if youre under 21 or something. anyone i hung out with knew that was just the legal drinking age.

and the fact that you would not drive if you thought you were drunk is not a level of education, rather intelligence and maturity imo. Heck, we still have arguments on here about driving drunk and the people at fault are well aware of the consequences of that. once again it comes back to being responsible and mature as a person, not so much understanding alcohol imo.

4/20/2007 11:47:55 AM

Quote :

"Heck, we still have arguments on here about driving drunk and the people at fault are well aware of the consequences of that. once again it comes back to being responsible and mature as a person, not so much understanding alcohol imo. "

imo its like the whole abstinence sex ed thing.....they spend so much time telling you not to have sex, they don't cover how to have safe sex, knowing that some kids will still do it....then wonder what's wrong.....that's just US culture.

4/20/2007 11:53:06 AM

I think, with reguards to european countries, one of the main reasons that they dont have many drinking accidents in because their cities are set up for public transportation, and you are allowed to be drunk in public. I spent many night wandering home piss drunk in Budapest without having to worry because every other college age kid was doing the same thing. And if I was too drunk to walk, i could hop on bus that would take me home. It's much different here, If i got drunk and wanted to get home, i certiainly couldn't walk, and the public transportation just isn't there. So people feel like they have no other choice but to drive.

4/20/2007 12:12:06 PM

Quote :

"in Vermont"

I should have guessed. That state is screwed up in so many ways with its laws.

4/20/2007 12:21:31 PM

why bother to change it, it's not like the age being 21 stops anybody who's under 21

4/20/2007 3:00:42 PM

Quote :

"i knew people who got some of that out of their system in high school and therefore didnt go apeshit in college some other people were kind of kept under control in high school and then at their first taste of freedom in college, went wild "

i didn't drink until i was about 20 because i wasn't particularly interested in most of the parties where underaged drinking occured. only when a decent number of my friends could get ahold of alcohol legally did i start drinking. and never was it any sort of dumbass binge drinking.

[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 3:04 PM. Reason : .]

4/20/2007 3:02:58 PM

Quote :

"A retired college president is calling on states to lower the legal drinking age to help curb the problem of underage drinking."

This is stupid logic. The 18 year old kids that would be the problem would still be a problem... the issue is irresponsibility, not age. Unfortunately, there is no good way to test and legislate "responsibility" so we have to settle for age. Do some mature 18 year olds get screwed over? Sure.

4/20/2007 4:48:10 PM

Lowering it to 18 is only going to make it a hell of a lot easier for underaged high schoolers to acquire beer. And who do we want our underaged drinkers to primarily be, 16-17 year olds or 19-20 year olds?

4/20/2007 5:01:14 PM

I think some of us are just going to be irresponsible binge drinkers. And that attitude isn't just reserved for alcohol. We tend to be reckless in other ways, as well. The legal drinking age and drug/aclohol education in school have no effect on these types of people. And don't hate on us. We keep things interesting.

4/20/2007 5:02:38 PM

keep it at 21

if you want to drink legally at 18, take a senior trip from high school to australia or something like i did

4/20/2007 5:09:24 PM

I believe that it should be lowered... that way alcohol and its effects would have to be presented earlier. Once people get to college they're more inclined to drink & doing so underage and getting away with it is part of the thrill. I think lowering the age to 18 (such that essentally all college students are able to drink legally) is a great idea.

4/20/2007 5:09:30 PM

^ but dont you think the thrill of underage drinking will just get pushed back to high school instead of college? you're still going to have a period of time where some kids want to go wild and binge and whatnot...i'd prefer they do it when they're older rather than younger

4/20/2007 5:13:45 PM

In every respect we treat people who are 18 as adults. They face adult charges, can adopted children, become legal guardians, can wed without consent. The law treats them as responsible adults in that sense, but yet they are not responsible enough to drink?

I don't know about y'all, but when I turned 21, I didn't automatically gain some weird responsibilty trait when it comes to alcohol.

^I'd rather they do it when there is at least some semblance of parental guidance and not when they are more or less free from authority figures.

[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 5:16 PM. Reason : .]

4/20/2007 5:15:38 PM

But whats to say the parents would be supervising it? What high school kids want to get drunk around their parents? I'd rather them have 3 more years of life maturity

Also you'd just have 14 year old kids with fake IDs

I think you'd have all the same problems/issues you do now, it would just shift the time frame

4/20/2007 5:18:24 PM

That is not at all what I was saying.

4/20/2007 5:20:52 PM

how do you figure there would be some semblance of parental guidance? just because they probably live at home?

4/20/2007 5:22:31 PM

if you're old enough to get your ass blown off in a war, you're old enough to buy a beer

(now getting a driver's licenses, on the other hand, should be way harder to get)

4/20/2007 5:23:28 PM

just to reiterate, its personal responsibility and maturity that determine how people react to things like alcohol not education and drinking age as myself and many others have said in this thread and i thoroughly believe that

[Edited on April 20, 2007 at 5:25 PM. Reason : ]

4/20/2007 5:24:18 PM

^^i guess one of the reasons i dont think it should be lowered does have to do with kids drinking and driving...so i would probably be more open to this law if kids couldnt get their licenses until a later age

however drunk kids steal cars

4/20/2007 5:25:59 PM

hahaha

sober kids steal cars, too

4/20/2007 5:50:01 PM

SET 'EM UP!

4/20/2007 6:03:53 PM