Do you think they should lower the age you have to be to drink Alcohol in the USA?

In the Netherlands you can drink alcohol when you're 16. But you can't drive untill you're 18.

To me it just seems weird to see 16 year olds driving cars :huh: But off course this is only because they are not allowed in my country. So other people could have other opinions about it ;)

'Barst Los!' Start the discussion :D

I agree with the idea that there are less issues when the drinking age is younger. (I'd elaborate on this, but I forget what all has been said in defense of the topic.)

I'm not saying this because I'm a young thang who wants to drink...I passed my 21st in January. I'm just in agreement, based on what I said above.

Up here in Alberta, driving age is 16, and drinking is 18......seems a little young.....but I turned out OK.

in Texas, as long as you are with your parents, you can drink. even if you 12, if your parents allow you to drink, you can. and smoke!! lol

but i support lowering the drinking age, yes. i think 18 would be good, or even 16! teens have the capibility of deciding these things for themselves :)

one thing that america needs to do though, it we need to make it to where people know where enough is enough. like in europe, if you are just buzzed, you call someone to pick you up. or you walk. or public transportation. but you don't drive home.

here in America.. oh gosh, you get as drunk as possible, and drive home, not even caring. which is horrible lol.

BUT, if it was legal at 18, perhaps kids would know when enough is enough, schools would teach responsibility, etc.

if you can own a home, join the military, have kids, and do porn.. why can't you drink!!

I don't smoke but you're allowed when you're 16 here.

It's not like because I can drink, it means that I do drink. I only drink alcohol on party's, mostly I spend 20 euros. But that's a rare occasion

If you think about it, it's really stupid! You can't even get a drink but you can get killed in the most horrible ways in the war :angry:

Really? Sorry, but I don´t think that´s a good idea at all :blink:

Here in Spain you come of age when you´re 18, and when you come of age you´re an adult for everything. So you can drive, you can buy acohol or cigarettes, you can vote and you can go to prison.

Your city is just too damn lenient. It's 21, countrywide. The only exemption is Nevada, which allows the counties to decide, but all of them say 21, too.

Heey I like being able to buy drinks when I want to, and I think 21 is a bit old…I mean hello, anyone ever heard of college? You can't go trow college without drinking…I think, I loved buying my first drink legally, did it when my best friend turned sixteen (we first went to the supermarket to buy some alcohol on her birthday, but the cashier didn't borther looking at her ID, so we also had to go buy a bit more alcohol at a licorstore, we came out a bit drunk that day…but that also could be from the lotts of sugar) and I also wanted to do the same thing at my birthday like a sort of turning sixteen ritual, but unfortuanately (well not really…just at that point) I was in Spain, celebrating my birthday with my family so couldn't do that <_< (had to role play it later :P )
I do think driving a car at 16 is a bit young, I mean young people love to show of, most driving accidents in the Netherlands happen with people who just got there license, when your 18 you have two years more of life-experiance, wich maybe prevents you for doing something stupid (and with the story's my father tells me, and he has to go get money for victims and stuff after accidents cause he's a lawyer, people do pretty stupid things when being wit friends, alcohol and a new drivers license)
I do know that the government wants to make the age limit higher on buying alcohol (BTW…you can only buy alcoholic dranks that don't have a lott of alcohol in it, like beer, breezers and wine) here, cause a lott (or in every case more then in other countries) of teenagers are alcoholists (never met one myself…well I did, but those were cops and teachers…not teenagers) but I think that has more to do that;well this country isn't all that exciting, makes you wanna drink more (seriously, I know that there are more alcoholists in the villages around Amsterdam then in Amsterdam itself, it's just if there already is fun, or that you have to find it in the bottle of a beerglass ;) )

Here, drinking age is 18, I think driving age is 17. Oh, unless your at home, with your parents, then you can have a lil' too drink if your somethign like 12/14.

I think 18's a fine age to drink, but it seems weird tha in the UK you have to pay adult prices, you can smoke, buy 'adult' products, ie cigarettes, razors etc etc, basically at 16 you're considered an adult, except you're not in the eyes of the law, and you can't vote.

But yeah, I think 18's an ok age to start drinking, although lopads of my mates start at, like, 14, so *shrug*

I find very odd that lots of countries have different ages for different things.

Anyway, I´ve drank and I´ve smoked when I was 16. So...

Yeah it's strange cause if I go to the US I would be promited to drive…(promess I won't cause I serously would ran into a building or something like that) but wouldn't be allowed to buy alcohol…not even in two years, when in the eyes of my country I'm totally grown up (beg the diffrence, I think I probably never will be totally grown up :P part of me likes being a child quite well), that's just strange…

Don't you just love discussions lol. They really get people talking.

^_^

I had to think about this one for a few days because I'm really torn. If you could completely take the drinking and driving factor out of it then I would be for lowering it to say 18. But unfortunately there are enough teenagers who aren't very responsible and they ruin it for the ones that are. Teenagers have horrible driving records for the most part and adding alcohol to that could be really bad! :huh:

When I lived in Colorado as a teenager, I got my drivers permit at 5 yrs and 6 months and my license at 16. At 18, you could buy 3.2 beer, vote, get married but had to wait til 21 to buy harder alcohol.

I personally think it should stay at 21.

But when it's new year we always have champagne. It would be weird if I couldn't have it.

21 seems such an old age to have to reach before you can legally drink! It's 18 here but most people start drinking way younger than that. If you can be married with kids at 16, be treated like an adult in every other area in life why such a wait before you can go out and buy alcohol?! People do it anyways. My youngest brother's friends drink just because they know it's something they shouldn't and aren't really allowed to do, unless they're on private property :rolleyes:

I voted to leave the drinking age at 21. I am not a drinker .. actually I can't even stand the smell of alcohol .. i've tried beer and mixed drinks and neither are for me .. it didn't make me have a better time or make me feel any better .. so why do it .. I'm just as happy with my Mtn Dew .. :P Most of the people I know drink alcohol so if we go anywhere i'm always the designated driver :D

Luna .. I managed to make it thru college and not drink .. I must be a freak of nature .... :lol:

Hey! Then I'm not the only freak out there! :lol: I don't drink either. I vote to leave it at 21. I'm sure there are some responsible teenagers out there but unfortunately there are some unresponsible ones too.

Mtn Drew is really gross lol! And American bread is also really bad! :P

Wow I didn't even made it through junior high without drinking… :D

But personally I love Irish coffee and mixing alcoholic dranks, I just like alcohol, I mean I don't get drunk or something, well I've been a couple of times but not like extremely drunk. I don't like drunk people (I have a friend who askes me if she smells like alcohol when she's drunk and then goes breathing in your face…yuk) so tend not to get drunk myself.
I think as long as you know what you're doing and can do without, you're good and I really don't think that forbidding something like this will teenagers stop using alcohol if they want to :rolleyes:

Julie .. you can talk about the bread ... but You gotta love the DEW! :P :lol:

I don't have a problem with people who enjoy drinking .. I just happen to be one of those people who doesn't drink alcohol .. I've seen in my own family what happens when alcohol becomes an addiction you can't control ... that more than anything stopped me from drinking when I was younger and I guess it just stuck with me .. :D

Well, I'm almost 18 and I've made it this far without ever being drunk! Quite an acheivement when I think what my friends are like....I have tried it a couple of times but I don't really like it ;) The only problem is all my friends want to go out and get really drunk whereas I find that boring. Birthdays and other occassions are always hard because I'm happy alcohol free and they aren't :rolleyes:

might as well let 18 yrs old drink they do it anyway

Well i dunno what the guys are like in the US but the folks here in the UK are very young and immature at 18 so they should raise the age limit to 21 here...I think they might be a bit more mature over there and can handle they're drink better than here!

Australia is the Same. 16 for driving and 18 for drinking but they might be rasing the age...i hope not :unsure:

In my part of Canada it's 19, and I think that's fairly reasonable. But in reality, it doesn't matter where you set the age, kids are gonna drink anyway (not everyone, I've never even had a sip of alcohol, but I know kids who get drunk all the time). I think 21 is ridiculously naive. There are plenty of deaths to back it up; kids don't care about the law, it's just a number. There's the argument that they just want to try it because society tells them they can't, and I think that plays a part, but that doesn't mean it should be lowered to say....age 5 or something ludicrous like that. It just seems odd to me that a person has been an adult for three years before they're allowed to drink. I think they should lower it, but I wouldn't go lower than 18. And more effort should go into responsible drinking promotion. I'm a firm believer in the theory that if you drill it into their brains hard enough and when they're young enough, it'll stick.

Our driving age is 16 and for the most part I think that's way too low. There are some responsible drivers - one of my friends is really good behind the wheel, but I think it should be an individual judgement call. Every case is different. There should be some kind of check in place to make sure the kid is responsible enough for a license. Of course that's in a perfect world, there really isn't time for that in the real world. In the real world, all we can do is hope for more kids to smarten up in the next generations.

At us under 18 years - theoretically! - nobody may drink alcohol, and may not buy even a cigarette - theoretically.
But this is out of order in this manner in practice of course. A couple of his days we went onto one of the clubs with my friends, and I say it sincerely, myself found it old. Around me 13-16 year children smoked and they drank.

I disagree slightly. I live in Ireland where the legal age for drinking is 18 but I am 16 and have drank since i was 14, as have most people my age. I don't know what the situation is like in America but I feel that if they lowered the legal age over there it may result in another underage alcohol filled society. Having the legal age at 21 over there means that yes, some 18 year olds are going to drink, but to lower the drinking age would mean people even younger would be drinking.

Well, you could make the argument that alcohol already is a big problem in American society. Something I've been noticing the last couple days, they've been running commercials over here that aren't saying, "Don't drink", they're saying, "If you're gonna drink, be responsible about it." I think they're a great idea. If you can't beat 'em, don't necessarily join 'em, but teach 'em responsibility.

It's like my little credit card story over in my bday thread; once you're legally allowed to do it, it's no fun anymore. Yeah, kids will still get drunk, but they won't do it just because they're trying to rebel, and I think that means they won't get as hammered and get behind the wheel as much. It will just become like casual drinking.

They fiddled with the age here when my mom was on the verge of reaching the drinking age, bouncing back and forth between 18 and 19, and she said exactly the same thing; they lowered it to 18 the year she turned 18, and suddenly the idea of drinking wasn't fun anymore.

honestly i think it's really weird that the drinking age in the U.S. is 21, yet 18 year olds can sign up to fight in the army...and this is coming from someone who doesn't drink at all...and plus, there are 18 year olds who are more mature than 21 year olds so not letting someone drink just cuz they haven't been alive for a certain number of years is kinda ignorant

i liven in Ireland where the legal drinking age is 18
However, the majority of people get drunk for the first time when they're 13/14 and go out clubbing and to bars and stuff when they're 15/16
So it doesn't really prevent people drinking when they're younger because drink is so widely availible before then.

Ooooh yet another Irish person on here :D
Yeah I completely agree, i'm 17 in october and i've been going out to clubs and bars since last december! and I know a few girls younger than me that do too...

Actually, my best friend and I were talking about this yesterday, how people in Ireland who are underage can get into clubs. So, why is that exactly? Do you have fake IDs or do the bouncers just not care?