What should the legal age be on everything? (Reagan, statistics, federal)

[majoun]

Originally Posted by Ferd

nice. except that science tells us that brains continue to develop up to the early 20s and alcohol impacts that development.

you really want to expose children to that?

For some people. Other people's brains never develop at all, like those of the members of the California State Legislature.

Regardless we should not restrict the freedom of the many because of the irresponsibility of a few. 18 is a good and reasonable age.

[Ohio1803]

Originally Posted by Ferd

nice. except that science tells us that brains continue to develop up to the early 20s and alcohol impacts that development.

you really want to expose children to that?

And yet the U.S. lets those same people who you say are too immature to handle alcohol be allowed into the military to defend the country and die for it.

The drinking age should be 18, if they are old enough to buy cigarettes, lotto tickets, live on their own, work, and join the military to defend the U.S. (And possibly die while doing that) they are old enough to drink.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed

Lower the drinking age for beer and ale to 15. You know how many kids drink at that age anyway? Plenty do. Stop making it taboo and therefore cool.

If it was lifted, it would have to be done in a very subtle way, like reducing the legal age to drink around a parent or legal guardian on private property, but keeping it illegal to drink in bars and such.

[Seacove]

This isn't Iceland. 15 year olds legally buying beer is a bad idea, especially when they can drive at 16.

I didn't like any of the choices so I didn't vote.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by Seacove

This isn't Iceland. 15 year olds legally buying beer is a bad idea, especially when they can drive at 16.

Speaking of which, we probably need to raise the driving age to 18 and combine it with requiring extensive testing to get a license.

[jjrose]

IMO it should be 18. Legal to vote, join the military, buy cigarettes, legally an adult. Make it one age to do it all.

[Seacove]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

Speaking of which, we probably need to raise the driving age to 18 and combine it with requiring extensive testing to get a license.

I agree.

[hawkeye2009]

Originally Posted by hakkarin

In my country the legal drinking age is 20 and I hear that in the USA it's 21. This makes no sense to me. But what makes less sense to me is this idea that minors just should not drink any alcohol whatsoever. The arguments are generally about how they can't drink responsibly and would just kill themselves. I don't really agree, since I feel that getting some experience with alcohol early would be a good way to introduce minors to alcohol without them waiting until they are 20 and then killing themselves on their first day by taking 21 shots of the hard stuff.

So here is what I suggest:

1. People obtain full legal drinking rights at 18.
2. At 15, people can legally buy beer and ale, as long as it isn't stronger than say, 7% ABV, but not anything stronger.

This would allow minors to get a taste of that nice beer early without giving them the means to kill themselves (while probably not impossible, it's really hard to get lethal alcohol poisoning by drinking just beer).

Thoughts? Should the drinking age be lowered to 18 and people allowed beer at 15?

If you lower the drinking age, increase the age for driver's licenses to 27.

[workingclasshero]

used to be 18

but the liberal nanny government raised it to 21 back in the 80's


you can vote at 18
you can drive at 18 or less
you can get married at 18 or less
you can join the military at 18 (17 with parental permission)

why cant you drink at 18???

[shooting4life]

The age for any thing like alcohol, gambling, smoking, guns etc. should be set at whatever is determined adulthood. Various rights and privileges should be of be based on a whim. You are either an adult and afforded all rights and privlage a of being an adult or you are not.