Legal drinking age in the USA

Sounds like you're arguing drunk driving penalities should be more severe for EVERYONE. Why should people 21+ have less penalty for drinking and driving? Won't they make you just as dead as a drunk 18 year old? The penalties for drunk driving still aren't very severe, judging from the number of people I know who got a DUI and haven't ever seen jail, just paid a lot of money. OR the even greater number who drive drunk and aren't caught.

"Asinine argument?" Because you trust someone with a heavy weapon and making judgement calls on the behalf of your country (including voting), but not handle alcohol? I've never been with a group that drinks more than my time in the Navy, and most everyone was underage.

Germany & France are good examples of countries where alcohol is woven to their society, yet have much lower rates of abuse.

 

France has a VERY serious alcoholism problem. I don't know about Germany. But I don't think Germany has the same sort of wine-with-every-meal culture.

 

I have long advocated jail time for first offense of drunk driving, with permanent loss of driving privileges, and severe jail time (several years at least) for second offense. And drunk driving is one of the few crimes where I think three-strikes makes sense. A person who drives drunk a third time is a clear menace to society. The person's age makes no idfference.

However, since younger people (especially boys) are more likely to drive drunk, it makes sense to raise the age for legal drinking. Very few people are anything like mature at 21.

 

OK, intresting topic

I think that:
The drinking age should be lowered to, around 15. Why 15? so that "kids" could drink BEFORE they drive. I think that responsability has to be given in the proper order to reduce DUIs.

HOWEVER:
I propose keeping the purchasing age at 21, or even raise it. And hold the purchaser financially and legally responsable for the actions of the end-user. This involves tracking the sales of every single ounce of alcohol sold. It would create jobs and raise the price, another deturant.

This idea came to me when I was in penselvania (Quaker territory) with some friends when we were around 19, and they could not buy alcohol after a long day of skiing. It was not their fake-IDs, it was that the state just does not sell alcohol in stores. It can only be purchased at bars and state liquer stores. the sheer dificulty in getting alcohol was more than an adaquit deturant (but they almost drove to NY to get some)

One more thing about DUIs:
Why don't we cut off their hands? or lock them up and throw away the key? Only in america is it possible to have more than one DUI!

For the record:
I do not drink (not at all), so I really do not care. HOWEVER, I am relly PISSED that I though drinking was irrelevent, I could not go to a bar untill I was 21. Come on, I don't drink, and yet, I cannot be there because I cannot drink. It also pisses me off that because of the alcolol laws, I could not buy my own wine and liquer to cook with. That really pisses me off!

 

Make it like in Mexico. The kids drink for free.

 

If that time you spent in the Navy was prior to 1982, then all those sailors were not underage if they were drinking on-base. That is the year that the Goody Two-Shoes at MADD (my feelings regarding this particular subject only) and other groups did a major lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill to increase the drinking age for military members on-base to that of the state in which the individual base was located.
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawl...drinkingage.htm

Dumb for several reasons:
1)If anyone has “earned†the right to drink, it is those in the military.
2)“Double Jeopardy.†Military members who commit crimes off-base (for example, DUI) are not only are subject to civilian prosecution, they are also subject to disciplinary action via their military chain of command. A military person has much more to lose.
3)“Supervision.†Not only is the drinker personally responsible for their actions – any higher ranking soldier/sailor who was with the drinker who got in trouble could also be held accountable. There were several times where I had to intervene with an underling both on base and in foreign countries.
4) By making on-base drinking 21 and over, underage military members are more likely to drink and drive off-base . . . rather than just walk home from the on-base club.
5) Military members do a lot of world traveling. What is it saying to them that they can drink in many foreign countries, but not in the one for which they are risking their lives?
6) Under age military members could not legally drink off-base in the states.

I agree with MADD on many points, but not on the legal age for military members to legally drink on-base.

Old enough to die... old enough to LIVE!

Check out the poll numbers on this one.
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/polls/...drinkingage.htm

 

you know.. i think its really unfair that our government thinks 18 year olds are adult enough to pick up a rifle, send him/her to other countries, and shoot people in the face, but aren't adult enough to let them drink alcohol

edit: and i think its not because 18 year olds are allowed to murder that makes it wrong, but the fact that they can issue a draft and force 18 year olds to kill

 

if you can produce a valid military ID you should be able to drink. the rest of us should have to wait till 21.

 

Galaxee - I think you just solved the US military recruiting problem....

 

LOL

i'll have to tell my recruiter friend that one.

 

Just what we need: a whole lot of drunk 18-year-olds with guns.

 

I always find it contradictory when an authority figure (Gov, cop, etc) puts limits on our liberty, but also provides an illegal "out" of the rules, or a strict legal way of keeping to the rules while making money off it.

Case in point: cigarettes and alcohol are regulated and subject to excise tax. The gov tells us they are "bad" for us, but still happily sell them to us.

Narcotics are tricky: the gov will tell us they are illegal, then they will - illegally - sell them to us courtesy of the CIA/DEA. Or again in the case of the CIA, experiment on civillians with LSD.

Not sure what the answer is. I personally refrain from everything except the occasional social drink. Prohibition only seems to encourage the creation of criminal masterminds that terrorize us: the Prohibition-era gangsters and the modern narco kingpins.