Here's a debate that really should take place. Should eighteen-to-twenty year olds be given the right to drink alcohol? MADD says emphatically NO! But you'd expect that from that group. There are some good reasons to say yes.
RALEIGH, North Carolina - College presidents from about 100 of the best-known U.S. universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.
The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the U.S. drinking age, which is among the highest in the world.
"This is a law that is routinely evaded," said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who started the organization. "It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory."
McCardell's group takes its name from ancient Greece, where the purple gemstone amethyst was widely believed to ward off drunkenness if used in drinking vessels and jewelry. He said college students will drink no matter what, but do so more dangerously when it's illegal.
The statement the presidents have signed avoids calling explicitly for a younger drinking age. Rather, it seeks "an informed and dispassionate debate" over the issue and the federal highway law that made 21 the de facto national drinking age by denying money to any state that bucks the trend."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26271328
get into. Sober , non -drinking teens broadside motorcyclists too. They are just not developed enough to have even one beer and chance driving. We all follow rules. This is one of the few rules they have to help them mature and develop. They can do it. They will appreciate drinking even more that they have waited.
Drinking and driving is illegal for anyone. Intoxicated driving is also illegal for anyone. That's not what this debate is about. The debate is over whether they should be allowed to drink responsibly (not drink and drive). After all, they are dying in Iraq and in other places today and have a lot of other legal rights and responsibilities in our society.
A second point is whether the current laws actually contribute to irresponsible behavior regarding alcohol. There is evidence that it contributes to "binge" drinking and other behavior. Today I can drink legally, but I don't go out and get plowed on my ass. Yet I can remember doing that when I was underage (a million years ago). Maybe, making it illegal makes it desirable and the young people overindulge. It's forbidden fruit and therefore the kids want to do it.
It's worth debating and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. I would add that we have the highest legal drinking age of any country in the WORLD. Are we the only ones right on this issue?
If you're old enough to join the military and vote for the President then you should be able to have a beer or two. I know thats almost cliche now but the boat still floats as far as I'm concerned. Some time ago after the first Iraq war I was in charge of selling beer tickets at a party. When a young man of twenty presented his military ID showed his ID I sold him the tickets.
Remember the ad showing a car with it's keys in the iqnition and the caption says, "Don't help a good boy go bad"?
This debate about lowering the legal age for drinking is similar in meaning. A rule lowering the drinking age to eighteen with the idea in mind that kids won't drink to excess because good kids will be more responsible is based upon faulty reasoning.
What I imagine will be the outcome of lowering the age limit for drinking is kids who are not yet eighteen will become the next generation of binge drinkers.
Then, according to your reasoning, let's raise the drinking age to 35!
At the age of 18 you can sign contracts, vote for president, buy property.......... but you can't drink. I know many people considerably over the age of 18 that still are not mature and still do not make good decisions. It simply makes no sense to say someone can get married or sign a contract.... but can't drink. If they are not mature enough to make good decisions at 18 regarding drinking then the age of majority should be raised to say 21.
I know the statistics - younger people don't make good choices as a group. So let's raise the age of majority. (Note the sarcasm) I don't advocate raising the age at which one can legally act as an adult but I do support making it consistent at age 18 - let them be adults and suffer the rewards of good decisions and the consequences of poor choices. But as a community and parents, let us make sure we give them the information and teach them critical thinking skills so they are capable of making the best decision possible. Being young means inexperience which is a factor in making good decisions. At some point they must be trusted to act in their best interests within the context of the laws established for the best interests of all. (Note: I'm not saying I agree with every law ever written - some are just senseless and they are supposedly written by adults.)
Why do college students binge drink? Because they drink as much as they can, WHEN they can. If its legal and out in the open, then no more reason to binge.
I was able to drink beer at 19 years of age, so why not now?
Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.
-James Madison, Federalist No. 10, November 23, 1787