
Should the US drinking age be lowered to 18? - thedob
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/08/18/college.drinking.age.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
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mdasen
As someone barely older than 21, I think the statement "There isn't that much
difference in maturity between 21 and 18" is the most stupid thing I have
heard. I was most definitely less mature at 18 than I was at 21.

That said, I think people are missing the point - there are two "drinking
ages" in the United States. 21 is the age at which you can socially drink with
no hesitation and purchase alcohol. However, the age at which you can
clandestinely drink alcohol that others have purchased is much younger. At
that younger age, you're never quite sure when your next opportunity to drink
will come or if the tap will simply run dry - akin to the way cookies were
rationed out to many of us as children. Somehow, having the ability to go to
the store and eat as many cookies as I want whenever I want has lost it's
appeal.

It's a combination of maturity and access that changes one's behavior and I
really think that we need for groups on both sides to stop throwing around
casual theories and actually figure out how we can have people have more fun
with less risk - wow, what a concept! But I guess when I become less
idealistic that we can actually create better solutions, I'm going to have to
pick one of the stupid sides and become ignorant like them. I'm glad that day
isn't today.

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geebee
I sure think it should be lowered.

I went to UCSD, and groups of college students regularly made the trip to
Tijuana, where the drinking age is 18. I read about some parents who wanted TJ
to raise its drinking age to prevent this. Amazing. Yeah, Mexico should not be
like France, Italy, Spain, Canada, England, Ireland, South Korea, or pretty
much 95% of the civilized world. The US has decided drinking ages should be
2-3 years higher than everywhere else in the world, so dammit, anyone who
borders us needs to change! Typical.

As for binge drinking... well, yeah, I did a ton of that as a US-based college
student. I spent a year abroad in Ireland, and honestly, and we did a fair
amount of binge drinking there too, but pub culture does encourage
conversation and music over heavy drinking, so 18 year olds did at least have
a path toward more responsible drinking.

The lowest incidence of binge drinking I've seen so far was in France, where I
lived when I was 13 (though I looked older than my age). Cafe owners would
typically go ahead and serve me a beer if I asked for one. Technically I think
the drinking age there is 16. They also let me into bars provided I was there
to watch a sporting event but bars were a little more serious (and they
definitely wouldn't serve spirits to a kid). The shopkeepers would let kids
buy wine if they knew it was for the parents (ie., the parents had sent the
kids out to buy groceries). It really was a different world, much more relaxed
about the rules.

The funny thing was, I was all ready to take advantage of the lenient rules,
but the kids on the beach (this was in the south of France) were essentially
uninterested in binge drinking. They were perplexed, and slightly amused with
my interest. But once I discovered there were no takers, I lost interest
myself (what am I going to do, go get tanked by myself?). So I had a beer or
two as a novelty, and that was it.

The thing that irritates me so much about MADD is that they won't just let it
be a state-by-state decision. I see absolutely no reason why voters in Utah
should have the slightest say over the drinking age in Louisiana. Yes,
"State's rights" have been used as a cover for severe civil rights violations,
but if ever there was a situation where one state should butt out of another's
business, this is it.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
In regards to MADD, I think they really go overboard.

In fact, I've thought many times about forming a counter group, Drunks Against
Mad Mothers (DAMM) but never really had the guts. After all, who wants to go
up against a bunch of angry/sad mommies? It'd be like throwing a piece of
fresh-baked apple pie at your mom or something.

~~~
geebee
I think the problem with MADD is that it achieved many of its objectives, and
didn't know what to do next. In the early days of MADD, severe, repeat drunk
driving wasn't recognized as the serious crime that it is and should be. MADD
had a lot to do with getting this recognized - in law and in society at large.

But now, I think MADD is a texbook example of an organization that achieves
it's objectives but needs something new to do with its fervor. So now they've
been pursuing a kind of neo-prohibition under the guise of preventing drunk
driving. I don't believe the original founders have much to do with it
anymore, and have actually even renounced the organization.

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tss
I'll preface with saying that I am 18 and I support lowering the drinking age,
but there is a fallacy that needs to be pointed out. A common argument is that
if you are old enough for the army then you should be able to drink. This is
an illogical argument. The reason why 18-21 year olds make good soldiers is
why they make bad drinkers-- their decision making ability is not fully
developed and they have not matured completely. There are great arguments for
lowering the drinking age, but the fact that 18 year olds can join the army or
be drafted is not one of them.

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DanielBMarkham
The point isn't how great their decision-making capability is (or not). The
point is that we've regarded them with enough decision-making capability to do
lots more harmful things than have a few beers on Friday night.

And it's not just the army. Being able to vote is one of the most powerful
choices we allow citizens (I'd vote firearm ownership as #2) It wouldn't make
sense to trust people to elect leaders and not with alcohol.

The problem with your comment is that you don't really grow up until around 35
or so. I don't see anybody making the case to raise the drinking, driving, and
voting age to that age. The goal isn't to wait until you reach some level of
decision-making ability, it's to be consistent between various freedoms that
are available to you.

And the young have always fought wars. As it should be. When you get older,
it's not that you somehow get too smart to have duty or honor, it's that
direct war-fighting is a very boring activity punctuated with extreme athletic
moments. 45-year-olds simply wouldn't survive long enough to be worth the
training you'd give them.

~~~
timr
_"The problem with your comment is that you don't really grow up until around
35 or so."_

Har. Lemme guess...you're 36?

The problem with age as a metric of "growing up", is that the cutoff is always
older than you are, but younger than the guy who makes the rules.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Kind of a tough pill to swallow, eh?

In any case, my point isn't that people should receive some benefit based on
maturity. It's just the opposite. We live in a society where kids at 12 can
have credit cards, at 16 can drive, etc. It's perfectly fine, imo, to allow
people to do things while they are still immature to some degree.

The "guy who makes the rules" is the guy who votes. That's people 18 years and
older.

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sysop073
"'It's very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those
campuses,' said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD."

Wait, do they seriously not know? Somebody please tell MADD that underage
drinking occurs on every college campus in existence, and will continue to
forever

~~~
ken
Worse, their logic sounds exactly backwards.

Presidents who support lowering the legal age are implying that they take the
law seriously. If they didn't care about the law, why would they care about
changing it?

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DanielBMarkham
If you can vote and go to war you should be able to drink.

In fact, I'd be curious as to how people age 18-21 were constitutionally able
to be disenfranchised for so long. What would people say if we decided, for
instance, to prohibit driving after the age of 75?

People would be pretty dang angry. And for good reason. Public safety
arguments be damned, freedom means nothing if it doesn't allow you to take
risks. As long as you don't have a reasonable chance of hurting others, we
should respect your freedoms once you have suffrage.

~~~
chollida1
> What would people say if we decided, for instance, to prohibit driving after
> the age of 75?

In Ontario, they have started making people over 80 take mandatory vision and
knowledge test's. There hasn't been alot of outrage over this. I'd say that
most people consider this to be a good idea.

~~~
albertcardona
In Spain, driving license is renovated every 5 years until age 30, then every
10 years until age 50, then every 5 years until 60, then every year.

And each renovation means: pass a vision test, past a reflexes test, pass a
general medical test.

The thought of having people enjoying their "freedom" on the road while
exposing anyone to a car accident because of their bad physical condition
sounds ridiculous to me (I'm Spanish.)

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sysop073
It just annoys me that the age where you're "an adult" is completely
subjective. It used to be you're an adult at 18, which should imply you're
done with age restrictions, but no, you can't drink for three more years. But
if you go to the movie theater or a fair and they charge more for adult
tickets vs. kids tickets, suddenly you're an adult at age 12 in their eyes

~~~
jacobolus
It’s certainly not completely subjective. These standards derive from
completely differing causes:

Get drafted at 18: needs to be old enough to not enlist child soldiers, but
young enough to have a reasonable pool of eligible men.

Vote at 18: pissed-off drafted soldiers got tired of being sent to war without
any political power of their own.

Drink at 21: whether or not it’s empirically better, this is for public health
and safety reasons.

Pay more for fair tickets at 13: this is up to the fair, and is based on
profit maximization.

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aggieben
I think it should be raised to 28 - because I'm 28 now and nobody younger than
I am should have any fun.

~~~
eru
How about a sliding minimum age - one that gets raised as you get older?

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geuis
In terms of strict legality, in the U.S. you can vote, run for office, and
serve in the military at the age of 18. Though rare, we actually have elected
officials that can hold office but not drink. I detest the idea of different
rules for different groups of people, especially when they are largely
mandated by public opinion and much less on scientific data.

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axod
To allow marriage without being able to drink is just cruel. Also in the UK
the whole _point_ of going to university is to get drunk and meet people...
surely.

~~~
time_management
Are you from the UK? The US drinking age law is broken all over the place,
especially in college. Taking out people who tee-total for religious or health
reasons, I suspect that less than 5% of people have their first drink at or
after 21.

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einarvollset
I always found it strange this link between drink driving and the drinking
age. To me it reads as follows: "We can't let people drink until they're 21,
cause they'll drive drunk". Okay, but what happens at 21? You're so much more
mature at 21 that you'll not drink drive? Once you're 21 it's okay to drink
drive?

What's really odd is that attitudes to drink driving in the US are so much
more lax than other western countries, _despite_ the 21 age limit. Maybe the
work MADD should be focusing on is how to change the general attitude to drink
driving, as opposed to pursuing their prohibitionist agenda?

Just my 2¢

~~~
yummyfajitas
Side note: I was always amused by the fact that they won't let you rent a car
until you are old enough to drink.

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jshen
I enlisted out of high school and had the good fortune to be stationed in
Germany. Having a drinking age of 18, as Germany did, didn't cause any
problems for them (compared to our problems). As one expert said, "the 21
year-old drinking age fosters rampant violation of and disrespect for law…"

[http://www.opposingviews.com/arguments/legal-
age-21-erodes-r...](http://www.opposingviews.com/arguments/legal-
age-21-erodes-respect-for-law)

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a-priori
I live in Ontario, Canada, where the drinking age is 19. The neighbouring
province of Quebec has a drinking age of 18.

The main problems I hear of are on the edges of legality. For example,
18-year-olds from Ottawa, ON cross the border to Hull, QC, where they can get
into bars. And, of course, as with anywhere else, there's binge drinking of
newly of-age teens.

The worst problems happen when underage kids drink themselves to the point of
alcohol poisoning, then don't get medical help because they're worried about
getting in trouble.

Basically, my opinion is that the drinking age should be set to the point
where there's a medical reason for it not to be any lower. I'm not sure
exactly where this is, but 18 is probably a good number. I don't think that
you can count on males being finished developing at 17.

~~~
aardvarkious
"For example, 18-year-olds from Ottawa, ON cross the border to Hull, QC"

I'd be interested to know how many MORE drunk drivers this puts on the road.

~~~
a-priori
It's not exactly that far. I believe there are public transit routes that
cross the bridge. :)

[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=from:+Ottawa,+ON+to:+hull,+QC&sll=45.42195,-75.714426&sspn=0.029218,0.06609&ie=UTF8&z=15)

I've never lived there myself, but you bring up a good point. I'm sure lots of
people do drive drunk across that bridge in the wee hours.

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snewe
No, there shouldn't be a drinking age. Let parents decide. Why is this on
Hacker News?

~~~
eru
In Germany parents can decide - when they are around. For young people on
their own - there are rules.

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nazgulnarsil
does MADD back up the claim that it will increase drunk driving with any hard
data?

~~~
ardit33
no, but they will say that when the drinking ban was added, and their "don't
drink and drive" campain started in the late 80s, alcohol related deaths were
reduced.

Yet, they fail to explain how in Canada there was similiar drop in alocohol
deaths, yet madd was not active there.

Could it be just that cars are getting better, and improving the chances of
surviavility? There is a lot of stats out there, and you can cherry pick
certain stats, in order to prove your claims, and get away with it, as few
people will actually look into them.

~~~
ojbyrne
MADD is fairly active in Canada, and they've been influential in getting the
legal blood-alcohol level lowered. Most provinces now have penalties (not
criminal) if you're over .05 to go with the preexisting criminal penalties for
over .08. I think that the penalties for drunk driving are harsher and more
enforced than in the past too. And they also have graduated driver's licenses
for young people now, which (I think) include zero tolerance or something.

But overall probably more sane to try to stop drunk driving by young people
rather than drinking by young people.

~~~
aardvarkious
But in the 80's, when this fall took place, MADD Canada wasn't around (it was
formed in 1990) and driving laws were a lot more lax.

~~~
ojbyrne
Late 80s is pretty close to 1990, and I'd bet MADD USA was active in Canada
before they actually created a formal organization. Not that I really know
that for sure.

In general (I was around in the late eighties) I'd say that that's the time
when drunk driving basically became socially unacceptable in Canada. I think
it's still acceptable in the US to a much greater extent. Whether that was
because of MADD or not, I don't know.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
social acceptability is the big problem. driving is the only activity most
people commonly engage in that routinely kills people. It needs to be taken
more seriously and the step towards that isn't legislation it's making it
socially unacceptable for people to drive recklessly.

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ashleyw
Lower it, you shouldn't be able to kill (join the Army) before you are legally
allowed a beer. It just seems to me like a law from god knows when, which the
US government don't want to change just in case the majority don't like it.
Same with legalizing cannabis (Marijuana) to an extent.

Its not like the age limit works, teens drink anyway - it just means bouncers
have to turn away ADULTS from bars.

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sethg
Here's a proposal: reduce the drinking age, forbid drivers under 21 from
driving with _any_ detectable level of alcohol, and raise the alcohol tax.

[http://www.samefacts.com/archives/drug_policy_/2008/08/of_am...](http://www.samefacts.com/archives/drug_policy_/2008/08/of_amethysts_and_fake_ids.php)

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mynameishere
The drinking age should be 13, with supervision. In practice, it is. What kid
doesn't get xmas or passover wine?

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zacharye
Well, it would go great lengths to control the population.

If someone can come up with a much better way to combat drunk driving, I'm all
for lowering the drinking age. A combination eye-scanner/breathilyzer to start
the car might do the trick.

~~~
zacharye
Ok, obviously whoever downmodded me has never had a friend or loved one killed
by an under age drunk driver. To give 18 year-olds more access to alcohol in a
society where "being accepted" and "being cool" is at the forefront of their
minds is very irresponsible unless it can be controlled.

If you think you were as responsible at 18 as you are now, then you're still
very irresponsible...

~~~
aardvarkious
The thing is that lowering the drinking age doesn't dramatically raise the
availability of alcohol for 18-year-olds. I know that when I was underage, I
had no problem getting booze. And I work with teenagers now: they still don't
have problems getting booze. What the higher drinking age does do is drive the
drinking underground. So 18-year-olds have to drive more so that they can
drink at bush parties. Or when a friend gets alcohol poisoning, they are
afraid to get help.

Also, I would say that 80+% of people have their first drink before they
legally can. This means that their parents usually have no clue they are
drinking, and so they are less able to give their children guidance.

~~~
zacharye
I don't deny that 18 year-olds have access to alcohol. I did plenty of
drinking well before I was 18. It would be hard to argue however, that
lowering the drinking age to 18 wouldn't give them more and easier access to
alcohol.

There are tons of laws that I disagree with in this country but this isn't one
of them. In fact, I think penalties for selling to under age kids should be
much more harsh than they are now.

~~~
krschultz
You have your head in the sand. I have been on both sides of a crash, my
brothers best friend lost his fiancée after she was hit by a drunk driver and
a guy I grew up with killed 2 people drinking and driving about a month ago -
he saw a cop and was worried about getting pulled over so he sped away and hit
two people walking down the road. One was over 21, one under, either way they
were still dumb enough to drink and drive. When I was under 21 I didn't drink
and drive, and now that I'm over 21 I don't do it.

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maxklein
What I'll say to that is that if you lowered the age now, there will be a few
years of excessive drinking by those previously not allowed to drink. Which
President will take that responsibility?

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mattmaroon
No. It should not exist.

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pjhyett
Lower the drinking age to 16, raise the driving age to 18.

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vaksel
no, it should be lowered to 14, that way the kids can adjust to alcoholic
before they get behind the wheel of a car.

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sh1mmer
I read

Should the US drinking age be lowered to 18? (cnn.com) _18 pints_ by thedob

Lol.

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giardini
What is your goal? Do you want to save lives?

Accidents involving those aged 18-20 dropped by 13% when most states upped the
drinking age to 21:
[http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-20-drinkingage_N...](http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-20-drinkingage_N.htm)

OTOH if your goal is to reduce global warming then we should lower the
drinking age as much as possible. And also start more wars, spread more
diseases, &etc.

