Should the legal drinking age be lowered to 18?

What does "illegal" mean? How can something be "legal"? How does 'somebody' get to decide that a substance is "not allowed" into somebody else's body? Why do we allow this sort of mentality to prevail in society? Why do people need this sort of policing in order for there to be order? Why can't people think?

yes, ther are too many obvious points to be made here. clearly it is happening anyway. much like marijuana criminalisation, we could avoid costs in courts, jails etc.. ahh, but i think the greatest argument is our young people can go to war and kill, but god forbid they have a beer-or a lot of beer. fucking bitches need to get off their high horse and see life for what it is.

I don't think lowering the age is the best idea. Yes, teens are already drinking before the limit but will that actually stop teens from drinking? I doubt that. What we do need is a solution that can help inform teens and prevent them from getting involved with alcohol related incidents.

When the legal age for drinking was raised to 21, all alcohol related road accidents decreased by significant percentages.

I live in london, england, and the drinking age is 18, and to be honest raising it to 21 would be useless so I can't see why lowering it would make a difference in america.

My concern is that 18 year olds are seniors in high school. High schoolers shouldn't really have access to beer, in my opinion.

The drinking age should be lowered to 18. One thing that we should do more as a society is present drinking at home in a safe environment where driving isn't necessary as a fun alternative to public drinking.

I don't think it would make much of a difference either way. If a kid drinks at 21, they probably started before they were even 18. As long as parents do their jobs, you won't have to worry about your kids drinking too young or too excessively.

We should fire the presidents of thes 100 colleges on the spot.

How can they call themselves educators.

How come they keep hiding how many students have died in recent years due to drinking.

In my college, one student was found in a garbage dump dead. How many more have died Some have jumped out of windows.

How many students, once drunk had casuals sex without protections, got stds, got pregnant and had to killed their babies.

This is just sick. Alcohol should be out of colleges as well as smoking.

That would be start in education

Look at England. They have an 18 yo drinking age and they all drink way too much in school and out.

won't make a difference. this just means they get drunk leagally earlier.

it's the attitude toward drinking that needs to change. not the law.

I'm 21 and in college and I started drinking socially at 17. I have seen with my own eyes the kind of stupid and risky things 18-20 year olds do because of immaturity and alcohol. I honestly don't think a lot of americans are mature enough to be drinking at 18.

There are/were a lot of people who I am glad are not old enough to buy alcohol because I know how out of control they get when they are drunk. The longer it's harder for these kids to get alcohol, the better.

No Drinking Age At ALL

Wish that was easy, if only people raised their kids better, not let their cable tv rais them and used a bit of common sense, just a little bit, we'd be good.

As a graduate from the University of Iowa, I am not surprised that the University President is against lowering the drinking age. The University has struggled with alcohol since a fraternity member drank himself to death in 1995. Iowa City itself is a rather drunk town, though, and under age students have no problem securing a weekend bender. The city makes a lot of money issuing under age tickets to students, revenue that would be sorely missed.

However, if we can trust an 18 year old to fight our wars, we can trust him/her to drink a beer.

its like everyone is told from a little age to follow, obey and be a sheep
so people are suprised that their kids are out there doing anything and everything that the other kid is doing.
be a leadera. dont be no zombie
be you, take your self somewhere where you really want to go.

Maybe to twenty.

Lowering the drinking age is a very bad idea.

Do it. People drink at 18 anyway.

Hmm definitely an interesting article, but lowering the drinking age WILL NOT DO A THING if you remove the drinking age, and leave the parents to decide how they teach their kids, about the importance of knowing when enough is enough, and how to be mature enough to know when you should not drink would be the best thing for any government like ours to do, it's the fact that it is illegal under a certain age that makes teens want to drink in the first place, if you tell someone not to do something the act of telling them not to do a certain thing is going to make them want to do it just for the thrill.

Yes!

The larger issue is the government defining practically every aspect of our lives: what we can and can't drink, eat, say or do as well as what we are compelled TO do.

When you really look at the entire picture of lost freedoms, we are not in the same country as when the U.S. was founded.

Don't let your indoctrination fool you, we are not free...

We might not be free, but we're freer than a lot of other people.

People don't know what they have until they go somewhere else and see how fucked up shit really is.

The legal drinking age should remain 21. The legal age to serve in the military should match that. It isnt right that 18 year old kids could die for wars of greed and not be legally old enough to drink to help their post war syndromes when they return.

21 to drink 21 to die.

Define free. Is free: we can do whatever we want with no consequences?

Because if so, you're severely mistaken.

Agreed that we should be allowed to fuck up our bodies any way we want, but how do we look to the rest of the world if we're the only ones who don't regulate rampant drug use?

I get the impression that most Brits think of us as a bunch of stupid, fat idiots, and if we were to abolish drug laws, we'd also be stupid, fat, drugged idiots with a lot of health problems.