Do you think the drinking age should be 18 again?

No, I dont think the drinking age should be lowered to 18 or 19. I do think that the whole level of adult-hood should be raised to 21. These days, I dont know of a lot of 18 yr olds that have moved away from home & are able to stand on their own. dont get me wrong, i dont think it's strictly a maturity-level deal. I think the economy has a lot to do with it as well. But on the maturity level, I also dont think the 18 yr olds of today are as mature as they were 20 yrs ago.
I know this is going to P.O. a lot of the younger crowd, but that's just what I see with my own eyes...and maybe the fact that in my line of work I am seeing the first generation of crack-babies that are growing up. :O

i'm going to come out and disagree with some of the people claiming that our freshman college students aren't mature enough to drink responsibly. from what i have seen the past 3 years, the freshmen show no difference in drinking maturity than us seniors. the problem is that much of the time they are getting their first drink in a frat house or some other house party and don't have the slightest clue how to handle it. after a semester, they are just fine. i firmly believe if kids were responsibly exposed to these types of things at home in a controlled setting, i would see less freshman trying to drive back to the dorms, puking everywhere, ect....

On a similar topic, many of the problems with underage college and high school students come from the fear of taking friends to the hospital when things go bad. Any one who has been to a college party knows that sometimes things go wrong for no good reason, but the kids are to afraid to get help because they have had a couple beers. No matter your personal opinions on drinking in general, i think we can agree that any system that seems to go out of its way to keep people from getting help is a bad system.

I turned 21 this year and don't think the drinking age should be 18. I've been against it since I was under 18. The reason why other countries have lower drinking ages is because people in other countries don't drink to get so smashed they can't remember what they did. I'm not gonna lie and say I didn't drink underage, I did it quite a bit and even drove while drunk. Very stupid on my part but thankfully I didn't get in an accident or end up killing someone.

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The reason why other countries have lower drinking ages is because people in other countries don't drink to get so smashed they can't remember what they did.

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You have never partied in Tokyo, or any part of Europe have you?

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

Maybe we should be talking about instead raising the age to go into the military, vote, etc, to 21 from 18...I know more than a few 18 years olds that wouldn't even be able to point to Afghanistan or Georgia (the country) on a map, much less made educated decisions on politics, public service, and alcohol consumption.

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My feelings 100%

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Originally Posted by Miller

The reason why other countries have lower drinking ages is because people in other countries don't drink to get so smashed they can't remember what they did.

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I must disagree.

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Originally Posted by mainbutter

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I must disagree.

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Agreed. Hundred's Club

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Originally Posted by herpguy311

My feelings 100%

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Would you guys also like to raise the age to vote? Most American's (of all ages) that I have met can not even tell you what issues their candidate supported, and when asked, they could not even tell what issues they supported.

The age 21 was chosen by actuaries. Basically the math worked well for 21. I think that the argument regarding drinking and driving deaths going up if the legal drinking age were lowered is crap. As a nation supposedly built on freedom we should not be making laws that restrict the freedom of adults based on slightly lower death rates. The way I see it we either lower the drinking age or increase the age to vote, buy cigarettes, and serve in the military to 21. The rule of law should be applied equally to all adults. We should not be setting ages for adults to have freedom unlocked.

On the topic of the rest of the world's drinking.. I'm pretty damn sure that the US has pretty much less drinking per person than 80% of the rest of the world.

During oktoberfest, germany supposedly drinks as much beer as the US consumes in a year(so I've read.. I'm a little skeptical).

Russian new years is basically a time for everyone 16+ to get skunked as they see how much booze they can pour down their throats.

Europe, australia, china, japan, malaysia, indonesia, australia, just about all of africa, russia.. all places I know for sure have plenty, and I mean PLENTY of falling-your-face-drunk drinking.

I think it should remain 21 for them to purchase liquer/beer, though I did allow my son to drink beer when he was 18 and only under my supervision, and I have to admit it almost came back to bite me in the a$$. He was my DD on my 40th birthday, I told him he could have 4 beers over a period of 4.5 hrs that we were out, I was getting my drink on and trusted him to follow the rules, well it seems that every time my head was turned he was finishing my beer, needless to say, we got blue lighted on the way home he blew at the limit, and I was in no condition to drive, I told the officer, who was very understanding (thank God), that it was my birthday and he couldn't arrest my son, that I wanted him to drive us to the state line and have the NC sherriff drive us home, well he did! Needless to say I don't think at 18 kids know moderation. My son is know 21 and responsible now when it comes to drinking.