Do you think the drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18?

@ straightjacket_who32
It honestly doesn't make sense to me why the drinking age is 21 in America / other parts of the world. If someone could present sound reasoning for it, I may change my mind, but at this point I'm not seeing it.

I also know so many of my friends who are surpassing alcohol to be able to drive, which is a really great thing; it's teaching younger people to be responsible about drinking and driving, which I view as extremely positive. It's just the irresponsible people who do drink and drive and such that ruin it and cause consequences for others.

@ straightjacket_who32
A lot of the drinking laws, from what I understand, were altered to become stricter mostly because of the group MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving, for anyone in the conversation potentially unaware of the group) having incredibly strong lobbying efforts. I'm pretty sure they were the reason the drinking age went up from 18 to 21 since legislation for the minimum age was passed in 1984 and MADD was formed in like, 1980. The fact of the matter is that drunk driving crashes and fatalities, from what I can tell, did steadily decline after the drinking age was raised. That and along with making it so that places have to ID and so forth.

I would also like to say that as much as I wish people went through the thought process of the kind of, "I can barely walk, so I shouldn't drive" thing? I saw a lot of people at parties thinking they were okay. Although I also have a completely untested idea that at least part of the problem with some people not realizing they're drunk is how being drunk is talked about in health class. The first time I was ever drunk, I genuinely thought I wasn't even tipsy, because I was waiting for the 'beer goggles' effect to kick in. Which, unless I'm shitfaced, I don't get that. I just get where I feel like I'm fine and then I stand up, try to walk, and then my body decides not to listen. So I think at least some people think that because their vision isn't impaired that they're not drunk and so therefore they can drive.

@ CallusedSilk
That makes sense: people expecting beer goggles. Thing is if people were drinking at younger ages and driving later, the story would be different in many cases. If you're drunk and don't have access to a car, most likely you will either walk (and get arrested for being publicly intoxicated and/or realize how much you're struggling) or have an adult drive you (and the awkwardness sets in therefore you avoid drinking that much later) or you stay the night (and experience the awfulness that is walks of shame and waking up hungover not in your own bed). You learn the limits of alcohol in general before you can drive a potentially deadly thing.

In my opinion, I would allow 17 year olds to buy low alcohol content things like light beer and wine coolers and at 19 have alcohol be completely accessible. On the other hand I would have driver license age raised to 18 and have a drug and alcohol class as a requirement before you can have that privilege. To me, it seems like that's the balance between the two things. You experience alcohol so the "forbidden fruit" factor decreases, then you drive, then you can have a harder drink. By that point people would be used to the effects and know when they get beyond stupid.

The bad thing is no one will ever 100% eliminate drunk driving incidents. There will always be that one person that says they're fine when they're one sip away from blacking out.

I don't think the age matter, if kids want to break the law and drink before time, they will find a way to do it, and in some cases they will sneak a bottle in the house, go to their rooms and drink until they get drunk, right under their parents noses.

Personally, I wish people would wait to they're 21. It allows young people's brains to fully develop, it gives a buffer zone for people (especially college students) just out of the house to do idiotic things without drugs involved, and lowers the amount of accidents due to drunk driving.

However, I don't believe my personal opinion should be law. I think 18 is the most reasonable age legally. I think adults should be allowed to make their own decisions, even if I think they're dumb ones. It would also remove idiotic policies at colleges like "You can't be drunk in the dorms...but if you're drunk come home...but you can't be drunk because you'll get in trouble...but be safe and come home."

@ straightjacket_who32
Somehow totally didn't get told about this. (damn you, mibba)

I'm wary about making people wait until 18 in order to be able to drive. I say this, because a lot of people need to be able to drive in order to get jobs. Some people start working part-time jobs at 16 and if they can't get to that job (and a lot of areas in America don't have good public transportation or just any at all available) then they're stuck. And maybe in some cases they need that job in order to afford anything at all.

I'm not sure if it's as much the 'forbidden fruit' thing that we've got going on (since alcohol is still fairly easy to get a hold of if you have older friends or permissive parents or friends with permissive parents), but rather how we advertise liquor that's a problem. Think about any liquor ad that you've ever seen. It always shows drinking as the most exciting, enchanting, sexy time you'll ever have.

Forbidden fruit, to me, implies that people want it simply because we told them they can't/shouldn't. Kind of like when someone posts 'don't share this', then people are more likely to share it. Plus, I know advertising can have a huge affect. After all, cigarettes have been legal at 18 for a very long time but the amount of smokers/new smokers have slowly declined, in most part because of cutting way back on allowing tobacco companies to advertise and replacing those advertisements with warnings.

Hell, we don't even really see many people smoking in movies or tv shows anymore. Drinking, on the other hand, is in the majority of them, with the exception of things targeted to kids like, 13 and under.

@ blondie52
We can't base our laws around the fact that people are going to break them. If that were the case then we wouldn't have any laws, because there's going to be a small segment of people that won't care about the consequences and break the law anyway.

@ May Lewis
This sort of makes sense, but at the same time, I have seen the data showing that raising the drinking age from 18 to 21 in America did lower the amount of fatalities from drunk driving that did occur. I'm also not sure why a dorm would ever remove the rule about being unable to drink alcohol in a dorm. It increases the likelihood that something will get damaged, and no one bats an eye at the fact that you can't smoke in pretty much any dorm I've ever heard of, and that is legal at 18.

So basically even if the drinking age was at 18, the dorm could just lay out a thing like, "You can't smoke, you can't drink and you can't have pets in here." After all, you don't own that dorm. You're essentially renting the place for an entire semester or an entire year, which makes the college your landlord.

CallusedSilk:

@ May Lewis
This sort of makes sense, but at the same time, I have seen the data showing that raising the drinking age from 18 to 21 in America did lower the amount of fatalities from drunk driving that did occur. I'm also not sure why a dorm would ever remove the rule about being unable to drink alcohol in a dorm. It increases the likelihood that something will get damaged, and no one bats an eye at the fact that you can't smoke in pretty much any dorm I've ever heard of, and that is legal at 18.

So basically even if the drinking age was at 18, the dorm could just lay out a thing like, "You can't smoke, you can't drink and you can't have pets in here." After all, you don't own that dorm. You're essentially renting the place for an entire semester or an entire year, which makes the college your landlord.

I can't speak for any University other than my own, but it is the policy of my University that college students who are 21 and older may have alcohol and drink in the dorms. They, of course, can come home if they've been out drinking and won't get in trouble for drinking. There is a weird in between place for college students who are 18-20 because the college wants students to be safe, but cannot say "If you are drunk, come home. You won't be punished. We want you to be safe." I think we would all agree that if someone is underage, we would prefer them drunk at home rather than drunk and at a party. I support the right of the university to ban drinking in dorms (I don't think they should ban going out to a bar and coming home drunk), but it hasn't been my experience, so I can't really speak on that. I wish my school did not have to give out different policies for the same action, in order to comply with a law that doesn't make sense.

I agree with you that raising the drinking age results in lowered drunk driving convictions. I do wonder how much of it is specifically due to the 18-21 drinking ban though. For example, if we banned drinking for people between 21-24, we would also see a drop in drunk driving because the pool of people who could be driving drunk would be smaller. I personally wish people would wait until they are 21 to drink, but I don't think there's a compelling enough reason for that to be law.

@ May Lewis
I would never want to deter people from getting home safe (although, especially when it comes to house parties, I'd prefer if the people drinking stayed there until they sobered up to limit the danger even further), but what I was specifically talking about was the ability to drink in the dorms. No landlord has a say about what you do outside their property, but they do have a say about what's done in and to their property.

The fact of the matter is that, in America, since there are those long term statistics about lowering the deaths of drunk driving statistics (not even talking about convictions, I'm talking about accidents and death, especially since I don't think convictions would go down since there's now just a new category for convictions to be in), then that is compelling evidence to keep it as law.

@ CallusedSilk
I addressed drinking in dorms. It is policy, at least in my school, that if you are over 21, you may drink in the dorms. You may not drink in dorms if you are under 21. I assume, because the school clearly doesn't have a problem with drinking in dorms in theory, that rule is in place so that the college does not violate the law about drinking under 21, which makes sense because if I'm a landlord I'm not going to condone illegal activity in my apartment. Were the drinking age 18, our policy would be you can drink in the dorms as long as you're 18. Like you said, if drinking is not allowed in dorms at some schools for anyone (or only allowed for people over the drinking age), I have no problem with that. It is a completely fair policy that allow landlords to protect themselves legally and to protect their property.

You are absolutely right that the smaller the pool of people who can drink, the fewer accidents due to drunk driving. What I meant (and I didn't make that clear and that's completely my fault), is that there is no compelling reason for the age to be 21 as opposed to another age. Drunk driving accidents decrease as you age. For example the highest rate of drunk driving accidents right now is for drivers 21-24, followed by 25-34, and so on. Presumably, drunk drivers 18-21 contributed to a large number of accidents in the 1980s when they could legally drink (I couldn't find a statistic at first glance, but I would guess about 20-25% of drunk driving accidents), but there is no compelling case for 21 as opposed to 24 or 34 or ever for that matter. The case for a drinking age of 24 could be made because it would get most people out of college before they have access to alcohol (and eliminate about half of accidents), or 34 because most people hopefully have a job that could be endangered if they were caught drunk driving and wouldn't consider the risk worth it (and eliminate 2/3 of accidents). I am not in favor of arbitrary ages limits. I think the most fair system would be either 18, or ban alcohol altogether.

@ May Lewis
Except I also pointed out that it's not uncommon for smoking to be banned in many dorms and apartments, so it's not just the law that's being considered when it comes to what's allowed in an establishment.

The case for 21 is that it's a compromise to save lives. You've made no compelling argument to lower it.

@ CallusedSilk
I know that landlords can ban smoking. They typically ban it throughout the building, not on a person to person basis. If an apartment wants to ban smoking, cool. If an apartment wants to ban drinking, cool. However, a drinking ban that allows some people living in an apartment to drink and others not to with no other difference than age (assuming that there are no mitigating factors like a hypothetical alcohol deposit similar to a pet deposit), is likely due to the law. Banning one person from drinking in an apartment who is under 21 and allowing another person in the same apartment to drink because they are 21 is most likely due to the landlord not wanting people to break the law in his/her apartment building.

The case for 21 is the same case for an even higher drinking age or banning alcohol altogether (neither of which I would personally mind). Please don't think that I don't care about drunk driving accidents, sexual assaults involving alcohol, or what alcoholism can do to a family. I personally don't drink and am not ever planning to start. I'm not so much making a case for 18 as I am saying that choosing 21 is a completely arbitrary decision. I could make an argument for banning alcohol until 22 because it would do more to keep it off college campuses. I could make an argument for 24 because people under 24 are most likely to be the drivers in drunk driving accidents. I could happily make an argument for banning it altogether because I don't think alcohol is doing anyone such overwhelming good that makes it worth the downsides. Any of those numbers would make just as much sense as 21. However, because the age of majority is 18, if I'm going to pick a number out of a hat, the arbitrary number I'm going to choose is 18.

My mom gave me my first drink around 15 years old and I didn't really care for it much Dad and I still don't. I drink maybe once or twice a year is that - but I don't think lowering the legal age to drink is going to cause any problems I think it's going to make the more it doesn't even have kids who are 18 for their friends who are under 18 and that can stand on the 14 years old. And I'm not saying that lightly either because I understand why kids to the appeal in it because I see these reasons behind it be like the way it feels. But if we're being honest I'd rather they do pot brownies you.

To be honest, it depends on the maturity but I seriously think they should keep it as it is, 21. Because sure there are a lot of mature 18 year olds but there are also a lot of immature 18 year olds in the world who do reckless things and they don't drink all that responsibly. At least around where I live they don't...

It's 19 where I live, 18 a province over (I'm from Canada) and I honestly wish that Canada had the "21" drinking age thing. Basically because of what she listed above^^

Smoking on the other hand... I've been smoking since I was 13 so... I feel as if 18/19 is a perfect enough age to purchase cigarettes on your own.

I live in California and I think the legal age for everything should be 18. It was recently passed into local law that you'll need to be 21 instead of 18 to smoke. Meaning it's legal for me today, but will be illegal once the bill is in effect. My reasoning for smoking, drinking, etc. being legal at 18 is the following:

- You can enlist in the military and get shot and killed at 18
- For crimes you count as an adult at 18, but sometimes even younger than that
- For school and work, one is considered as an adult at 18
- The same for most health care, though one may still receive certain benefits until like 25/26

How can a country expect us to pay our own health care, get a job, handle our own schooling, and even let us sign our lives away or place us behind bars when the brain isn't even finished developing but deny us a smoke and a drink? Basically we are treated like adults, but then given the rights of children when we want to have ~fun~

Not to mention that sex before 18 is illegal in plenty of places but I don't see any teen mom's being arrested for sex like minor are arrested for underage drinking. I suppose the former is harder to enforce, but still. It makes no sense to enforce only certain laws.

I'm not gonna lie, I always thought the drinking age was 18. Lol
That's because I had started at 15-16 years old.

18 dimply for the fact when i go to a party next year I'll be drinking legally. If it actually was 18

I think in this day and age it's not the same at all as it used to be. I mean, before when there was a drinking age it was mostly followed. Now? The drinking age here in the UK is 18 but 99% of my friends started drinking at 15-16. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that's how it's like. If laws were stricter, if control was stricter, then I think that maybe 19 would be a good age across the globe. It's somewhat in the middle. But at this point unfortunately it's like laws-schmaws, no-one cares. :/

I still find it quite comical, how there's such a huge difference between Denmark and America (along with a lr countries). - In Denmark you can buy light alcohol (beer, ciders, wine ect.) when you're sixteen, and then can stronger alcohol (shots, vodka, whiskey ect.) when you're 18. - Then you can buy cigarettes when you're 18, then same goes with going to clubs: You need to be 18.

However, most of the times, young people under 18 can buy strong alcohol, cigarettes and come into clubs and buy drinks. (even though there are bouncers. The girls especially just need to be a Little slutty, and they're secured to get in.)

When it comes to driver licenses, you can get a license for a small scooter when you're 16, and to car, motorcycle, truck ect. when you're 18 (but for cars, you can start the classes three months before turning 18). - In Denmark they want to lower the driving age to 17, meaning than you basically can begin when you're 16. This would as an example, be the worst thing to do. Young people in Denmark (and probably other countries as well) are so irresponsible. Statistics also says that the highest number of deaths in traffic, goes to the young drivers (18-22).

Sorry, this was really off-topic.

I don't know what changing the drinking age will do honestly. It doesn't matter if it's 18 or 21, people are still going to drink. I used to drink when I was 18-19. It's really not hard for underage people to get access to alcohol. Changing the age would make no difference.

Although, if you're allowed to join the military at 18, surely you should be allowed to drink?