DRINKING AGE LOWERED ?

[Guest Seb]

I'm from Montreal....drinking age is 18 and we usually started at 16. We didn't have more alcohol related deaths or higher rates of alcoholism. I find it INSULTING that here in the U.S. you can be found of age to go die in someone else's war but not old enough to have a drink in public.

disgusting double standard >

ya I remember going to Quebec city for March break when I was 16. Was crazy cause I looked like I was 13 and I didn't have any problems getting into any bars or clubs.

[Guest pod]

Well, up until the recent indignant upsurge towards the time honored tradition of having a drink, the general policy was that if you're old enough to reach the bar, you're old enough to drink. Pretty logical if you will.

Gestapo-esque and fundamentalist organizations like DARE, MADD, SADD, and the public education system, have produced a series of drones who pretty much are either out-of-control people who can't handle their booze since they never were taught to respect it, or, automatons who seek to suck the last bit of fun out of American life.

I'm scared of the next generation of kids, they're going to think enforced abstinence and sobriety is the norm, along with the 'surveillance society'.

[Guest swank]

True enough. Plus, you get a lot of cross border bullshit from US kids coming up your way to drink...wasn't a huge drinker when I was a young'un (didn't have people to drink with really) but there was a few times where the one or two friends I had would go cross-border to tip back a few. We'd be smart and sober up before going back, but less intelligent people would roar on back roaring drunk.

haha! yeah...they were pretty easy to spot...walking down the sidewalk arm in arm against traffic belting out some ignant college song or puking their guts out in a corner somewhere.

[Guest pod]

I'd have your cops deport their ass post-haste. Like on the spot. Dump 'em at the border and don't let them back in. ;D They wanna roll with the big boys, let 'em suffer big boy consequences.

In other words, they need to know how to drink.

[Guest coach]

Apparantly, a lot of you do not remember that the drinking age used to be 18. As Pod pointed out, the Federal Government changed that in about 1986. They did so by pulling federal funds from highway projects for any state that did not raise the age limit to 21. Some states held out longer than others, but eventually all of the capitulated.

Now, why did they raise it? Alcohol related automobile deaths. That was pretty much it. It seemed like kids had an extremely low ability to manage their alcohol with their driving. If you want, you can check the statistics around those years and see if the number of DUI deaths went down or not, and judge for yourself, but that was the claim.

As far as military service vs drinking, those are two totally unrelated activities and it is insane to even compare them. In the first, you are (supposedly) highly trained in a situation that often requires quick, clear thinking, excellent reflexes, a strong commitment to duty, and the ability to follow orders without thinking. Note that one very important aspect is *highly trained*.

As far as drinking goes, it is a totally untrained activity. It impairs your judgement, which younger people are generally in short enough supply of. And it easily susceptible to things like peer pressure. To compare our trained young men and women of the military to a bunch of alcoholic yahoos is not even relevant.

i think like pod hit at, its crap being punished because other people cant control wat they do. why should the rest be puinished.

Actually, as I mentioned above, the issue was, at the time, that the "rest of us" *were* being punished for allowing younger people to drink due to the number of DUI related deaths and injuries inflicted by 18-21 year olds. Whether or not you believe that was the case is up to you, but that is what was claimed.

So, the question really is, are you willing to risk your life, and the life of your loved ones, to allow a bunch of kids to guzzle alcohol?

Of course, this is America, where we don't even know what the word education means. Most people can't even spell it. Anybody who looks around the world for a few seconds will see that there are plenty of countries that allow their kids to drink alcohol. Some have much lower age limits. Do they have massive DUI-related death rates? I doubt it. Otherwise they would change their laws, too. But, they teach their kids how to handle the alcohol. Or, they teach them not to drive when drunk. Or, maybe they just have fewer cars. In any case, it could be done, but it would take a lot more than just a minor change to the lawbooks.

[Guest swank]

I'd have your cops deport their ass post-haste. Like on the spot. Dump 'em at the border and don't let them back in. ;D They wanna roll with the big boys, let 'em suffer big boy consequences.

In other words, they need to know how to drink.

those kids would eventually start a fight with the wrong person and get their asses kicked live right there on the spot...

Bring a black eye and a fat lip home for show and tell...haha!

[Guest pod]

The combination of demonizing anything fun in this country, along with the campaigns of the MADD/SADD brownshirts, will make responsible drinking education a real battle. There's no ifs, ands, or buts with those people.

MADD makes me mad. And SADD should not be allowed in the public school system as they have an underhanded agenda of brainwashing and suppression of independent thought. Oh wait, that's the whole dang public school system.