18 versus 21

[sephir]

Its 19 here, but any 18 year old can just drive an hour or two and buy as much alcohol as they want legally from Quebec or from any US border town. Honestly, I think the drinking age should be what it like in the UK, you can order alcohol in restaurants at age 16 but cannot buy from store until 18. I think that makes the most sense because most restaurants have in place guidelines on the condition of the people they can continue service to. My bartender friend had to sign this waiver when he got his liscence saying that he is not allowed to serve alcohol to anyone who is totally smashed (or something to that degree).


But ya, law here is 19 but the first time I got drunk I was 8. So the laws don't really have that big of an effect-or at least from what I've seen.

[Xajii]

While I don't buy much into the "drinking is a rebellion thing" as mentioned previously I think there would be less instances of alc poisoning/drunken death if the legal age were lowered. Generally doing something legal is a much more controlled and stable environment than when you're breaking the law, there's more cause to be in abnormal situations if you have to be sketchy about your drinking. More kids would stay at home if the age was 18 cause their parents wouldn't bitch at them about drinking underage (this only applies to some households but still), and in a college environment everyone drinks so fucking much anyway that it wouldn't change a thing.

Drunk driving isn't as much about age as attitude. There's just as much a chance for an American guy to think he's a badass enough man to drive at high speed with no regard while intoxicated at 18 as at 21. The reason you see statistics of other countries with lower DUI rates isn't because the drinking age is 18 but because their societies aren't as fucking stupid as ours.

I wonder if lowering the drinking age incites kids to start doing it younger, though. Most people in my particular schools seemed to start drinking around fresh-soph year, by senior year a majority of the kids in our class drank occasionally. I know a couple kids who did in middle school, but I see posters on this board who say they drank and smoked in fifth grade. While it's sort of arbitrary whether or not drinking will harm the development of the brain btwn 18 and 21 I think it's safe to say drinking at such a young age is definitely harmful not just to biological growth but psychologically speaking as well.

The way I see it 21 year olds aren't really inherently smarter than 18 year olds, it's just about experience. By 21 most drinkers will have been drinking for at least a couple years and probably had enough experience to not fuck themselves up as much and (hopefully) avoid things like drunk driving. Changing it to 18 would mean this process happens earlier. Could be a good thing or a bad thing.

[Alleya]

In general, you have to tread very carefully when citing other countries as examples in a debate like this. This is confirmation bias territory. Even a place as similar to the US as the UK or Canada can have very key cultural differences that make it hard to simply translate statistics.

I just want to reiterate that alcohol has the same negative effects no matter how old you are when you drink it. But when you combine alcohol with poor judgment, it just makes things worse. Since there is no real way to make someone take a maturity test before they're allowed to buy the stuff, having a higher age limit simply makes more sense.

[Grievear]

I wrote a long paper on this my freshman year in college, arguing that 18 would actually lower the amount of alcohol related deaths. I had a ton of sources for support, I wish I still had the paper somewhere. I remember one stat that we had the oldest legal drinking age in the west and the highest DUI rate/accident rate per capita of any country. Most kids still live with their parents at 18, so parents are able to teach their children how to safely consume alcohol, whereas at 21, you are out on your own and usually don't have your parent to lean on.

I wouldn't doubt that it would lower the statistics. But not right away, you'd prolly see a spike high in the stats, and then a gradual decline.

I love it when someone responds to a researched argument with their personal opinion as if it was fact.

[archibaldcrane]

By the time I was 21 I was a much more sensible drinker, but if I'd started at 15 I would've been much more sensible at 18.

The law is just more of an unrealistic insult to young adults.

For every one of you 'sensible young adults who experiment to become responsible' there are dozens who are not you, and continue the spiral well into the years where it's legal to drink.

Fuck 'young adults.'

My point is that it wouldn't really be possible to drink with more frequency or more excess than I and basically everyone I knew in a 45-thousand person campus did from the instant their feet hit the dorm floor at 18. Removing the "taboo" (of "you're an adult but you still can't do something!") couldn't possibly have caused more drinking in my college experience. There was no where to go up. None of us in the dorm had cars, so drunk driving was a non-issue at the time in my "young adult" experience.

Basically I'm never going to say "oh, restrict an adult's rights for their protection or to prevent them from breaking other laws? I'm for that." I don't think that lowering the age would have an appreciable affect on alcohol consumption for college students at UW-Madison, which is the human experience I'm familiar with.

[Woozie]

By the time I was 21 I was a much more sensible drinker, but if I'd started at 15 I would've been much more sensible at 18.

The law is just more of an unrealistic insult to young adults.

For every one of you 'sensible young adults who experiment to become responsible' there are dozens who are not you, and continue the spiral well into the years where it's legal to drink.

Fuck 'young adults.'

My point is that it wouldn't really be possible to drink with more frequency or more excess than I and basically everyone I knew in a 45-thousand person campus did from the instant their feet hit the dorm floor at 18. Removing the "taboo" (of "you're an adult but you still can't do something!") couldn't possibly have caused more drinking in my college experience. There was no where to go up. None of us in the dorm had cars, so drunk driving was a non-issue at the time in my "young adult" experience.

Basically I'm never going to say "oh, restrict an adult's rights for their protection or to prevent them from breaking other laws? I'm for that." I don't think that lowering the age would have an appreciable affect on alcohol consumption for college students at UW-Madison, which is the human experience I'm familiar with.

I don't think it's fair to base your judgment on a college campus >.>

[archibaldcrane]

I don't think it's fair to base your judgment on a college campus >.>

When you hear about "out of control teens" and "problem underage drinking" - who do you hear about?

Young college students. They are the visible portion of the "young adult population" that as a group are the ones targeted as problem drinkers and the ones that if you're going to legislate, that's who you legislate towards.

(I am not, in any way, saying that 18-20 year olds who don't go to college don't drink, or don't drink to excess, or wouldn't be affected by alcohol legislation.)

[Kuya]

Legal age is allegedly 18 here. When i went to visit New York and found out i couldn't drink till 21, i was uberly pissed... and yet i still drank my ass off.

Bars served me alcohol, i got alcohol from practically everywhere in New York, it made no difference. But if the arguments for and agaisnt keeping the law at 21 are poor, then i'd usually agree with the idea that the law should just be left alone. However, i am, for one, biased in so far as i'm not 21 yet and i'd like to not be inconvenienced in the future if i were to ever go to the US and drink again. I would also choose to lower the age because i simply find the concept to be rather arbitrary, and filled with cultural bias, so i'd shoot it down simply for being needlessly punitive. And lastly, because i am biased in this argument, i'd also adhere to the argument that people who are legally considered adults, should not be barred from engaging in an activity that one would consider to be lawful for adults.

I don't see a point to demonizing drugs such as Marijuana, and even though the situations aren't exactly the same, i would rather take the same argument from here and simply say that the restriction is culturally charged and largely pointless.

[Correction]

Doesn't sound like you were inconvenienced at all. What's the net gain from changing the law, again? Apart from a selfish desire for self-gratification without fear of consequence?

[Kuya]

Let's assume i were an American for a moment.

If you are going to arbitrarly restrict my rights at a citizen because of some loose logic about how 18-20 year olds are out of control, then i'm obviously going to be mad about it. The question should be, why would you want to restrict my rights when the gains from doing so are small at best?

It's the principal of the law that annoys me.

[Correction]

There is no right to drink alcohol at your age.

[archibaldcrane]

Doesn't sound like you were inconvenienced at all. What's the net gain from changing the law, again? Apart from a selfish desire for self-gratification without fear of consequence?

I'm 27, changing the law doesn't help me at all. (I don't know if that was directed at me)

I don't think that 18-20 year olds should have to have the same freedoms restricted that I did.

[Correction]

I was responding to Kuya's "I don't again want to be inconvenienced." after describing a trip to the states in which he had unrestricted access to alcohol as an underage drinker. Last time I checked I didn't visit other countries, have a good time, then grumble about the laws I broke while I was there.

[archibaldcrane]

I would counter with "What's the point of keeping laws on the books that are apparently completely ineffective and unenforced?" (with respect to Kuya's story).

[Kuya]

There is no right to drink alcohol at your age.

But apperently, it is your right to drink after 21, and apperently, people did not like the law that prohibited the sale and comsumption of alcohol because they felt it infringed on their rights.

But besides that, i don't think you could have made this reply be any more circular in so far as logic. Enjoy your ageism.

I was responding to Kuya's "I don't again want to be inconvenienced." after describing a trip to the states in which he had unrestricted access to alcohol as an underage drinker. Last time I checked I didn't visit other countries, have a good time, then grumble about the laws I broke while I was there.

It seems that your obvious attempt at being a total dick in this thread is making it difficult for us to understand eachother. I already said that, of course, where the circumstances different (if i where 21+) i might have agreed with your stance, but since this kind of law affects me directly, my opinion changes. And the clear intent behind that statement i made is that, were i to visit the US again, and, as opposed to my luck in NY, be denied alcohol, then i would be inconvennienced, and would like to avoid that possible situation. And you could just take my example of the laws just being absolutely pointless considering the ease in which i obtained alcohol.

[Blarg]

How about just lower it to 20 and see how that works for 5 years or so.

[archibaldcrane]

How about just lower it to 20 and see how that works for 5 years or so.

Or 19. People who say "kids in high school at 18 shouldn't be able to buy alcohol, it just causes too many problems" catch my ear much better than those who try to make arguments for 21.

[Correction]

Enjoy your ageism.

I don't think you've quite understood this issue from both sides of the fence here. You're so convinced you're right that somehow it's never going to be a problem where kids have legal access to alcohol.

Why stop at 18? Some states allow marriage as low as 13. If they can marry, why can't they drink? No matter what you're drawing an arbitrary line. The United States chose 21. Deal.

If I send my young relatives to a party I do so with the understanding that they are safe. If it becomes legal to serve them alcohol then I no longer have that understanding. I also have no recourse against the people who served the alcohol, leading to the unsafe conditions wrought by immaturity + alcohol.

Again, fuck 'young adults.' They're kids and their apparent fear of consequences comes out when they'd rather change the law than live in a world where repercussions can catch up with your actions. That's the opposite of having an adult outlook on life.

[Blarg]

How about just lower it to 20 and see how that works for 5 years or so.

Or 19. People who say "kids in high school at 18 shouldn't be able to buy alcohol, it just causes too many problems" catch my ear much better than those who try to make arguments for 21.

I think it should be 19 since it seems to work fine for most of Canada, with other provinces having it at 18. Dropping the age in smaller amounts would probably be a better way to make the change if people are afraid of the adverse consequences. If the one year drop works well then absolutely drop it again to 19.

I also don't see the problem with comparing to other countries since I don't think there is a big difference comparing America to the larger cities in Canada like Toronto, Vancouver and so on since they are basically America Jr's (especially Toronto)

[Beckwin]

21 is a retarded and arbitrary age. That's really all there is to it. It's all for posturing but ends up creating a binge culture from a much younger age.