Reason.tv: 21: Is it Time to Lower the Drinking Age?
by Nick GillespieThe drinking age in the US has been 21 for more than 20 years.
Today, we all take the drinking age for granted, but should we? In fact, the US is one of only four countries in the world with a drinking age as high as 21—the other three are Indonesia, Mongolia and Palau.
Is the policy working to reduce health and safety issues related to youthful alchohol abuse? Is enforcing the drinking age the best use of scarce public resources? What are the unintended consequences of alcohol prohibition for 18-20 year olds?
Organizations such as Mother Against Drunk Driving (MADD) argue that the drinking age is an effective policy and that the answer to ongoing alcohol related problems for 18-20 year olds is more education and better enforcement.
John McCardell, president of Choose Responsibility, and 135 university presidents and chancellors across the country believe it’s time to take a fresh look at the drinking age. The former president of Middlebury College and the new head of Sewanee/University of the South, McCardell says our current system encourages unsupervised binge drinking.
Reason.tv went to the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wisconsin to get a first-hand look at the war on underage drinking.
Produced and hosted by Paul Feine; shot and edited by Alex Manning. Approximately 10 minutes long. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable iPod, HD and audio versions of this and all our videos. Subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube page and receive automatic notification when new material goes live.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?
253 Comments
How about raising the adult age to 21?
given the current shortage in our armed forces i sadly doubt that idea will get traction
You know I just think we have more important things to do than to make it easier for young adults to get loaded.
I can't support this.
Lower the drinking age, lower the age of consent, lower the age of serving as the president, it would do this country good to have an 18 year old president that like to drink and appreciated young women.
Nonsense or idiocy from anon as per usual. Which is worse?
BG needs to remove the anonymous post option, make anon get an account, and then delete it.
18 makes more sense, 21 makes it Taboo, Your an adult at 18 (well unless you need HC according to this regime) But your not adult enough for cold beers till 21. What does the 18 year old do? LOL what did you do?
Education and supervision is the best policy, stopping 18+ drinking is like trying to stop the wind. IMHO.
If we have this conversation after 30 years of having lowered the drinking age to 18,……
should we lower it to 16, because,………………….
"……..our current system encourages unsupervised binge drinking."
Well the new Obama adult age is 26 I think.
First the Federal Government should have zero role in deciding or controlling this (like highway funding). Only for federal elections does it have a role in age.
Second, the family has a lot of responsibilty for determining this and a religion may choose to ban it altogether. But violating that is not criminal.
So the states should establish minimums for this, and they should be as low as possible to ensure maxijujm freedom and rely on personal responsibility. So 18 is the correct answer. But states could set it higher if they want based on their mood.
RATHER we should increase the age of consent and majority to 21 (if not higher).
No voting until 21.
No marriage before 21.
No military service before 21.
Now THAT would mean smaller government! isn't that what people here CLAIM to want? It is an open secret the military wants people who are immature and immoral so they kill without question. What was the average age of the soldier in WWII? What was it in ……http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3LdMAqUMnM
Yes, this is a burning issue, and of course, lowering the arbitrary age of 21 to the arbitrary age of 18 would solve so many problems like binge drinking by ‘yewts.’ More education and more enforcement always work. Too bad society can’t put a condom on it, right?
Still, I wouldn’t dare lower the drinking age until a permanent rope could be lassoed around trial lawyers, so parents who have beer on tap or a byob for their kid’s graduation—aren’t sued into poverty or go to jail because high school graduates John and Elizabeth get loaded and drive into a tree at 90 and then suddenly become little Johnny and little Lizzy, the terrible innocent victims of thoughtless and morally dead parents who just want to be nice and treat their child’s friends like adults…
The 21 year old drinking age seems to infringe on the rights of legal (18 year old) adults. Not that I think it is good for 18 yo people to drink. It is a little arbitrary.
http://www.PoliticalCentrist.com News and views for independent voters
Anon is probably three or four ACORN schlubs anyway. Be fun to pop an IP trace and see where the jokers post from though.
Although I favor 18 yrs old instead of 21, I say… End the prohibition all together.
If a kid is under 18 he's the responsibility of his parents, not the gov. If an adult allows his kid to try beer, for instance, it's their decision. As it is today, it's a taboo that kids take too much advantage of when they get a chance. Let them be exposed to it earlier so they learn the consequences, get a feel for their tolerance, etc… Don't make it such a 'special occasion' when they get their hands on something. Make it normal… boring.
After 18, the kids are adults and can make their own decisions.
Nahh… leave him alone.
We should keep score. 1 pt for every anon comment that you actually read before it gets deleted.
It is time to raise the voting age, and administer a reading/listening comprehension test!
[...] Read the full article and watch the video. [...]
Sorry, I've been around Universities too long to know what will happen if the drinking age is 18. It's pretty bad now, and some people I know have been involved in horrific and deadly accidents.
I do think that certain people should be allowed to drink at an earlier age, including those serving in the military and I would be interested in other exceptions as well — but it would have to be an earned privilege, not a right.
America probably has the most irresponsible teenagers; lowering the drinking age would drastically increase deaths on the road caused by these teenagers. It's a horrible idea.
BTW, reading anon's comments are driving me to drink.
I would like to believe that anonymous contributions are good but lets face it, whoever is posting as anon is not here to contribute.
Man up and register if you want to post and stand behind your words is what I say.
More anon, less HT. Oh well.
What i'm getting from this is that there are people running schools that are looking for a way to sidestep liabiility for issue involving alcohol on their watch and a bar owner who is not doing so well. Maybe its just me.
How about just returning control of the drinking age to the individual states, as it was over 20 years ago – this is just another illustration of "Nanny Government" by an elite who "know " what is best for the great unwashed and grab Federal control.
While certainly not intending to diminish the importance of Mother Against Drunk Driving (MADD), I always threatened to start a new ornanization. Call it Drunks Against Mad Mothers (DAMM). I betcha I'd have alot of charter members.
On a far more serious note, I would argue against lowering the drinking age. Furthermore, I would argue to RAISE it. Using the same logic and common sense that the Obama Administration just applied, I sugest the drinking age be raised to 26 years of age. if a child can still live at home, and be mandated to be covered on their parents insurance, then they are still a dependent. They should not drink. Furthermore, they should not vote, until they are old enough to be on their own………..
Anon
"………… 18 year old president that like to drink and appreciated young women."
–That is what we have, if you add snorting and smoking, adjusting for arrested development.
What if we compromise and make everything 19
If insurance companies are forced to ensure the "children" of policy holders until age 26, then the drinking, sexual consent, and voting age requirement should likewise be raised.
Ummm . . . that would be a LARGER role of government.
A constitution test too.
Judging from the immaturity/actions of so many 16-18-21 year olds, I believe it's reasonable to raise the drinking age to 30. Military service possiby at 16, marriage at say 22 (time to graduate from college). I'm more than ready for society to take a hard-ass line against all obnoxious, anti-social actions and attitudes. Work 'em hard, encourage them to grow up, take responsibility then maybe they can handle drinking. Yep-you can go to war and not be allowed to drink. Gotta problem with that? Really? Tough.
How about DAM — Mothers Against Dyslexia? (Full disclosure: I am somewhat dyslexic, so I am making fun of myself).
in English
We may be out of step with the rest of the world on this, but perhaps for good reason. Where else do so many young people drive cars so much? I might go for allowing 18-21 year olds to order alcohol in a restruant or bar but not buy at a liquor store. Restraunts and bars would need an addition to their license for this and would be subject to closer supervision.
if 18-21s are irresponsible, how come they can vote?
I've always beleived that if one is old enough to die for one's country, one is old enough to drink. Your idea is a fair compromise.
I thought he/she was being sarcastic.
Is Guest = ANON?
The correct answer to this all is…
42
So, it's OK that they can leave him, get married, join the military, have sex, go to college, etc. etc. etc.
But not OK for them to have a beer?
Frankly, I don't think there should be ANY drinking age limit. BUYING age, maybe, but what someone does in their own house, or in their parents house under their parents supervision, is none of the government's damned business!
Either make the qualifying age across the board 21 or 18 (for alcohol, tobacco, military enlistment, etc). Pick one. Then enforce it. The piecemeal approach to adulthood is ridiculous. Personally I am in favor of 18 for all things driving, legal responsibility, drinking, etc. If you want responsible adults let em fail a little when younger, all holding the age down does is move the curve out a little. What is the difference between a dumb 21 year old getting drunk and a dumb 18 year old? Both splatter across the front of a semi about the same.
Agreed. I believe the govt. can probably get away with setting the age at which it can be sold, but an actual drinking age is way beyond the government's powers.
I am now, more than ever, convinced that you are getting paid for your "stupidity". Does anybody garner more responses than you? Are you paid per click? Per response? According to your negative score?
Apparently Obama likes to drink, and Clinton liked young women. One was a foreign policy disaster held in check by the (R)'s, the other is a total and abject failure…
IMHO, the voting age should be the same age as the office for which they're voting.
If we believe people are not mature and wise enough to become President until 35, what the hell makes us think they are mature and wise enough to VOTE for President?
Bull. Did you not read the part about the US being only one of FOUR countries with a drinking age of 21?
Pretty much everywhere else they have bars on campus. And yes, it leads to LESS drinking because it's out in the open.
I thought Bush was the coke head. Obama is the pot head.
Nah; simply increase the driving age to 21
Nah.
Two different writing styles.
So what? Show me where it's the government's business to dictate when someone can drink beer…
You can have "this will lead to…" conversations all day. The argument is and old, old, old one that needs a fix. It's just stupid to say "you're an adult at age 18, but not so adult that you can drink". Education is the answer, every time we take something and make it a no-no, people end up with criminal records for something that should be more along the lines of a ticket or similar.
I'm tired of losing rights because of stupid people!! STOP writing laws and START writing consequences! for example, If you ride a motorcycle/bicycle without a helmet then you shouldn't be allowed to sue for brain damage. I should be allowed to do whatever and then be held responsible for my actions, NOT told what to do or how to live…
Obviously we need "do's and don't's" as they relate to others, but things that only effect us personally should not be controlled that way, particularly by the government and people from states we don't live in. (oh– this is almost about healthcare….)
Sorry, but I would say in that case it becomes the decision of the parents, not the government.
Cowboy, you of all people should know better than to give the government any more power. Abolish the drinking age, and let the states decide the age that it can be SOLD via the liquor licensing laws.
I thought we already had an 18 year old president that like to drink and appreciated young women. (And throws like a girl.)
Thanks for stealing my thunder. Not the DAMM part, but the rest. Still laughing at "Survivor – Montana Style". That should be enshrined as comment of the day for 4/6/10. +1
The US has (I think) the lowest driving age in the world. Maybe *that* is the cause and not the alcohol?
Thank you Reagan. Champion of state…. federal power?
PieceACandy
obuma is an equal opportunity doper, he'll do any and everything.(doesn't wish to be exclusive-except with our money–he considers that all his)
Let's lower the drinking age to 18 and raise the voting age back to 21. Let them play out their stupidity on themselves, not the country.
So basically, Americans are worthy to protect your Anon opinion when they are still, technically, hormonal freaks. Worthy of reproducing at 22, when they are still young enough to buy the crap that "society" is selling and (ideally) pass on said thoughts to the next generation.
When 30 hits (as it will for me in less than 1 year), with the realization of dead optimism and ethically bankrupt morals, only THEN will they be able to get drunk and forget about the misery?
Huh, now it all makes sense. NOT.
So glad I was getting high at 16, so I can be smart enough to recognize it and mature enough to deal with it should I ever CHOOSE to be a mommy.
Folks, you TEACH responsibility. I used to trust 18 year olds with Millions of Dollars worth of equipment, in foreign lands, where their actions could lead not only to loss of life, but to international incidents.
Young adults will live UP to, or DOWN to, your expectations. The problem is the College atmosphere that tells them they are not responsible for themselves… that we do not expect them to act responsibly, and therefore will not trust them.
Funny that many here diferentiate Military 18 year olds, from College kids…. when the only real difference between the two is the EXPECTATION that they will act responsibly, and be held accountable.
And I say this as the Parent of 19 year old twins… one of whom is in the Navy, one of whom is in College…
Well, I said it all prety much tongue in cheek.
I'm not interested in government, whether it be state, or federal, legislating anything.
My personal experience is that I was out of control as a teenager as were most of my friends. Between the age of 17-18 I totaled 3 cars and was in two additional car accidents where the cars were also totaled. At 21 we were undoubtedly more responsible and didn't get into situations that could have killed us or others [at least as far as cars are concerned].
Thanks.
I do have a sense of humor.
I remember when the drinking age was 18, when I was in school. Then it was 19, then 21. I'm sorry, but I still see so much irresponsible drinking because we, as Americans are so schizo about it. Kids get to college and it's one huge binge until someone dies or goes into a coma. It's not a question of age, it's a question of culture. In cultures where wine and liquor are responsibly consumed by parents and the surrounding community, kids grow up respecting alcohol and not abusing it. This is a proven fact.
Don't lower the age, get rid of sanctimonious tea-totallers who scream that drinking is evil. Prohibition never works and you cannot legislate morality. Stop making it a sin and it will stop being a problem.
Not what I saw when the drinking age changed from 19 to 21 while I was living on campus. But I stand by what I said — make it an earned privilege and it will work. Too many irresponsible teenagers out there.
If it’s good enough for Europe, it’s good enough for the USA. Since we have already adopted their health care system, we might as well adopt their drinking age!
Honestly I am all in favor of making the drinking age 18. I think parents should teach their children responsibility including responsible drinking.
You guys ever think that the reason 16-21 are so immature is because there's no reason for them to be mature? Don't people learn to be responsible by being given responsibility? Why don't we just lock people away until they're 30? We won't let them do anything then on their 30th birthday we let them be free! Oh how glorious it would be to see people with 30 years of sheltered life under their belts (because it's years not experience that matures someone, much like a wine) go flipping insane with all the new found "freedom" they have. All our problems would be solved. HAHA!
If you make the drinking age any higher you'll create more problems. When you withhold something you create a demand and when you create a demand someone will create a supply. You only have to look at drugs, prostitution, and prohibition, but what do I know I just "think wrong" or I'm a "liberal" or a "left-wing nut" or an "extremist" or whatever silly name you want to label me with.
We could print bumper stickers, and hats.
Join forces with the Tea Party, and the looney left could refer to US as those "DAMM Tea Partiers"…….
I agree with what you just wrote.
Based on your first paragraph, you were either in the oil business, or the military.
Judging by the call sign, I'd say military.
Sixty years ago, eighteen year olds were killing Germans and Japs. Today, their greatest concern, is uploading tunes on their i-Pod thingey.
Rim shot!
Agreed, lower drinking age to 18 and make pot and coke legal (or at least up to states) for consenting adults.
If they get into cars or found guilty of endangering others, fine, arrest them.
This is small government, not a nanny state.
This is from someone who hasn't smoked pot since college, never done coke, but am tired of paying police/DEA to nanny other people or paying to send people to jail for victimless crimes.
P.S. Enforcement of these crimes doesn't work, even if your goal is to nanny people.
In reference to the "Guest" opinion above (I'm told this is a different troll from "Anon"):
So basically, Americans are worthy to protect your Anon opinion when they are still, technically, hormonal freaks. Worthy of reproducing at 22, when they are still young enough to buy the crap that "society" is selling and (ideally) pass on said thoughts to the next generation.
When 30 hits (as it will for me in less than 1 year), with the realization of dead optimism and ethically bankrupt morals, only THEN will they be able to get drunk and forget about the misery?
Huh, now it all makes sense. NOT.
So glad I was getting high at 16, so I can be smart enough to recognize it and mature enough to deal with it should I ever CHOOSE to be a mommy.
That should be part of the HCR. If you're on your parents insurance and you're <27 then you don't get to drink.
That's a great idea……….I say we offer them a choice. You can either drink at 18 and not vote till your 30 or wait till your 21 to drink and still vote at 18………………I'm thinkin' we could eliminate about two thirds of the Obama voters in one fell swoop with the plan………..
If we do driving/voting @21 & drinking @18 I could live with that.
Legal drinking at the age of 18 was the norm when I grew up. That meant that most High School seniors were old enough to drink. It was very common to attend a party where 15 year olds were receiving beer from their inebriated 18 year old friends. Today, 18 year old college freshmen get beer from their drunken 21 year old friends. Its not a perfect system, but it really is better than the old one. Is it fair?? Not even a little bit.
The MILITARY,……………………there Aaron,……
you are referring to a situation where you are told what to do when to it and how to do it,……………
at least that is the way it was when I was the MILITARY.
Hence responsibility is an orchestrated condition,………….so in answer to your question
It is why in the Military these lads are indeed allowed to drink,……..
the conditions outside the MILITARY do not warrant such liberties.
Great piece!
I support lowering the drinking age to 18. The problem is our culture. Alcohol is taboo, so binge drinking is the response. The law as it is erodes the influence of parents. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. A parent is a criminal for allowing responsible alcohol consumption by his/her HS senior, yet making alcohol taboo until age 21 sets the stage for binge drinking. Under 21 its the exhileration of "getting away with it", at 21 it becomes the exhileration of finally being legal, after that drinking loses some luster but the culture of getting hammered is already ingrained.
Lowering the age to 18 might be messy at first as the culture adapts, but it would be good in the long term. Do all the other countries in the world have problems as we do with alcohol?
It makes no sense one can be responsible for millions of dollars of equipment and fight in the military, but not be trusted to drink a cold beer when he/she wants.
The idea of raising the age of all that other stuff to 21 is an interesting idea. Its a novel concept. i would say, I don't consider 21 year olds to be "adults", let alone 18 year olds. They're still stupid kids even at 21. I do think it makes more sense to lower the drinking age and give kids more responsibility to prove themselves, rather than push everything else older and give them more reason to wallow in "stupid kiddery" for even longer than now.
Just entertained a German foreign exchange student for 3 weeks and that's similar to what they do over there. 16 year olds can drink beer and wine and no one gets to start driving until they are 17. Gives you a year to get all the excitement about drinking out of your system before you ever get behind the wheel. I like it.
Cowboy,
Hell some of them lied about their ageand were 16 or 17… Go back further and drummer boys or flag boys in the "War of Nothern Aggression" were as young as 10 or 11…
But as Romeo13 points out, they were taught responsibility (and consequenses) at an earlier age than society expects today.
On topic I'm torn. I have a 24 year old son, and he is and always was a handful, and defiant to my views and teaching. He'd have been in serious trouble when out of my sight if he could have just bought booze whenever he wanted…
I lived through the transition to 21. I was 18 after boot camp and I could drink 3.2 beer on base in CA. Then in Florida I was illegal for a couple weeks, and 19 was both my age and the legal age. Then I moved to Groton, Conn. and I could not drink until 20, and some time after I turned 20, Conn. raised thier limit to 21 and I could only drink what I had already bought and stockpiled at home…. It was a royal PITA…
I would call that short-sighted and a cop out. The ramifications of such a change could be huge. It would change our very culture as it relates to alcohol. Seems pretty darn significant. Especially considering the problems we have with binge drinking and the like.
I don't see how.
Removes left-wing voters.
Makes our military more mature and thus less likely to commit to senseless wars of invasion.
We don't have a shortage of people in the armed forces, we have a surplus of pointless wars.
Let me clarify; having a lower drinking age leads to less irresponsible drinking overall.
The way to cut out drink-driving if at all possible is a low drinking age and high driving age; that way they have learned to drink responsibly well before they get keys to a car.
You know I don't think I can knock him for this comment because this is my rebuttal to anyone that tries to say, "Well we might as well legalize drugs because if we continue to make them illegal then people will continue to get them from nasty people cooking them in their basement, but if we make it legal then we can make sure they are safely manufactured in a sterile environment."
I usually use it to cynically point out the fact that people always seem to wanna draw a line that makes no sense, either make drugs and alchohal illegal and deal with the fact that you'll have to drop more revenue in police and prisons, or make them all legal and put up with all of the unemployed stoners that nobody wants working for them.
*smacks forehead* Should have realized…Guest is obviously college-educated while Anon must represent the "poor ignorant folks who can't spell". Now that's logic, babe.
OK then; just making sure no one had hijacked you
You're going to have to come up with better arguments than "the US is only one of four countries… blah, blah, blah" and using "scarce public resources" to enforce age limits. The MSM made it seem like the US was the only holdout in the world from socialized medicine and now we have just "joined the civilized world" (according to them) with that debacle called Obamacare. The United States is one of only three industrialized democracies that still have the death penalty (Wikipedia). I guess that should go too. Should we cut back or get rid of capitalism (or anything else) just because we're only one of a certain number that do it? By the way, the LA Times recently had an article about "gender-neutral" dorms. Some colleges are telling parents footing the bill they have no say in the matter. Maybe that should happen across the country, because, hey, right now about 50 colleges are offering it! You always wanted to be a grandparent anyway right?
The "scarce public resources" is a spurious argument. Don't you think the those same resources won't be spent making sure the kiddos one year under whatever the minimum age becomes won't try and and get booze? You think 17 year olds suddenly won't want to get a beer if the age limit is 18?
The question is asked, "Is the policy working to reduce health and safety issues related to youthful alchohol abuse?". On the other hand, is there any evidence to the contrary? That is, have health and safety issues related to youthful alchohol abuse increasedbecause they have to (legally) wait until they're 21? How does the fact that alcohol consumption lowering inhibitions square with the immaturity of teens in general? For example, will there be more teenage pregnancies if the age limit is lowered?
You know, there may actually be some legitimate arguments supporting this, but it these aint them.
The 21 year old drinking age is one of the biggest examples of the failure of stupid laws.. Me and everyone I know drank more before we turned 21 than after. If you are old enought to go to Iraq and get blown up by an IED, you are old enough to drink.
No, you're absolutely correct. Take the decision out of the hands of the people (aka, more laws, more regulation), the less people have to think for themselves (more stupidity, more irresponsibility).
Now, I don't know where your politics are generally, but this line of thinking makes you a conservative. It's called personal responsibility and it's one of the cornerstones of Conservatism…
But yet that still leaves the problem of women doesn't it? I mean afterall they are emotional creatures who don't always act rationally when presented with a situation. What is your plan for them since you seem to have all the solutions? /sarc
If you join intensedebate (or maybe others) you get a statistical number of if you comments are ranked high or low.
It is not an exact 1-1 ratio of up vs downranking but if someone has a higher number they are more considered to have comments in the past of higher ranks.
The benefits of serving in the military at age 17 far outweigh the drinking age of 21. If you serve, you can drink. I don't care about the rest. If you carry a valid military ID, you can drink. I also don't care what the age limit is for NON-servers. Make it 65 for all I care.
Sure, why not! The more Alcoholics the BETTER!!!!
When are they going to end the Prohibition on POT?!? That is what I want too know, I would just like to grow my own for personal use… they can make taxes on the Medical pot!
Some people (like me) can't drink because of either a health condition (Diabetic) or the RX meds that we take… we have no other choice but too smoke!!!
How about this: If you are an independent citizen at age 18, you can drink. So long as you remain on your parents' healthcare plan — ostensibly through age 26 — you must be treated as the child you are.
I don't understand how, in most states, we entrust 16 year olds to drive cars and put other people's lives in danger, but we don't allow adults to drink until they're 21. If you're an adult, you should be able to do adult things. If your a child, you should not. Make the driving age and the drinking age 18.
Our military is more mature and professional than any other in the world. Their maturity and intelligence far outstrips your infantile anti-Semitic, conspiracy theorist mind.
I agree with Romeo 13. Seriously, people, at some point we will have to let kids grow up. As it is now, these kids hardly have any responsibility. And this is perfectly ok in society. This goes hand-in-hand with the dumbing down of our schools. We are raising a generation of helpless people. And in dealing with today's young people both in my work place and in personal business, I can honestly tell you that this is the sad truth.
We have employee's parents coming in trying to deal with their children's affairs (like if their kid's performance review was less than par). I have a tennant in a rental property who is completely helpless. She has been fired from her last three jobs because she was "sick" all the time. She has called me to ask me if I thought she was too sick to go to work because she was incapable of making that decision on her own. On that phone call, she told me that her mother wouldn't answer and she needed to know what to do so she called me. This is from a 24 year old woman!!!! She also gave my phone number to her mother; this I could possibly overlook because it was under the guise of emergencies. However, I didn't find out that she had given her mother my number until her mom called because Fed-ex couldn't find the house, and apparently I was supposed to sit on my front porch all day (forget my full-time job) and flag Fed-ex down to tell them where the house was. Never mind that the girl could have just picked the package up from the main branch in town. And truly, is Fed-ex an EMERGENCY?' And in my experience, this kind of behavior is the norm, not the exception.
When will our government decide that 26 is waaaay too young for people to be out on their own and dealing with their own affairs and we have to make the age 30, or 40? Who IS the government to make that decision? I think it should be a parent's decision.
Ok, so you're an elitist who promotes class warfare. I get it. You don't want the poor and middle class to use coke, its only for the rich.
Pot should be for everyone. Just gotta be able to pay for it, or grow it.
I wouldn't doubt Obama tried coke too. He just didn't have a problem with it like Bush did. Same for alcohol. Chimpy likey his snorty and drinky.
I thought it was 27 now.
What are the reputation points and how are they calculated? http://intensedebate.com/faq#li53
Lower the drinking age to 18. It does ironic that the following has happened here in the US:
1. Selective Service Registration 18 years old (sorry girls, males only)
2. Voting age 18 years old
Unfortunately, the States are ALL guilty of bowing down to the Feds and have become continual beggars at their feet for the crumbs of "highway" dollars. If the States would ever align themselves and re-read the Constitution, they would be reminded that it is the States who give the power to the Feds, not the other way around. If this were not so, then why does it require the States to ratify the Constitution.
It is time the States figure out exactly who really is in control. This requires clearing out the State houses that are perpetuating the corruption and perversion of the Constitution.
Well, folks, I'm off to get an account, thanks y'all
"Chimpy likey his snorty and drinky"
Oh for crying out loud.
You must be logged in to post a comment.