

Is it time to lower America's drinking age? - daviday
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11058532

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mrtron
In all seriousness, and I know this has been used to troll before but let's
bring it out of that context:

I feel that if you are old enough to go to war and risk your life, you are old
enough to have a few beers. Now what that arbitrary age is, who knows. But you
shouldn't be able to join the military before you can drink in my opinion.

Now from experience, with the drinking age between 18-19, there is little
difference at parties compared to the US despite the difference in drinking
age. At 16-17 a lot of kids start drinking and are quite irresponsible with
it. At 18-20 people begin to mature and handle drinking a bit better, with a
few going to the extreme and drinking excessively regularly. At 21+ people
tend to lose interest in drinking and gain interest in socializing at parties.

(Anecdotal evidence obviously)

~~~
edw519
"I feel that if you are old enough to go to war and risk your life"

which is exactly why public outcry during the Vietnam war lowered the age to
18 at that time. After the war, statistics strongly suggested raising the age
back to 21 to dramatically reduce highway deaths. States had to comply or
forfeit federal highway funding (a sure way to get voted out of office).

Perhaps the best thing to do is to lower the age to 18 (where it belongs) and
make a concerted effort, once and for all, to get all the drunks off the
roads, regardless of age.

~~~
mrtron
I think drinking and driving and the drinking age are two fundamentally
different issues.

There may be a correlation between the two, maybe even some causation, but
drinking can and should be solved in different ways, mainly with education.

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davidw
Yes, but it's not hacker news.

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abless
Yes, it is time. Lowering the drinking age would make 21 years olds behave
like 21 years olds, and not like 16 or 18 years olds. It is astonishing how
much effect the drinking age has on maturity.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Why do you think the drinking age makes 21 year olds behave like 16 or 18 year
olds?

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abless
People who first start drinking once they're are legally allowed to start
doing so excessively. That's always the case, no matter if you are 16, 18 or
21. Being from Germany, where the drinking age is 16, I was stunned to see
those 18 year old "kids" in the UK behave in a way that reminded me of myself
when I was 16. I suspect this is similar for 21-year olds in the states.

~~~
wanorris
> I suspect this is similar for 21-year olds in the states.

I certainly don't want to call my fellow Americans particularly mature, but
it's pretty rare for people to wait until 21 to drink here, so I think the
effect is dispersed.

~~~
abless
Sure, but I don't think the 18-year olds in the UK don't start drinking
before, either. I think whenever it's actually legal, you abuse your right to
drink by doing so excessively. I might be wrong, though.

~~~
jsmcgd
I think you're right. In the UK I would guess that the average teenager these
days starts drinking with some regularity from the age of 15. Incidentally you
can only begin driving at 17. I think this ordering works better as most of
your irresponsible drinking is done without any option of driving.

~~~
muerdeme
For a long time at Rice University they, in not so certain terms, allowed
underage students to drink in private parties on campus. While going there
many of us thought this helped prevent drunk driving. Hearing about friends
getting DWIs was very unusual, and generally limited to off campus students
trying to drive themselves home when they shouldn't.

More recently, they've started to crack down on underage drinking, and now the
police blotter fills a column in the campus newspaper with a series of "Driver
arrested on suspicion of DWI." Hopefully this is a result of them cracking
down on drinking and driving too, but I fear that to some extent it's because
they are forcing the parties off campus.

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indiejade
Probably not.

Keeping the drinking age at 21 doesn't deter minors from drinking, but keeps
the legal ramifications severe, especially for minors who drink and drive.
Besides, 18 year-olds typically have just 2 years or less of legal driving
experience. May be a good reason the driving and drinking ages are separated
so far.

The article does make me wonder . . which special-interest group might
_really_ behind this movement? Society as a whole doesn't stand to benefit a
whole lot by lowering the drinking age. However, I can't help but think of a
certain Republican presidential candidate's Anheuser-Busch distributor owning
wife and cronies who would benefit quite a bit from the increase in potential
drinking population.

Just an observation.

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dangoldin
Well if every (almost?) other country has a lower drinking age and the US
claims to be the most democratic country, I'd think having the drinking age at
21 is a bit hypocritical.

But as the article says, if you want to drink under 21 you can easily do it so
like most things, it's up the parents to raise the child well and stop blaming
society.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Being democratic doesn't seem related to the drinking age. We democratically
have fixed the age at 21 (for most states).

Also, I don't see how most other countries fixing it at a certain age is a
strong argument for us to do so.

~~~
jrockway
> We democratically have fixed the age at 21 (for most states).

Well... sort of. The federal government stopped giving highway money to states
that didn't follow its demands to raise the drinking age. I guess they didn't
do anything illegal, but bribery seems unethical to me. If we are really
concerned about democracy, we shouldn't tolerate the trampling of states'
rights like this.

Actually, I think all this happened before I was born. I can still be mad
though :)

~~~
epi0Bauqu
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=169772>

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josefresco
The most interesting part:

"MADD is heading the opposition, .. arguing that the 21 law has saved more
than 20,000 lives. Choose Responsibility disputes that figure. Other factors,
it says, have also contributed to the decline in deaths, and fatalities among
under-age drunk drivers have fallen by only 13%."

And those factors are? I'm not saying the 21 law is responsible but what is
the debate here?

~~~
jrockway
> MADD is heading the opposition, .. arguing that the 21 law has saved more
> than 20,000 lives.

I don't think this is a relevant statistic. We could save more lives by
completely banning alcohol. We could save even more by not allowing people to
leave their house.

We _could_ do these things, but we can't solve all our problems by making
living life illegal. People die.

~~~
Xichekolas
It seems to me the issues of _drunk driving_ and _drinking age_ are
orthogonal. There were just as many kids driving drunk (under 21) when I was
in HS as there were driving drunk (over 21) when I was in college. Age had
nothing to do with it, and legal access to alcohol didn't either.

MADD's argument is fallacious, but it's the same line of reasoning that those
advocating banning of firearms take. Somehow making guns illegal will cut down
on gun-related-deaths. Nevermind that the people that tend to shoot other
people don't really care if they have to get a gun illegally, just like kids
that drink underage don't really care that they are getting alcohol illegally.
In a perfect world, you could just remove all guns at once and perfectly
enforce the alcohol age limit every time (and there would be no black market),
but that isn't reality.

If MADD was really interested in cutting down on drunk driving, they'd
campaign for stiffer penalties and education. And, like someone else here
pointed out, they'd campaign for public transportation. When the car is the
only option to get home, your choices are either "don't drink" or "drive
drunk."

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far33d
This change will come around 10 years too late :)

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eat_my_shorts
It's time to legalize all drugs, with an age of zero.

