Back to 18?

[meldroc]

Back to 18?

It's been 20 years that America has had a minimum federal drinking age. The policy began to gain momentum in the early 1980s, when the increasingly influential Mothers Against Drunk Driving added the federal minimum drinking age to its legislative agenda. By 1984, it had won over a majority of the Congress.

...

Over the next three years every state had to choose between adopting the standard or forgoing federal highway funding; most complied. A few held out until the deadline, including Vermont, which fought the law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (and lost).

Twenty years later, the drawbacks of the legislation are the same as they were when it was passed.

...

The final drawback is pretty straightforward: It makes little sense that America considers an 18-year-old mature enough to marry, to sign a contract, to vote and to fight and die for his country, but not mature enough to decide whether or not to have a beer.

Yeah, I'm with them. The drinking age laws have done little to curb teenage drinking, and instead worked to destroy individual liberty. It's time to bring the drinking age back to 18. I'm done with this nanny-state crap.

[SteppingRazor]

1. I agree.

It's a stupid, useless law that only serves to get college-aged men and women thrown in jail for a relatively harmless (in the short-run, at least) activity. If you can get killed in Iraq for no damn reason at all, you should be able to walk into a bar and get a beer. If you're old enough and mature enough to decide who should run this country, you should be able to have a cocktail, fer chrissake.

In the words of that fellow who's in my avatar box, "These Body Nazis have had their way long enough."

[monmouth]

2. Oh that's a good one, we don't have enough kids getting killed on the roads already???? n/t

[meldroc]

6. I don't care.

Read that again. I. DON'T. CARE. Liberty is more important. If our government's going to be sending our young people to a senseless war to be blown to bits with IEDs, those young people should at least be given the respect of being allowed a beer.

I don't want authoritarian assholes forcing us into a stupid war. I don't want authoritarian assholes listening to my phone calls. I don't want authoritarian assholes cooking our elections, harassing minorities, banning abortions or persecuting homosexuals. And I don't want authoritarian assholes telling grown adults what we're allowed to put in our own bodies.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. One of my students was killed

when the truck he was riding in careened off the road because the driver was drunk. The driver was 16. Those who would drink and drive often are too young to drink even if the legal age was 18.

The key, in this case, was to persecute bootleggers. At the time of this tragedy, the county where I lived was dry. Bootleggers flourished. And since they were doing something illegal in the first place, I don't think they ever bothered to card anyone who wanted to buy a case of beer. Interestingly enough, soon after this accident, the county went wet. Regular bars and liquor stores opened up. And the number of wrecks and fatalities from drunk driving went way down. I think it was because legitimate businessmen follow the law as far as not serving intoxicated or underage people.

[Clark2008]

14. Then move up the driving age to 18

Most kids are killed because they drive too fast and reckless, with or without alcohol.

[maveric]

3. MA and NH lowered the legal age to 18 in 1972.

And after that many of my young friends died in auto accidents due to drinking.
18 year olds may be mature enough to drink, but the combination of that with driving can be a problem.

[meegbear]

4. If I had to wait until I was 21, so do they!

[Squatch]

5. You can join the army, go into combat, but not have a beer when you get back

:shrug:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. gates has the answer. Keep them there until they get much, much older.

see? no more problem.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. MADD approaches the war on alcohol like Bush approaches the war on drugs

Most euro, asian and african cultures don't
a) demonize alcohol
b) ban kids from learning about it
c) make it "cool" as a result for teens to drink.

most euro cultures add a little wine to water for kids, and don't make a big thing about it. Here, you'd be accused of child abuse. There, they train from early ages that alcohol is meant to be consumed with meals and as a result is healthy. Here, we have more binge drinkers in high school and college because it is turned into ripe fruit just out of reach.

Our culture's approach to drugs, alcohol, sex are idiotic, self-defeating, and just plain wrong

[MonkeyFunk]

9. Nope

I lost too many friends too early, back when I was young.

The drinking age is fine as it stands now.

[RB TexLa]

10. Don't states just ignore the law?

[meldroc]

11. Not if they want highway funds.

That's yet another bad precedent this law set - the ability of the Federal government to shove bullshit laws down the states' throats by threatening to withhold funds.

Federal highway funding to states requires they impose a 21 drinking age, and that they have a certain number of prosecutions for this every year. Total fucking crock of shit if you ask me.

[RB TexLa]

12. I remeber when Louisiana gave in and changed the law, no one enforced it

[AllegroRondo]

13. Some military bases let you drink at 18

Ft Bliss, Texas, definitely does. (or did when I was there about 10 years ago)

Technically, its federal property not subject to state laws, and the post commander could set the age at whatever he wanted. He didnt want young soldiers driving across the border to Mexico where the drinking age was 18 and trying to drive back.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

16. Dry counties have a problem with drunk driving

Around here, most counties are dry, and people have to drive to Missouri to get booze. There have been a lot of wrecks with people driving back with a sixpack while sampling some. One really bad wreck killed a man who was to be married the next day. It was right by my road, and I had to walk past the wreckage in order to get to my house. The beer was scattered all over the road. I couldn't help but think that if there were no "dry counties" fewer people would be driving drunk.

[Igel]

17. I disagree strongly with a *drinking* age. A *buying* age, I

could handle with no problem.

You're 15, fine, drink. You're likely to be with friends or family, but you can't buy it legally. Kids need to be able to get progressively drunker, over numerous instances, to learn when and where 2 beers is ok or completely inappropriate. And it's better they do it when they're 14 or 15 at home or at a friend's house than 21 in a bar 15 miles from home.

I'd also make DUI law's tougher. Hit or kill somebody while drunk, it's not involuntary. You choose to drink, it means you *choose* to incapacitate yourself, and all the possible consequences are completely voluntary by implication.

[AllegroRondo]

19. Wisconsin allows that

you can drink at any age, as long as your parents are there and buy it for you. I used to go to the bar with my dad for a beer at 16.

[mdmc]

18. 18

agreed:kick: