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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Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered from 21?
No, it should not.
I thought about addressing this issue with my "professional hat" firmly in place, but am choosing the simpler path of addressing it wearing my over riding "parent hat". As a Certified Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Professional, I could quote you lots of stats that indicate lowering the drinking age makes no sense whatsoever, but evidently a group of well-educated college professionals are not swayed by clear black and white information.
As a parent of 5 now adult children, perhaps this question will be more impactful: What about your average 18 year old makes you think this young man or woman would make a more responsible choice at the age of 18 than at the age of 21?!! I was 18 once, my husband and children were all 18 once. Our experience as individuals was that eighteen on alcohol can't possibly be less dangerous than eighteen without the effects of this mind altering drug.
Think, people! My best method while holding on to the reins of a racing team of hormone happy teens was to delay onset and hang tough for as long as possible.
And excuse me, what do voting and joining the military have to do with drinking? These are 3 totally different rights and responsibilities. The right to each is not in any way related to the right to the other two.
There are so many more promising methods (some we've even tried and found to work!) to curbing under age drinking. Lowing the drinking age to 18 would be foolishness. How about we try some things that work!
llv
- llv September 2, 2008 7:40AM
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Side: No
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Reply to liv
I am really offended by a couple of your terms. For example "hormone happy teams". I happen to be a teenager, and I feel that this is very rude. I understand you are a parent, but, being a parent, you should know HOW MUCH OF AN IMPACT YOUR ACTIONS AND WORDS HAVE ON YOUR CHILDREN. YOU are the number one role model. I don't care for alcohol , and yet my parents have offered it to me on more than one occasion, and I am well below the drinking age. This doesn't mean anything though, because they are trying to teach me to be responsible with substances that can impair judgement. If the parents would educate their kids , not that alcohol is bad, but that alcohol should be taken in moderation, as with everything, then all of these alcohol-related accident statistics would be lowered. I believe that the drinking age should in fact be lower than the driving age, because then the children know how to handle alcohol before they drive a vehicle drunk. If the alcohol age is 5 years above driving age, then those who have just become legal for drinking will be overconfident in their driving abilities, and THIS will cause accidents, not the over-consumption of alcohol. It is the overconfidence of those who are legal drinking age.
- debator101
June 11, 2009 8:08PM
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Side: Yes
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