Do you remember your first taste of alcohol? How old were you? Twenty-one? All 50 states currently demand that their citizens reach age 21 before they can legally drink. But there's a growing movement that says mandatory minimum laws may do more harm than good. When determining the right date when a young person can take one of their final steps towards personal responsibility and freedom, what's the right answer?
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Let's keep it as is
No Education = Bad Decisions
Who is a 21 year old supposed to learn appropriate alcohol consumption from? He's long since left home and it can't be in college as all the college presidents are saying. You have a generation of young people learning about alcohol from other 21 year olds at keggers and bars. It should be no surprise that college students are dying from alcohol consumption. Lowering the drinking age to 18 allows people to learn about alcohol from adults. Not by trial and error and from peers.
Your comment about the alcohol industry is dismissive. There is no benefit of this to the alcohol industry if adults of this country are allowed to teach the younger generation how to drink responsibly.
- ltp
August 25, 2008 11:52AM
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Maybe not...
When i first read your comment, i was sure that it was a bad idea. My gut instinct told me that lowering the drinking age would only allow more alcohol in the hands of children.
Then i applied your theory to my own life. When i did this, the results were favorable and seemed to make sense. Perhaps i was mistaken.
I then realized that i had intelligent and responsible parents. Imagine the repercussions if the parents were not seriously involved in their child's transition to drinking. A uninformed and unsupervised transition at that age could have extremely harmful side effects.
Because of the possibility that the parents will not necessarily be a positive role model for their child, the drinking age should be set at an age where the person drinking alcohol is able to make rational and intelligent decisions on their own.
Perhaps the drinking age should not be lowered.
- Jefe32
September 13, 2008 6:14PM
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