drinking age in the states

[Angryjeff]

This i really don't get, correct me if i'm worng but u can own a gun at 18, vote at 18, run for some offices at 18, join the army at 18, but u can't drink till 21??? I just really don't understand the logic behind that. Here in most parts of canada it is 18, the legal age when your an adult and we don't ahve somekind of HUGE drinking problem anymore the states does with the drinking age of 21.

[Evanauto]

you can die for your country at 18 but you cant drink till your 21

makes ya think

[MGS2-SolidSnake]

I dont really give a shit coz I AM CANADIAN!!!!

[mulder-xuk]

i don't care i'm scottish

whats strange here is you can get married at 16 have sex at 16 but you need to be 18 to buy porn mags and videos

but then again for people who like that sort of stuff there is always the internet and i'm sure they have all mastered typing with one hand

[A-Carrot-By-Dr-Riot]

My parents had a party when I enlisted in the Navy, I was the only person who wasn't able to drink the champagne.

I considered starting an initative (I live in Arizona, we have a cool addition to our constitution that lets the people make laws) but it was too late for me, maybe next year.

[HeinousDude]

Because drinking is considered dangerous since you can drink and drive. Plus you act crazy when drunk (look at bevin). But that really doesn't explain gun control though. (Oh, i know! You can own a gun at 18 cuz U.S. is redneck land!)

[Angryjeff]

well yeah but u can drink and drive when your 21 to, yeah bout that scottish thing it's the same in canada our age of consent is 14 i think so a 19 year old can have sex with a 15 year old but if he takes a pic, writes about it, or tells someone it's considered child porn :S now i'm not for child porn but somethings serisly wrong with it all

[Len-Mystic]

The drinking age has bin raised several times due to varing reasons. However, the lastest movement from 18 to 21(i have no idea what date) is due primarily with the fact that at 18 you are young reckless and are statistically more likely to get piss drunk and go wrap your car around a tree. 21 is still a young age in terms of a human lifespan and it isnt that unreasonable as it might be and you are hopefully more mature. So basically its just that the drinking age still needs to be young but they want you to be settled down before hand so you dont drink yourself into a stupor as they think any 18 year old is more likely to do. Not that it stops anything but the government still needs to smile for the camera.

[mulder-xuk]

At 1/4/03 11:33 PM, Angryjeff wrote: well yeah but u can drink and drive when your 21 to, yeah bout that scottish thing it's the same in canada our age of consent is 14 i think so a 19 year old can have sex with a 15 year old but if he takes a pic, writes about it, or tells someone it's considered child porn :S now i'm not for child porn but somethings serisly wrong with it all

tis madness

what is strange is that girls can be shown in topless pictures in a nation tabloid at the age of 16 as well but thats not conisdered porn

[digitaldefpony]

well the only reason y the age is 21 and not 18 is cuz u got kids, "young adults",still in high school and these kids can buy beer or other alcholic beverages for their younger peers. but honestly i stand by the fact that im 19, i can die for my country, but the bastards on the hill can tell me no i cant buy myself a drink but if we get owrselves in a pinch and we get owrselves n a war...i become cannonfodder...god bless the usa, the most american thing to do is move to canada, im serious too

[Slizor]

See, I don't think there should be a drinking age. Because something is restricted it is seen as a good, or cool thing to do, if it accepted in society then people will stop going mad on it as we do.

[mulder-xuk]

do you really care?

you can still drink alcohol

unless all those teen films were lying to me

scary movie scream american pie they all have people who are supposed to be under 21 drinking at partys

[IamjustSci]

Well...you could easily lower the drinking age...but like triple or quadruple the penalties for drinking related crimes. That'd teach people to keep from driving when they're drunk, or showing up to school with a hangover. I don't know anyone who'd drink and drive if it meant 20 years instead of just a year without their licence and a night in jail.

Can you say extremist?
I thought you could

[w4t422]

At 1/4/03 07:40 PM, HeinousDude wrote: Because drinking is considered dangerous since you can drink and drive. Plus you act crazy when drunk (look at bevin). But that really doesn't explain gun control though. (Oh, i know! You can own a gun at 18 cuz U.S. is redneck land!)

I totally agree

[Nightshadeplus]

At 1/4/03 07:40 PM, HeinousDude wrote: Because drinking is considered dangerous since you can drink and drive. Plus you act crazy when drunk (look at bevin). But that really doesn't explain gun control though. (Oh, i know! You can own a gun at 18 cuz U.S. is redneck land!)

I believe gun control is not the answer to a safe society. Look at London. Has some of the toughest gun control in the world but it's crime rate is higher than a lot of the major cities in the US that is as crowded as London is.

[Freakapotimus]

There are many other countries that have lowered or eliminated their age-restrictions on drinking, and some have never adopted age laws. I'll have to look up some statistics on that, though.

[zanz]

i like the fact that in most places in Quebec (a hop skip and a jump from where i used to live) the drinking age was merely a suggestion

[calmius]

I personally think that penalties for drinking when you're under the legal age should be tougher.
Alcohol is a menace to society, so if I had teh power, I would prohibit it from being sold to anyone.
Same applies to cigarettes.

[Freakapotimus]

And therefore give more power to organized crime, like during Prohibition.

[Angryjeff]

At 1/5/03 07:21 PM, Scaletail wrote: Well...you could easily lower the drinking age...but like triple or quadruple the penalties for drinking related crimes. That'd teach people to keep from driving when they're drunk, or showing up to school with a hangover. I don't know anyone who'd drink and drive if it meant 20 years instead of just a year without their licence and a night in jail.

Can you say extremist?

your totally right, and no one (at least no one whos opinion mattered) would be able to argue with that. Drunk driving does kill my friend lost one of his good friends a few weeks ago cause she was walking on the sidewalk and some guy hit hir. But people just don't give teenagers enough credit most of us arn't stupid enough to drive drunk i've seen more parents drive home after having drinks at a party or sumtin than a teenager in my life

[MagicalGurl]

i know the reason why the drinkin age ish 21... its drinkin kills brain cells... a person ish only born with soo many.. and te brain "grows" most b4 the age 21... soo if u start drinkin at an earlier age... u kill twice as many (i think it was twice as many) brain cells... and ya... plus if ya drink tooo much b4 21 u gain creases in ur brain faster affectin ur brain 4 life ^_______^ soo if u drink heaps and heaps startin at the age 16, by the time ur 28 ur brain will be about equal to a person of the age f 60 (ya... i know too much tv...)

[Freakapotimus]

At 1/7/03 10:18 AM, Angryjeff wrote: i've seen more parents drive home after having drinks at a party or sumtin than a teenager in my life

I've had to ask my parents many times if I should drive them home, but of course it's only a few blocks and they'll be all right. So those times I walked instead.

Kids hang on my corner almost every night, and leave their bottles for me to find in the AM. Last week I was woken up at 5 AM because two drunk underage girls were sitting on my steps, getting sick. They ran away when I opened the window.

If there was no age restriction, they wouldn't have to sneak out in the middle of the night to sit on my steps and drink, and if parents talked to kids intelligently (instead of "Don't do this") then we may not have as big a problem.

[MagicalGurl]

yesh that ish soo true... drinkin meses up a persons thinkin and all... so they became all "poop faced monkey head-like" (thakses phillip) and yea.. it afets te liver... and the brain.. i dunno why people drink in the first place BLEH (i know it makes meh sound like an innocent lil gurlie o.o)

[Red-XXV]

The federal government wants the drinking age to be 21, yet they have no direct authority over the drinking age, as it is determined by the states. So what the federal government did was to tell the states if they don't make their drinking age 21, they lose federal funding for their highway/interstate system. It's strong arm tactics, and as we can see, it's worked. A group in Connecticut tried to raise enough money to maintain the state's highways and interstates so the state could drop the drinking age back to 18, but they couldn't come up with enough money. But it poses the question: if everyone contributed to their state's highway/interstate systems, then the states would no longer have a reason to listen to the federal government (until it came up with a new way to force the states into 21), and our federal taxes would be a bit lower, since the federal government wouldn't have to maintain the interstates.

[A-Carrot-By-Dr-Riot]

I bet if you could get a state to drop the drinking age (arizona would be easiest because of it's cool constitution) you could probably get the supreme court to declare the highway funding thing unconscionable as we pay for something but recieve nothing.

[implodinggoat]

At 1/7/03 02:17 AM, calmius wrote: I personally think that penalties for drinking when you're under the legal age should be tougher.
Alcohol is a menace to society, so if I had teh power, I would prohibit it from being sold to anyone.
Same applies to cigarettes.

You god damned fascist....they'll be trouble if you try to take away my Drambuie.

[ZombieKitty]

No one really cares. If ya have someone buy it for ya then who gives a fuck. I might have to wait for a couple years but eh I really dont give a fuck. mmmm...