President of the United States, Barrack Obama, just signed a bill lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. Only a liberal president would do such a thing. United States' lawmakers are notorious for their paranoia concerning drinking, drugs, and anything fun. So this is quite a surprise even for a currently liberal government. The ongoing debate about the drinking age was to prevent teens from drinking and doing stupid teenager shit, like drinking and driving and killing themselves. Makes sense, right?

Well it seems to be that raising the drinking age has not made any significant difference in teens' drinking habits. There are those who argue that the only effect the law has made was turning drinking into a taboo activity for rebellious teenagers to jump right onto. Now we have kids hiding in basements binge drinking at night without any supervision at all, and still do stupid teenage shit. So it seems the best way to solve this issue would be to lower the drinking age, so parents of teens can teach their kids about responsible drinking so they can do it responsibly before learning the hard way.

There are many European nations where drinking ages are a lot more lenient, but I do not know what they are exactly. It'd be interesting to see the opinion from someone who's not from the states on whether this law will actually work and stick. Since a lot of nations in Europe gone through this whole problem.

1. This has not actually happened.
2. There actually aren't many laws in the U.S. preventing drinking under the age of 21. The law people mistake it for is that it's the purchase of alcoholic beverages. For that reason, it's actually legal in many states for parents to purchase and allow their children to drink alcohol. That isn't to say every state has no drinking restrictions (North Carolina, for instance, does actually restrict drinking and not just purchase).


If you have proof to validate your claim of Obama signing such a bill, please, provide it. As is, I'm calling bullshit on that. Would still enjoy debating about the age restrictions on alcohol in the U.S. though.

Quote from Azure Kite

1. This has not actually happened.
2. There actually aren't many laws in the U.S. preventing drinking under the age of 21. The law people mistake it for is that it's the purchase of alcoholic beverages. For that reason, it's actually legal in many states for parents to purchase and allow their children to drink alcohol. That isn't to say every state has no drinking restrictions (North Carolina, for instance, does actually restrict drinking and not just purchase).

Well this seems rather familiar with my UK experience of the person who can buy alcohol buying loads of it and everyone else under the age limit binging on it. The age limit is 18 for buying in the UK, and basically non existent for consuming in private.

I know lots of people under the buying limit that legally get very drunk at parties, and while I think it's rather stupid of them, I think learning your lesson at ~16 when you're still looked after by your parents and you have a safety net is going to be much safer than learning your lesson once you've moved away from home.

Looks like BuzzFeed has tricked me into believing some bullshit. I guess I managed to be stupid enough to listen to their website. But this can turn into a debate about whether the drinking age should be lowered. I think that 16 is a great drinking age

Since this thread carries Misinformation, how can I delete my own thread?

Quote from Sea Beast

Looks like BuzzFeed has tricked me into believing some bullshit. I guess I managed to be stupid enough to listen to their website. But this can turn into a debate about whether the drinking age should be lowered. I think that 16 is a great drinking age

I think drinking and driving would be horrible privileges to get at the same time to be honest. When you get to do something new, there's nothing you want to do more than that, so I think that would plummet instantly.

Out of curiosity though, what specifically makes you think 16 would be the age to drop to?

Personally, I heard live in Michigan so some Canadian advertizements get on the radio stations we share, and they're doing a zero tolerance type thing where you can't have any alcohol in your system if you're driving until you're 22, and if I recall correctly, their age is 19.

If the age did get lowered, I think we'd need a law similar to that (although to be honest I don't know the punishments for breaking it), and it wouldn't be a bad idea to mimic anyway in general.

Quote from Crank

I think drinking and driving would be horrible privileges to get at the same time to be honest. When you get to do something new, there's nothing you want to do more than that, so I think that would plummet instantly.

Out of curiosity though, what specifically makes you think 16 would be the age to drop to?

Personally, I heard live in Michigan so some Canadian advertizements get on the radio stations we share, and they're doing a zero tolerance type thing where you can't have any alcohol in your system if you're driving until you're 22, and if I recall correctly, their age is 19.

If the age did get lowered, I think we'd need a law similar to that (although to be honest I don't know the punishments for breaking it), and it wouldn't be a bad idea to mimic anyway in general.

Again, few states have a legal drinking age, so much as a legal purchase age.

And honestly, I believe the purchase age and any actual drinking ages should be lowered for wines and beers, but remain for spirits, because of the lower alcohol levels and it would likely help in preventing future binging. Honestly, there's a big difference in those who wait to drink when they're legal and those who drink from a younger age under supervision, both in how much they actually drink as well as their general resistance to alcohol. I'd love to buy alcohol for cooking purposes, but since I'm under 21, I am unable to, and because of school regulations, I also can't have others purchase it for me.

Quote from Sea Beast

BuzzFeed

well there's your problem holy shit

why anybody would use this website blows my mind

Legal age for consuming/purchasing is 18 here in Australia.

Glorious.

Quote from Cronos

Legal age for consuming/purchasing is 18 here in Australia.

Glorious.

could be better, it's 16 in most of europe

Quote from Scarecrow

could be better, it's 16 in most of europe

Alright this thread is a fucking mess, you guys really should know better by now.