Never trust a man in a bowtie

One downside to having the drinking age at 18 is it makes it that much easier for 15, 16, 17 year olds to buy alcohol. Today, it's pretty tough for a 16 year old to walk into a liquor store and buy their libation of choice. Drop the age to 18, and it's not quite so difficult.

I've got no argument with dropping the age to 18, but there needs to be a zero tolerance policy on selling to those under that age. You get caught selling alcohol to those under 18, you lose your liquor license permanently, end of story.

 

Do you really think its difficult for a 16, 17 or 18 year old to get alcohol? In my city in High School, we walked right into the liquor store that sold to minors. If they got busted or there were cops around, we'd pay one of the bums outside 5-bucks. Never a problem. I think the drinking age should be lowered, but we need to get tough on Drunk Driving. I mean six months in jail and rehab on first offense. But we let people off with a slap on the wrist so they can go reoffend.

 

I think it's more difficult for a 16 year old to buy alcohol when the drinking age is 21 as opposed to if it were 18.

Do 16 year olds get alcohol and drink alcohol? Sure.

But, to me, it becomes so much easier for them if the age is 18 because of our 'wink, wink, look the other way approach' in this country.

And maybe that approach is in response to the age being 21 and providing some wiggle room for those under 21. My problem is I don't foresee 'looking the other way' going away if the age were to be changed.

 

We're a little different in Ontario because you can't buy your booze at the local corner store.

You have to buy wine and hard liquor at the government run monopoly, the LCB0, and for all your beer needs at The Beer Store (yup, that's what it's called). Both are extremely diligent in carding people. I was in a while back and they carded a very nice looking blond woman in front of me. Turned out she was 31--she couldn't have been happier.

 

Might seem counterintuitive, but there's a lot of evidence he's right. For example, in Japan, booze is available on every other street corner in frickin vending machines. Any kid can get it any time he wants just by dropping a few coins in a machine. Now, based on how me and my friends were in high school, I would've figured we would've been drunk every day if we could've done that--but that's not how it works--turns out they have less binge drinking amongst their kids then us. By making booze the forbidden fruit, we seem to have made the problem worse than it is in less-restrictive countries.

 

The Ohio State professor is just trying to screw up The Ohio University students' tradition of 21 shots on your 21st birthday.

Wussy Buckeyes can't handle that much.

 

Exactly. It is our culture and attitude towards drinking that has caused the problems. It isn't the access or the age limits placed.

 

Gee is also pissed that SEC kicked Ohio State's ass in the annual party school rankings, the same way it does in every other competition.

 

Legal alcohol puts your life in jeopardy if someone over 21 drinks and drives too. Does that mean we should ban alcohol altogether? Because that's what I think some of the hardcore MADD folks want. (And as for the traffic deaths statistic, I'm pretty sure I heard on NPR yesterday, though I can't find the source, that alcohol-related highway fatalities were already declining when the 21 laws went into place, and that they are now rising despite those laws.)

The problem is we have this all-or-nothing culture, that says you can do nothing until you're 21 and then anything you want (21 shots!), and that says you can't have just one or two, because what fun is that?

With underage-drinking laws in place, those who do act irresponsibly are afraid to call for help when one of their friends get in trouble because they're afraid of getting arrested. Which is stupid.

As one of the college presidents said, they're not even able to talk to their kids about drinking responsibly, because drinking underage is against the law. At what point do we teach kids how to consume alcohol responsibly? We don't. And that's the problem.

And keeping the age at 21 because setting it to 18 makes it easier for 15-year-olds to get alcohol is the same logic that leads to 45-mph speed limits on roads where it should be 55, because "otherwise people will do 65." Doesn't stop cops from writing tickets for those who do 55, does it?

 

I like the 19 years age limit. At 18, high school seniors can buy for everyone at their school. Not good.

As far as military? If you show your military ID, you should be able to buy anything you want.

 

I don't know how I feel about the legal drinking age. However, the consequences of alcohol-related crimes, such as drinking and driving should be much harsher.

I have a brother who is a two-time offender as a drunk driver. In the second incident, he crashed his car and is lucky to be alive. Fortunately he didn't hit anyone else. He has spent a grand total of one night in prison.

The first time, he lost his license for three months. The second time, it was for a year, though he didn't take care of certain things, and went two years without driving. He now has his license again, and for the life of me, I don't understand why. I love the guy, but he still drinks and should not be allowed to drive.

I personally don't think drinking and driving offenses are taken seriously enough.

 

Yes, I think the drinking age should be 18. More important, as Pastor notes, the culture needs to change.

And the idea that soldiers, airmen, sailors, etc., should have special drinking rights is absurd.