(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Should the legal drinking age be lowered or made higher or kept the same?

Post your opinion, Vote!

:nb:

I think there's an argument to be made for lowering the drinking age, yeah. Like T.C. has mentioned, people might be wholly more sensible about drinking if they didn't feel they were being spontaneous and bad-ass when they did it at younger ages. Of course, there will always be those who go overboard. A 16-17 drinking age isn't something I'd be opposed to, but I have no complaints with it being illegal to drink anywhere from the 18-21 range.

It really just depends if we have faith in our society's youth to handle these things responsibly. I know a lot of people who drink irresponsibly, so of course I'm somewhat frightened by making it legal, but like T.C. said, it might take away the spontaneity of drinking alcohol, and in turn, the adrenaline rush many teens seem to get when partaking in drinking. This is a mere theory, though, and if it were wrong, the consequences would be rather large. That's why I think it's safe​, but not necessarily practical, where it is now.

The bit in bold is basically what it comes down to, and the fact is that some kids are stupid or get pressured by their peers easier than others. Said stupid kids would probably get hold of alcohol illegally if need be, so really all such an age requirement does is remove the ability to enjoy a quiet drink from the responsible youths.

The fact is, the booze culture in America is largely an American issue alone. Other countries don't have that problem to anywhere near that extent.

Americans have massive keg parties and do things like the "beer bongs" and various other things because it kicks into the "rebel" side of youth. I'll use myself as a perfect example and go though my mindset without the stupid draconian laws of USA.

I started to go out to nightclubs at 15 years old, there was a club here that was alcohol free two nights a week and open to under 18s. It was good. Water only on the dance floor, soft drinks in the lounge, it worked. Honestly it doubled as my exercise for the week as I went on the Thursday Metal Nights and usually they'd have a good mosh pit going. They had a minimum age of 14 for admittance, and honestly that worked, I saw no reason to try to get into over 18's clubs with that avaliable. Occationally I'd go to the pub and have a game of pool and a coke as pubs don't usually enforce an over 18s policy but I never really felt I was missing out.

At 16 I started drinking regularly, my friends and I would all head out on a Saturday to a park in Liverpool, it was next to the Crown Courts building where there was a lot of open space, walls, etc. so it effectively became an unofficial skatepark on a Saturday, the grassy hill was quite big so there would be between 30 and 50 of us from all the nearby schools and colleges. Everyone would bring bottles of cider and vodka, usually there would be someone with a portable CD player and there was a group that always brought this van with a set of big speakers. Those that could play would bring guitars etc. it was cool. Like a little mini skater/rock festival every weekend. We'd show up any time between 10am and 1pm, and people would stay till around the 6-7pm mark (that's when the police would start to ask us to break the gathering up as it's technically illegal to have mass gathering in public parks without permits, and really we should be skateboarding and drinking vodka on the Crown Courts plaza). Generally we didn't get bothered and as we didn't make a mess, start fights etc. the police looked the other way up until the evening when the clubs and evening restaurants all start opening. I never got pissed, but I'd often come home slightly drunk, but I was always in a group of friends, at least 4 of us from my estate would be there, so we where never travelling alone. I actually met my first proper girlfriend in the Crown Courts plaza, by the statue of Queen Victoria. They've since built a massive shopping centre on the park next to the plaza, so there's a lot less space there now... as far as I know, the whole skater/goth crowd don't meet there anymore (but then skater/goth groups where very much a 90's thing, I don't think they really exist anymore do they?).

When I turned 18 I moved off to Uni. I was an experienced drinker at this point and could really hold my drink, being quite a big guy helped there too. During my first year I could comfortably drink 10 pints of Guinness (which is about twice the strength of the average American beer) and still be sober enough to walk home, order a take away, and have a conversation without slurring. Sure I was drunk, but not the shit your pants, slurring, throwing up in the gutter drunk... just nicely drunk. This is where I developed a proper taste. For a while I drank Guinness, then I moved to cask ales. I didn't drink Vodka or Cider anymore, and I developed a proper appreciation for well made real ales, my personal favourites being pretty much anything from Witchwood Brewery and Old Speckled Hen. Some of the heavier ales like Bombardier sit well but they lay heavy on my stomach so I'd only have one or two of them. I've NEVER liked lager with the exception of some Mainland European bottled lagers, and even then, I'm not overly keen. Lager generally is too fizzy and has a rather unpleasant metalic aftertaste, especially cheap chemically created shite like Fosters, Becks or Carsburg.

As I grew older, I developed a taste for spirits. I enjoyed liquored cognacs such as Grand Marnier and Cointreau, the French know their stuff. Then I found absynthe which I love. True absynthe should be about 40% vol. alcohol. The shit that's advertised as 87% alcohol and made out to be the "hard" stuff, it really just cheap tacky knock-off shit they sell to Americans and it tastes like paint thinner. I've heard people call some of the best absynthe "fake" before because it wasn't high enough vol. alcohol. These people are fools and should be ignored, they're just acting hard because of the reputation absynthe has. My personal favourite is La Fée, again, showing that the French know what they're doing when it comes to alcohol.

As my tastes matured I pretty much stopped drinking beers and moved on to spirits so that by the time I was 21 it was all I drank. I quickly found such tastes to be exceptionally expensive and at 22 years old decided to cut out alcohol all together. I drank occationally that year but decided to make the move to become tee-total a little before my 23rd birthday and I'm glad I did as it saved me a lot of money and the problem of painkillers. As my condition has deteriorated I've begun taking medication that cannot be mixed with alcohol so really the choice to be tee-total was good for me, I'm glad I made the choice personally before my medication did it for me.

What I'm getting at though is that my drinking habbits where always mature and sensible and they where like that because of relaxed laws concerning alcohol and a relaxed society. My parents let me have beers from the age of about 8 if I wanted them, not regularly obviously, but I remember having a small bottled beer as a kid watching films with my Dad. It was this mature approach to alcohol which ment I didn't drink rediculous amounts and go to stupid keg parties, and it's the mentality of the people around me and the laws of the country that make those stupid keg parties quite rare over here. USA has those wild parties because it's the only way teens can drink, and it's not healthy, emotionally, mentally or physically.

If I had the option I would make it legal to drink from the age of 16 in bars and pubs, with no age limit on private property, but I'd make it illegal to be dangerously drunk. If someone is drunk so much so that they cannot make their own way home, they are arrested for "public nuscience" and if they're hospitalised due to excessive drinking they get fined on the spot. Train people to drink responsibly and they'll enjoy it rather than rush into it hoping to get a good enough thrill before the police crash their party.

Id higher the age, not lower. ****ed nowadays though. Easy to get your hands on it.

Seariously, men can't handle it properly, what makes you think teenagers can? well some mature ones

It's slightly stupid, think about it. 18 years to go to the army and kill people but you can't drink until 21? Well, here in Canada it's 19 or 18 so I'm fine with it.

I enjoyed reading this post. I'm not quite sure why, but I did. Perhaps it's the fact that I've never had any type of alcohol that makes your story fairly foreign and interesting to me. And while I agree that this issue is mainly American, I'm not sure that there is any real solution to it. The UK is different from the US because it has had the ability to evolve and expand over the course of hundreds of years (gradualism), and thus has had all the time in the world to create a relaxed, but responsible society.

The problem with the US is that most of our laws were established at one given point. These laws didn't come into being over time; no, most of them were decided by Congressmen who theorized that the best thing to do to create a safe society would be to prevent teens from drinking. Now, I don't think there's any turning back. Underaged drinking is not an act of rebellion, and I think that it would retain some of that meaning even if the drinking age was lowered. Had the US had the amount of time the UK did to gradually consider laws and slowly understand what it meant to be a progressive, responsible, yet relaxed society, I don't think we'd have many of the problems we do in the US.

So in essence, I'm agreeing with you, but I'm skeptic that this aspect of 'American culture' can be fixed. I do agree, though, that if people are treated maturely and frankly on the subject of alcohol, that it really won't be a big deal. Many teenagers drink because they've seen the adults around them drinking for years, and because they've never been allowed to even take a sip. So then, once they have the resources to do it, they go overboard with it.

Well, when you think about it, it is ridiculous. Imagine a 20 YO caught with a beer. He'll end up listed on those You must login or register to view this content.sites as a criminal, which will ruin any chance of getting a decent job ever. Might as well become alchoholic right away and save him some trouble.

And all of that because of one beer.