Drinking age - 18 or 21?

Definetly 18 because it's a good age. In my country you're allowed to drink alcohol at the age of 16. 21 would be to "old" imo.

 

18.

Because I'm 18, have legal responsibilities, and I want to drink it..

 

The drinking age was changed because M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) pushed for the change back in the '80s (I believe the '80s, will double check). The thought was that 18 year old's were so excited to drink that they did not understand their limits and were the cause of many drunk driving accidents.

Personally, I believe that there is enough underage access to alcohol that the three years becomes negligible. Also, at least in my state, getting caught with ANY alcohol in your system while driving under 21 is an enormous offence. I see this as a teaching experience for kids to not drink and drive. Do they listen? I don't know. Research says that the amount of drunk driving incidents saw a statistically negligible (very small) change after the age limit was increased.

I'd also be concerned with college freshmen over-drinking. I see the freshmen at my college go crazy and that is without being of proper age. Give them the ability to buy as much as they want, whenever they want, and drink it wherever they want and I don't want to think about the amount of hospital trips that would incur. This would be my biggest reason for keeping the age the same.

Alcohol is easily accessible no matter the age, but making it harder for underage drinkers to drink inordinate quantities of alcohol is an upside. You may say "but when you turn 21 you'll just drink that huge amount anyway!!!" Well, yes. But at least a junior in college is acclimated to his surroundings and his school and, by that point, should know his limits (though it often does not stop him from pushing these limits).

 

well , in belguim we can drink from our 16... and you hear it every day on the news , kids from like 13-14-15 year who drink thereself to death with the alcohol they bought in a local store .. I should say bump it to 21.

 

Where I currently live in the Philippines, there age is supposedly 18 but no one really cares about it. A lot of my people I know at my school go out Fridays to go to clubs and go drinking. I myself have gone drinking but I wouldn't drink alone only to socialize over.

But anyway I think that 18 should be legal if there are mature enough to drink responsibly.

 

I believe that Germany's philosophy is golden in the sense that kids will learn how to handle their booze before they start to drive.

 

I will never drink in my life... Alcohol is one of the highest rating harmful drugs. However, it most definitely should be 18, since one attains rights to join the military. However, this is assuming one can responsibly drink. I believe most of you here are smart, mind you, but the rest of the US majority surely won't "responsibly" drink the alcohol at the age of 18, let alone 16.
Sure they do it illegally, but you cannot gild the effects of alcohol with "responsibility" for the masses.
I was listening to a report on NPR, and they were talking about alcoholism and binge drinking increasing, which obviously is not good in any case, since the drinking age is 18, and it is not enforced either.
I think it just became a norm for France though, which, again, is not good.

Below are two links(one is kind of informative, while the NPR link is close to the one I was listening to):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jan/29/alcohol-children-binge-drinking-france

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...hy-letting-kids-drink-at-home-isn-t-tres-bien

 

Its ridiculous how alcohol surpasses marijuana in harmful drugs but so much and yet its totally legal. You have people out there who are absolutely against marijuana but give there kids shots and beer not knowing there building there addiction for the stuff.

 

I would say 21, here in belgium the age is 16 (i'm 16)
there are to many people that don't know when to stop drinking.

I barly drink, and I have never been drunk or tipsy.

I do drink in the weekends, but only vodka, but only like 5-6 SIPS(over the whole night)! I only do that when it's cold, 1sip gives you a warm feeling.

 

dam 16? That can not be a good thing with an inexperienced driver who just got his license

 

you can't drive at 16 here, to get your driver license you have to be 18.

 

Personally, I think it should be 18. If you can go die for your country you can go have a beer.

 

21 is and always has been a ridiculous age for limiting alcohol consumption, in my opinion. There really is no difference in mentality between and 18 and 21 year old. If you're reliant on drugs and alcohol when you're young, you're probably going to stay that way when you're 3 years older. 18 is what it should be.

 

I think they lower to 18, thats the time when you are now a grownup and make your own decisions on if u want to or not.

 

It should stay at 21 so we don't have assholes in college going to bars, getting drunk, driving back to campus and killing half of the alumni because they made an ignorant decision.

 

Between these 2, I'd say 21.
At the the age of 18, not everyone has fully matured with their bodies. Thus, this can cause more effect on them.

 

If you're talking physically then technically you're not "mature" until the age of 24. If you're talking about mentally, three years of difference is not enough to significantly alter the accumulation of 18 years of maturity (unless something absolutely drastic happens in their life).

I work with a lot of teenagers and kids at my job. I've seen MANY mature 16+ year olds, and most 18 year olds I've met are no less mature than 21+y/o, more so in a lot of cases.

An age difference of three years near the end of childhood growth is not significant enough in my opinion-- shared amongst a good portion of physicians. Also, most American kids drink before they're 21 anyway. Reduce the drinking age, and it will keep more 18+ y/o's from clogging up the jail system. Government will spend that much less on the criminal system.

 

You can vote in elections, join the army and kill people at 18, so the Alcohol limit should be 18. It doesn't really make a huge difference for the UK, there are so many under age drinkers.

 

Hey, I'm from Ireland, and here it's 18. We are infamous around the world for drinking heavily and i think it's a bit of a strange stereotype.Truth is, for most people here anyway, we don't drink that much. I'm 18 and I've been drinking for about 2 years,. Although the drinking age is 18, people tend to start around 16. I know that may sound young but the thing is, at this age I can already A) handle my drink and B) I know my limits. People are always going to drink before the legal age, I'd say take the legal age in your country and minus it 1 or 2 years, and thats roughly when people start. I'm in an exam year, so I won't drink until after june, but before my exams got serious i was drinking once a week, with friends never alone, and I haven't been overly drunk or done anything stupid in about a year and a half. I dunno how much the average people drink on a night out in other countries but here in ireland I might bring 7 500ml cans of 5% beer, which would get me nice and drunk, but I am still very much awake :L. How does that compare to other countries?

 

15.....

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