Proposal To Lower Drinking Age to 18!
 

By Alex Johnson
Reporter
MSNBC
Updated: 49 minutes ago

Over the strong objection of federal safety officials, a quiet movement to lower the legal drinking age to 18 is taking root as advocates argue that teenagers who are allowed to vote and fight for their country should also be able to enjoy a beer or two.

The proposal, which is the subject of a national petition drive by the National Youth Rights Association, has been studied in a handful of states in recent years, including Florida, Wisconsin, Vermont and Missouri, where supporters are pushing a ballot initiative.

Opponents of the idea point to a reported rise in binge drinking as teenagers increasingly turn to hard liquor as proof that minors should not be allowed to drink, but proponents look at the same data and draw the opposite conclusion.

?Raising the drinking age to 21 was passed with the very best of intentions, but it?s had the very worst of outcomes,? said David J. Hanson, an alcohol policy expert at the State University of New York-Potsdam. ?Just like during national Prohibition, the law has pushed and forced underage drinking and youthful drinking underground, where we have no control over it.?

But Mark Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, countered: ?Why would we repeal or weaken laws that save lives? It doesn?t make sense.?

Different laws in different states
As it happens, there is no such thing as a ?federal legal drinking age.? Many states do not expressly prohibit minors from drinking alcohol, although most of those do set certain conditions, such as its use in a religious ceremony or in the presence of a parent or other guardian.

The phrase refers instead to a patchwork of state laws adopted in the mid-1980s under pressure from Congress, which threatened in 1984 to withhold 10 percent of federal highway funds from states that did not prohibit selling alcohol to those under the age of 21. By 1988, 49 states had complied; after years of court fights, Louisiana joined the crowd in 1995.

Libertarian groups and some conservative economic foundations, seeing the age limits as having been extorted by Washington, have long championed lowering the drinking age. But in recent years, many academics and non-partisan policy groups have joined their cause for a different reason: The age restriction does not work, they say. Drinking has gone on behind closed doors and underground, where responsible adults cannot keep an eye on it.

?It does not reduce drinking. It has simply put young adults at greater risk,? said John M. McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, who this year set up a non-profit organization called Choose Responsibility to push for a lower drinking age.

McCardell offers what he calls a simple challenge:

?The law was changed in 1984, and the law had a very specific purpose, and that was to prohibit drinking among those under the age of 21,? he said. ?The only way to measure the success of that law is to ask ourselves whether, 23 years later, those under 21 are not drinking.?

So are they?

The federal government?s National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that in 2005, the most recent year for which complete figures are available, 85 percent of 20-year-old Americans reported that they had used alcohol. Two out of five said they had binged ? that is, consumed five or more drinks at one time ? within the previous month.

?The evidence is very clear,? McCardell said. ?It has had no effect.?

James C. Fell, a former federal highway safety administrator who is a senior researcher on alcohol policy with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, acknowledged that ?it?s not a perfect law. It doesn?t totally prevent underage drinking.?

But Fell said the age restriction ?does save lives. We have the evidence.?

It's just not gonna happen. This is a country run by Christian conservatives. Lowering the drinking age just doesn't go along with their "moral" ideology.

and people say your country is ran by jews..

Too bad Christians won't practice the free will that they preach. Being righteous should be a choice right? Kinda defeats the spiritual purpose to be a good person when the law says you have to be.

Who here wasn't drinking by the age of 18???? Maybe if the legal age was 18, then 12 year olds would be binge drinking. Oh, many already are.

see sig..... more freedoms period

The drinking age was 18 in most of the states until the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. Before this act was passed there were some states that were 21 that borderd states that were 18. The results were drunk driving accidents between the states from people driving to another state to drink.

After moving to Puerto Rico and seeing how it is with the drinking age at 18 I think its a better idea. It doesn't have the "OMG we are drinking this is cool" sort of mentality thats attached to it in the states with people under 21. Change all the States back to age 18 and then you'll have tons and tons of 18 year olds going out to the bars and liquor stores getting fucked up just because they can legally. There will be a big spike in drunk driving and deaths until the thrill wears off.

The best solution is no drinking age.

this movement has been working behind the scenes for many years....too bad it will never happen

I wish they would lower it... Then my 18 daughter wouldn't be breaking the law for something I did at her age legally.

nicely said. I agree 100%. Drinking should be taught by the parents. Like all things. Parents have given their rights to the state. That is just sad. :disgust

Actually if you look at the numbers it saves lives.

Fighting in a war = 18yrs +
Drinking at a bar + 21yrs +

:helpme :helpme :Oh crap :Oh crap

You are using the same tired arguments that have been used for the past 35+ years.

Try a new one perhaps.

:1orglaugh My roflcopter collided with another one and crashed.

too soon?

If it is the truth... 18 buy a gun, 21 drink. 9 years old ok for parent to let their child shoot an AK47.....

I can assure you that if Ron Paul's platform was based on letting 18 year olds drink he would be laughed out of TX.

I fucked quite a few 16 year olds in the US.

No-one told me untill a few years later that the legal age was 18 there where as where I am from it is 16. I was 17 at the time.

They werent virgins.

The Presidents daughters got caught using fake ID for booze. If people want to so it they will.

i have a better idea. raise the age of getting shot at in iraq.