The drinking age

Couldn’t agree with you more! I’ve a 19-y/o son, who went to boarding school in the UK, where the drinking age for beer is 16. His school even had an on-site pub, where limits of one pint/day were imposed. Weekends, into town, of course, there were no limits.

Now, as a sophomore in an American university, he can’t legally drink. But, being at a university, he most certainly is drinking. At jeopardy.

At risk is his driver’s license, which can be pulled for any amount of blood alcohol. He’s also at risk of arrest for underage drinking. I don’t worry about binge-drinking because he really does know better.

The current laws create other problems, perhaps not quite as serious. He can’t have a party–with the anticipation of any of his age-group guests–without alcohol. But parents are criminally liable if alcohol is available to underagers. Do parents want the legal–or financial–risk?

So the choice seems to be, restrict our son’s social life, or risk being jailed/sued. That’s a fun choice.

Kids, as always, will find a way. Most of my son’s peers carry very good looking fake ID. That provides adequate cover for local bars, I’m sure. But it presents very major legal questions in the event of something going wrong.

Perhaps gov’t could give a choice: an under-21 drinking license or an under-21 driver’s license, but not both.

But you’re absolutely right: prohibition never works.

Yes, terrible social policy. Worse, the new policy of attaching driver’s license sanctions to non-driving conduct, particularly by teens, such as a “minor in possession” ticket from underaged drinking.

At the same time, some of Europe’s nations which have arguably more progressive societal and legislative attitudes toward youth drinking also rates of problem drinking (e.g., binge drinking) which exceed those of the U.S. – so it’s not necessarily legislative hypocrisy or short-sightedness which drives similar problem behaviors here. And, from a road safety standpoint, it is “safer” in a typical European nation to be tolerant of youth drinking, where a teen is more likely to stagger home from a pub than to drive home from a bar.

Heh, I just got back from spending 2 weeks of active-duty training with a myriad of ages of Army enlisted folk. All E-4 and E-5s. Ages ranged from 19 to 32 that I had close contact with. The interesting part to me was my responsible-ish drinking (I’m 27) was more stigmatized and ostracized than the had I not been drinking at all. There are deep societal structures holding our drinking together at young ages.

i am 16 and i love to drink.. i drink every weekend with freinds.. people say its bad.. notin my book i act more resposible than most leagle drinkers… i think the leagle age in the U.S should be lowerd at least to 18.. because if your old enough to die for your country you should be allowed to have a beer.. i mean isnt 18 and adult? with freedom? well not with this law you dont have freedom.. but yet you can buy ciggeretts that kill more people than drinking does… thats all i wanted to say..

RiP – Matt M. us soilder died befor he got his first leagle drink of alchole he dies at age 19…

This comment is in regard to Mr. Holt’s. We were all made with free choice, and the ability to see the consequences of whatever we chose. The “religious absolutists” you speak of even have it wrong in their own foundational reasoning. The biblical instruction is that an individual is able to serve in the army and be considered fully an adult both at the age of 20. If they read their own “instruction manual” fully beggining to end they would see this fact. This is how it should be, the same standard for all gauges of responsibility and adulthood.