Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered from 21?

Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered from 21?

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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Regarding Argument
Many Bars Over-Serve Alcohol
  • Gary Hall
    Trainer of Alcoholic Beverage Servers and Sellers

    I have served as a contracted trainer for Kentucky Alcoholic Beverage Control's STAR Curriculum for Responsible Server Training for the past five years. This was due to a city ordinance mandating that all vendors be trained every three years. Through a careful study reviewing drunk driving records and underage citations and onsite investigative aide inspections, this educational program (as well as other education interventions like TIPS, Safe Serve and Bar Code) have helped reduce down the underage drinking and drunk driving.

    Environmental strategies like social host ordinances, keg registration ordinances, mandatory alcoholic beverage server training ordinances and support of law enforcement and the judiciary would be much more impactive than following the "normative model" advocated by the College/University presidents.

    For more information, you may contact Sandra Watts at Kentucky Alcoholic Beverage Control Training Branch - (502) 564-4850.

    - Gary Hall August 20, 2008 7:57AM

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    • Abigail Adams
      Depends on what you mean by "controlled setting"

      I agree that it is very important to train alcohol vendors.

      But I don't agree with the argument that bars are not a controlled setting just because half of drunk drivers drank in a bar (I guess the other half drank at home) and that bars sometimes serve intoxicated people.

      What doesn't happen in a bar are things like passing out on the floor after drinking multiple shots and choking on your own vomit-- in most bars, someone is going to notice and take action! Similarly, to take sexual advantage of a drunk woman, you have to get her out of the bar and away from the watchful eyes of her friends rather than just dragging her into a nearby bedroom at the house party. It is also harder to ply her with a stronger drink then she is expecting, or refill it when she isn't looking if the bartender makes the drink and someone has to order each one.

      - Abigail Adams August 21, 2008 7:33PM

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Drinking Age Before 21?

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  • Choose Responsibility
    CHOOSE RESPONSIBILITY is a nonprofit organization founded to stimulate informed and dispassionate public discussion about the presence of alcohol in American... More

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