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I'd say that people are going to drink whenever they want regardless of the age when they can legally do it, so I'd place more emphasis on where and when they can have access to it. Like keeping the age at which you can purchase it higher, which I think someone suggested. Or, what I'd be more concerned about, keeping the age of admission to nightclubs and similar establishments that serve alcohol higher.
I think another issue with this sort of thing, like how old someone should be to drink/do drugs/whatever, is how the consequences are weighed by the individual. For many, if a substance isn't noticeably killing you and you don't suddenly become mentally retarded or suffer any extreme changes in behavior after consuming it, then it's "not doing anything to you" and therefore harmless.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of things that have persistent or permanent adverse effects on your brain and body that simply don't manifest themselves in a way that presents an actual problem in your life thanks to a number of other variables that the next person may not have in their favor.
The average person will never know all the deficits they have and what contributed to them until something happens that prompts them to seek medical examination. Some would say that if something isn't screwing up your life on the outside, if the effects aren't even noticeable to you, then why do they matter? I think they matter because you can't safely predict who will be the lucky ones and who won't.
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Originally Posted by jwkilgore
As for pot, every study used by the anti-drug types that shows links between pot and brain development was done on adolescent smokers. I am not aware of a single study conducted anywhere in the world that shows any link between adult smoking and mental problems.
True. Many relevant studies are focused on the progression of addiction and the way that substances not only influence the development and functioning of the brain on the surface, but also how they increase the expression of genetic markers associated with things like addiction and other "invisible" traits.
Since so many of the mechanisms involved are the most susceptible to these substances in adolescence and because that's statistically where the trail begins with that being when the majority are first exposed to these substances, it makes sense that so many of the studies that come out would lock in on adolescents.
Research does lean towards supporting less of a negative effect on those who begin partaking in adulthood compared to those who began in their teens and I think that would kind of lend to the point about age.
The OP sounds like a very responsible young man/woman and if he/she were my son/daughter, I would have no problem letting him/her have a few drinks with me in my home as an older teenager.
This country really is absurd in a lot of ways. We are completely over the top with most things. Some European countries start letting their kids drink at 14 and they don't have the problem we have with alcohol-related deaths, drunk driving, etc. Americans way overindulge in alcohol, like we do with most things (food, violence, houses, cars, etc.).
Bigger is better in America and 20 beers is surely better than five.
Europeans don't seem to have that mentality and maybe that is why their kids act more responsibly.
Full disclosure: it is 5 P.M. on a Friday and I am typing this after already having a margarita and four beers (drinking #5 right now). No, I don't work an odd schedule or anything. Hey, I never claimed I wasn't just as irresponsible and indulgent as my fellow Americans I am shining the light on!
The OP sounds like a very responsible young man/woman and if he/she were my son/daughter, I would have no problem letting him/her have a few drinks with me in my home as an older teenager.
This country really is absurd in a lot of ways. We are completely over the top with most things. Some European countries start letting their kids drink at 14 and they don't have the problem we have with alcohol-related deaths, drunk driving, etc. Americans way overindulge in alcohol, like we do with most things (food, violence, houses, cars, etc.).
Bigger is better in America and 20 beers is surely better than five.
Europeans don't seem to have that mentality and maybe that is why their kids act more responsibly.
Full disclosure: it is 5 P.M. on a Friday and I am typing this after already having a margarita and four beers (drinking #5 right now). No, I don't work an odd schedule or anything. Hey, I never claimed I wasn't just as irresponsible and indulgent as my fellow Americans I am shining the light on!
I always thought it should be 20, the year you are no longer a teen. So what is the rationale for 21?
And if you are in the military, you get a pass...
The one reason I can think of his how dependent the US is on the automobile compared to Europe; for many people here walking/taking the train to the bar isn't really an option, so it might cause more irresponsible people to take to the road when they're drunk due to distance.
I'm still for lowering the drinking age, even if there's some sort of "graduated licensing" system. Overall, I feel that for people 18-20, especially in college, not being old enough to drink at a bar can encourage them to binge drink. This is because they don't have easy access, so they may feel like they have to drink as much as they can, while they can, and also because many bars have higher standards of decorum than the typical frat house, and will kick you out for being visibly intoxicated.
It can be. But it isn't. Those two facts are not mutually exclusive.
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Originally Posted by Bronsolini
not like 12, but I think 18 is reasonable. Me personally, I, in this past year from June '13 to June '14, have had 4 beers, all with my parents. It used to be 18 then someone decided to ruin the fun of being a teenager. You can say " oh well, they can't handle booze at that age. They're immature"
Collectively, the rest of us don't think 18 is reasonable. So we reach a consensus via elective representatives. And that consensus is at present 21 years of age. Surely you understand that we all govern as a whole, not by the whims of one person, such as you or I. Right? You do understand concept of representative democracy, as opposed to anarchism, don't you?
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You know who's 21? That Miley Cyrus, is she mature? no.
By that logic, 21 clearly isn't high enough. Or, alternately, there's probably a 12 year old who indeed is responsible enough to drink. And yet you openly state that 12 is too young. So your own logic is lacking here. And if you want to argue that at 12 years of age, alcohol is physiologically-damaging, the fact is that alcohol damage is most acute upon developing brains, and brain development continues until around age 25 - so, again, you'd be arguing for a higher, not lower, drinking age.
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If anything leave it up to the parents. My parents know I'm a good kid and know that, if it was 18, I wouldn't be at the bar nightly getting hammered. If your kid is dumb and irresponsible, keep them away from it as best you can.
So you're cool with parents who think it's funny giving their 5-year-old liquor? I didn't think so. So much for that logic.
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No one magically matures on their 21st birthday, plenty of people of legal age are morons. I was watching that " What would you do" show and 1 episode had 2 soldiers both 20, try to get a beer and they were refused. Really? So you're telling me at 18, I'm allowed to buy a house, get married, buy cigarettes, adopt, get shot at in battle and go to strip clubs. But drinking a beer is a no-no?
Correct. Buying houses and cigarettes (and smoking them) and going to strip clubs and willfully joining the military doesn't get thousands of other citizens killed annually - drinking (and then driving) does. And those numbers skew higher and higher the younger the age of the drinker, and per capita drinking rates spike with the legal age.
Frankly, the fact that you want to have a beer means absolutely nothing next to the fact that lowering the drinking age would result in hundreds if not thousands of additional innocents being killed annually on the highway.
You're pouting because you can't have a beer. And you get not a shred of sympathy from me.
The drinking age was 18 when I was a young woman. I remember when they raised it to 21 because of drunk driving. Living in MANHATTAN I thought back then it was absurd. Who drives, or owns a car, in Manhattan, let alone a teenager, drunk or sober. Hello, TAXI!!!!!!!!
The one reason I can think of his how dependent the US is on the automobile compared to Europe; for many people here walking/taking the train to the bar isn't really an option, so it might cause more irresponsible people to take to the road when they're drunk due to distance.
I'm still for lowering the drinking age, even if there's some sort of "graduated licensing" system. Overall, I feel that for people 18-20, especially in college, not being old enough to drink at a bar can encourage them to binge drink. This is because they don't have easy access, so they may feel like they have to drink as much as they can, while they can, and also because many bars have higher standards of decorum than the typical frat house, and will kick you out for being visibly intoxicated.
I tend to think they will binge drink no matter what legal or not. What drives that is the whole away from parents and other sources of external control. If they are away at college they don't have an wife to come home to or typically an full time job to show up on the next day. Sure the drinking can hurt their grades but that is rather different than getting fired for not showing up to work or showing up to work smelling of alcohol. Unless they show up pretty darned wasted an professor isn't likely to make a big issues out of it and while they are more serious about attendance in college theses days than they were in my day(if you missed a day no one would be notified and if the professor dropped you he was being nice.), it still isn't like work where all you need is one missed day and out the door or at least suffer an possible loss of income for that day.
Why can't the drinking age, the smoking age, the draft age, the voting age, the age to get a driver's license all be the same age? You are either legally an adult or you're not.
The OP sounds like a very responsible young man/woman and if he/she were my son/daughter, I would have no problem letting him/her have a few drinks with me in my home as an older teenager.
This country really is absurd in a lot of ways. We are completely over the top with most things. Some European countries start letting their kids drink at 14 and they don't have the problem we have with alcohol-related deaths, drunk driving, etc. Americans way overindulge in alcohol, like we do with most things (food, violence, houses, cars, etc.).
Bigger is better in America and 20 beers is surely better than five.
Europeans don't seem to have that mentality and maybe that is why their kids act more responsibly.
Full disclosure: it is 5 P.M. on a Friday and I am typing this after already having a margarita and four beers (drinking #5 right now). No, I don't work an odd schedule or anything. Hey, I never claimed I wasn't just as irresponsible and indulgent as my fellow Americans I am shining the light on!
It is a myth that European countries don't have problems with drinking. All that permissiveness with alcohol makes Europeans the heaviest drinkers in the world. They also have the highest rates in the world of morbidity (illness) and mortality from alcohol. They have their problems with drinking and driving. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...69837884,d.aWw
Fetal alcohol syndrome was first identified in France.
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