Will we be getting younger members soon?

[olllllo]

It's no less a OT diversion than the drunk driving one.

Still, I'm actually more inclined to make the age of majority 21 than lower the drinking age.

 

[Evan!]

Good lord - let's not get into a political discussion. Seems like whenever the word neo-con rears it's ugly head, the conversation is pretty much over.

Please, no. My comment wasn't specifically directed at the current administration, but instead, the general concept of electing bad people into office. Let's not ruin this discussion by going political...please.

 

[Evan!]

It's no less a OT diversion than the drunk driving one.

Still, I'm actually more inclined to make the age of majority 21 than lower the drinking age.

And I'm inclined to get the federal government out of it altogether (and that includes blackmail via withholding transportation funding).

 

[olllllo]

Redacted because I love and respect you all.

 

[Dr_Deathweed]

I'm willing to allow any 18 yr old with a military ID to enter a bar and have a beer, since it will, for once and for all, put an end to the tired argument of being able to die for your country and not being able to have a drink in a pub.

kinda....

Anyone read "Starship Troopers"? (not talking about the s***y movie) Dividing rights between "civilians" (living a daily life in a free world) and "citizens" (those that serve their nation through some kind of service, mainly military) I am totally for that kind of system, if you are 18 in the military, by all means, drink up. Does that make an enlisted 18 year old any smarter than a civilian? Hell no! But thats a right that they have earned and deserve, plus the fact that I am pretty sure that the commanding officers in our military do a better job with discipline than 95% of parents out there.

I never served my country because I chose to pursue a higher education, and I am completely willing to give up some of my rights to someone who has/is served/serving. If that means I wait till I'm 21, so be it.

/end rant

Edit: Just read that and it sounds wrong... I AM 21, speaking from another perspective

 

[Cheesefood]

The Toll of Underage Drinking
Drunk driving, alcohol dependence, risky sexual behavior and health consequences.

Drunk Driving:
• Three teens are killed each day when they drink alcohol and drive.1 At least six more die every day from other alcohol-related causes.2
• According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 6,002 young people ages 16-20 died in motor vehicle crashes in 2003. Alcohol was involved in 38% of these deaths.3
• In 2003, 3,571 young drivers ages 16-20 died in motor vehicle crashes. Of these, 1,131 - approximately 32% - had been drinking, and 26% were legally drunk at the time of the crash.4
• A survey of college students in 2001 revealed that, for students under age 21, 26% drove after drinking alcohol, more than 10% drove after consuming more than five drinks, and almost a quarter rode with a high or drunk driver at least once in the 30 days before the survey.5
• In the year 2000, only 7% of licensed drivers were ages 15 to 20. However, in that same year, they represented approximately 13% of drivers who had been drinking and were involved in fatal crashes.6
Alcohol Dependence:
• Americans who began drinking before the age of 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those who wait until the age of 21.7
• In November 2004, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) concluded that alcohol abuse and dependence are "developmental disorders."8
• An analysis published in the November 15, 2004 issue of Biological Psychiatry stated that the onset of alcohol dependence peaks by 18 years of age.9
Risky Sexual Behavior:
• It is estimated that teenage girls who binge drink are up to 63% more likely to become teen mothers.10
• In a poll of more than 11,700 college students from 128 colleges in the United States, researchers found that, compared to those who waited to drink until they were 19 or older, college students who got drunk for the first time before age 13 were twice as likely to say they had had unplanned sex because of drinking. They were more than twice as likely to say they had had unprotected sex because of drinking.11
• In a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 23% (5.6 million) of sexually active teens and young adults ages 15-24 in the United States reported having had unprotected sex because they were drinking or using drugs at the time. Twenty-four percent of teens ages 15-17 said that their alcohol and drug use led them to do more sexually than they had planned.12
Health Consequences:
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 4,554 underage deaths each year are due to excessive alcohol use.13
• Alcohol use plays a substantial role in all three leading causes of death among youth - unintentional injuries (including motor vehicle fatalities and drownings), suicides and homicides.14
• Those who begin drinking before the age of 14 are five times more likely than those who begin drinking after the age of 21 to be injured while under the influence of alcohol at some point during their lives.15
• Among young people, binge drinkers and heavy drinkers are more than twice as likely as non-drinkers to report having attempted to injure themselves or having contemplated or attempted to commit suicide.16,17
• Research has also shown another specific link between heavy alcohol use and youth suicides. States that passed "zero tolerance" laws to reduce youth drinking-driving also experienced statistically significant reductions in suicide deaths among 15- to 20-year-olds, compared to states that did not pass such laws.18
• There is growing evidence to suggest that alcohol use prior to age 21 impairs crucial aspects of youthful brain development. In one recent study, heavy-drinking adolescents who had been sober for three weeks still scored 10 percent lower than non-drinking peers on tests requiring verbal and nonverbal recall and skills needed for map reading, geometry, and science.19
Social Consequences:
• The costs of youth drinking are an estimated $53 billion annually, and include costs to society such as medical care costs and lost productivity, as well as costs to the young drinker such as pain and suffering and loss of income.20
• A study that followed over 6,500 individuals found that, by the age of 23, those who were drinkers by seventh grade were:
- more likely than non-drinkers to have "missed work for no good reason,"
- more likely to be substance-users,
- more likely to engage in criminal and violent behavior, and
- between 1.7 and 2.3 times more likely to be weekly or binge drinkers, exhibit signs of alcohol dependence, and experience multiple alcohol problems.21
Updated July 2005

1National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts 2003 (Washington, DC: National Center for Statistics and Analysis, U.S. Department of Transportation, 2005), table 79.
2Calculated using Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) data, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data include only deaths for ages 15 to 20. M. Stahre of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, e-mail to David H. Jernigan, PhD, 20 December 2005.
3National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts 2003, table 81.
4National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts 2003, table 79.
5H. Wechsler, J.E. Lee, T.F. Nelson, H. Lee, "Drinking and Driving Among College Students: The Influence of Alcohol-Control Policies," American Journal of Preventive Medicine 25, no. 3 (2003).
6National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Youth Fatal Crash and Alcohol Facts 2000 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation, 2002).
7B.F. Grant, D.A. Dawson, "Age at onset of alcohol use and its association with DSM-IV alcohol abuse and dependence: Results from the National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey," Journal of Substance Abuse 9 (1997): 103-110.
8Team on Underage Drinking, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Alcohol Consumption by Children and Adolescents: An Interdisciplinary Overview (Bethesda, MD: NIAAA, 2004).
9T.K. Li, B.G. Hewitt, and B.F. Grant, "Alcohol Use Disorders and Mood Disorders: A National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Perspective," Biological Psychiatry 56, no. 10 (15 Nov 2004): 718-720.
10T.S. Dee, "The Effects of Minimum Legal Drinking Ages on Teen Childbearing," The Journal of Human Resources 36, no. 4 (2001): 824-838.
11R. Hingson, T. Heeren, M.R. Winter, H. Wechsler, "Early Age of First Drunkenness as a Factor in College Students’ Unplanned and Unprotected Sex Attributable to Drinking," Pediatrics 111 (2003): 34-41.
12The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, "Millions of Young People Mix Sex with Alcohol or Drugs – With Dangerous Consequences," 6 February 2002.
13L.T. Midanik et al., "Alcohol-Attributable Deaths and Years of Potential Life Lost—United States, 2001," MMWR Weekly 53, no. 37 (24 Sept 2004): 866-870.
14National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, "10 Leading Causes of Death, United States: 2002, All Races, Both Sexes," in WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports, 1999-2002 (cited 15 April 2005); National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004), 60-61..
15R. Hingson., T. Heeren, T. Jamanka, and J. Howland, Age of Drinking Onset and Unintentional Injury Involvement After Drinking (Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2001).
16J.C. Greenblatt, Patterns of Alcohol Use Among Adolescents and Associations with Emotional and Behavioral Problems (Rockville: Office of Applied Studies, SAMHSA, 2002).
17For this study, binge drinkers were defined as those who "consumed 5 or more drinks on at least one, but no more than 4 occasions," and "heavy drinkers" were defined as "those who consumed 5 or more drinks per occasion on 5 or more days" during the past month.
18C. Carpenter, "Heavy Alcohol Use and Youth Suicide: Evidence from Tougher Drunk Driving Laws," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 23, no. 4 (2004): 831-842.
19See, e.g., Bernice Wuethrich, "Getting Stupid," Discover 22 no. 3 (March 2001); S.A. Brown, S.F. Tapert, E. Granholm, D.C. Delis, "Neurocognitive Functioning of Adolescents: Effects of Protracted Alcohol Use," Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 24, no. 2 (Feb 2000): 164-171.
20D.T. Levy, T. Miller, and K.C. Cox, Costs of Underage Drinking (Calverton, MD: Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, 1999); National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004), xv, 13.
21P.L. Ellickson, J.S. Tucker, D.J. Klein, "Ten-Year Prospective Study of Public Health Problems Associated With Early Drinking," Pediatrics 111, no. 5 (May 2003): 949-955.

 

[TheJadedDog]

The fact of the matter is that we have a rather puritanical view of alcohol in this country. In other countries children drink with their parents in their homes from a much earlier age. In some cases they are taught to appreciate the alcohol they are drinking (take France and wine or Germany and beer). The incidence of "binge" drinking is often lower in those countries because drinking is not some "big thing" like it is here; it is also not all about getting hammered. (I find it interesting that the quality of the alcohol is also much better in many of these countries).

How many of you got shazaamed on your 21st birthday? As someone already mentioned drinking is this forbidden thing and then all of a sudden it is unleashed upon us and people go overboard.

Personally I think the whole attitude towards alcohol needs to change, not just the drinking age. I also think increasing the penalties for drunk driving would do more to curb it then having an arbitrarily determined drinking age.

 

[Ó Flannagáin]

I see a lot of age 14, 15 and 16 in those stats Cheese.

 

[Evan!]

Cheese:

I appreciate posting those facts---many of which I wasn't aware of.

I guess what I'm wondering is, since outlawing drinking drives it underground and out of the realm where it can be controlled to some extent, would legalizing drinking for 18 y.o.'s make these figures worse, or better?

 

[Cheesefood]

I see a lot of age 14, 15 and 16 in those stats Cheese.

And those age groups are more likely to have a close friend who is 18 than they are to have a 21 year old friend.

 

[Evan!]

In 2003, 3,571 young drivers ages 16-20 died in motor vehicle crashes. Of these, 1,131 - approximately 32% - had been drinking, and 26% were legally drunk at the time of the crash.

Doesn't that mean that you're more likely to die in an auto crash if you haven't been drinking?

 

[Ó Flannagáin]

Cheese:

I appreciate posting those facts---many of which I wasn't aware of.

I guess what I'm wondering is, since outlawing drinking drives it underground and out of the realm where it can be controlled to some extent, would legalizing drinking for 18 y.o.'s make these figures worse, or better?

It would probably be worse at first, but that's because we had the stupid law to begin with and glorified the rights drink alcohol. After a while it would mellow, and people would be used to the idea of drinking is an "age 18 adult" privelege and not an award as it is with waiting til you are 21... 3 years after the average person begins their higher education or goes to war.

edit: you can tell I've had 5 beers tonight

 

[Evan!]

It would probably be worse at first, but that's because we had the stupid law to begin with and glorified the rights drink alcohol. After a while it would mellow, and people would be used to the idea of drinking is an "age 18 adult" privelege and not an award as it with waiting til you are 21... 3 years after the average person begins their higher education or goes to war.

I still don't understand why, in a constitutional republic of federated states, the federal government needs to worry about it.

 

[Ó Flannagáin]

I still don't understand why, in a constitutional republic of federated states, the federal government needs to worry about it.

God bless America.

 

[rdwj]

It would probably be worse at first, but that's because we had the stupid law to begin with and glorified the rights drink alcohol. After a while it would mellow, and people would be used to the idea of drinking is an "age 18 adult" privelege and not an award as it with waiting til you are 21... 3 years after the average person begins their higher education or goes to war.

Why is 18 any better than 21? How does that make the glorification of drinking any less on an issue?

 

[Cheesefood]

Cheese:

I appreciate posting those facts---many of which I wasn't aware of.

I guess what I'm wondering is, since outlawing drinking drives it underground and out of the realm where it can be controlled to some extent, would legalizing drinking for 18 y.o.'s make these figures worse, or better?

I'd say "worse". Simply because there isn't the physical or developmental distance between sub-18 year olds and post-21 year olds. After 18, people go to college, work, military or trade school. They feel older than high school kids. By the time they're 21, they have very few friends left in high school. Most of their youngest friends will be seniors, and most likely they'll have lost a lot of contact since there's such a difference in mental age.

By the time most people are 21, they've already seen friends their age pass away. They know people involved in serious accidents. More "reality" has kicked in and they're less risky than 18 year olds. They start to befriend people older than themselves and work on developing a more mature outlook. They know people who have received DUIs and the heartache those cause. They've seen girls get pregnant from one-nighters due to drinking. All of this stuff which we thought of a propaganda starts to ring true.

Not saying that all people fall into this schema, but many people tend to "grow up" after turning 20. There are greater expectations.

I think of my current friends. We rarely party as much because no one wants to risk drunk-driving home. 10 years ago, it was a different story and we drove around drunk and f'd up. Then came the DUIs, the accidents, the kids, divorces, suicides, various deaths and everything else alcohol or non-alcohol related. We've seen people throw their lives away as alcoholics. I saw a man go from being a powerful accountant to dancing topless on a bar for beers, until he finally died from excessive alcohol abuse. These experiences make me think hard about how badly I want another beer sometimes.

 

[Ó Flannagáin]

Because it is an age that is recognized worldwide. It is an age we in America have agreed upon for quite sometime to be the voting/military/sign a contract/go to "grown up" jail/out of reach of statutory rape - age. WHat is 21? Some magical number that appeared 30 some years ago. It's ridiculous, and honestly, I think as soon as a person leaves the "protection" of their parents/guardians, they have the right to make all of their individual decisions.

 

[Rhoobarb]

... I guarantee you that if you let your kids drink with you, they'd set themselves at the same pace you're drinking. Teach them how many is enough, and that they should only drink when they're somewhere safe.

I agree and have contended that stance since I was a teenager myself. My parents taught me how to be responsible with the occasional glass of wine at dinner or special occasions. But now some states have enacted laws that would have put them behind bars for that!

This topic has gained momentum recently b/c, as has been previously noted, we're at war and sending 18 year olds to fight that war. I'm old enough to remember when the age was lowered in the early 1970s b/c kids were fighting in Vietnam, but couldn't get a drink - or vote - back at home. Soon enough, the legal drinking and voting age was lowered from 21 to 18.

I myself was lucky enough to live in Illinois when you could buy beer and wine at 19. I truly believe it helped me 'mature into' drinking at college, if that makes any sense. Part of it was b/c everyone else on campus had easy access to beer and wine, so it was not that big of a deal to us. I was never a binge drinker and, in fact, I never witnessed the kind of excess drinking I see college kids do on You Tube these days!

I was disapointed to see the legal age raised again in the 1980s. All of these measures - lowering the drinking age, lowering the BAL from .10 to .08, zero tolerance - have done nothing to decrease teen drinking and nothing to decrease drunk driving accidents. Education and safer cars have been the real keys to any decrease in auto accidents.

I have always believed in making 18 the legal age for everthing! One of the beer writers - it may have been Fred Eckhardt, I can't recall - just wrote an article calling for a mandatory federal drinking age of 18.

And in last weekend's Parade magazine, this article appeared.

 

[Evan!]

I'd say "worse". Simply because there isn't the physical or developmental distance between sub-18 year olds and post-21 year olds. After 18, people go to college, work, military or trade school. They feel older than high school kids. By the time they're 21, they have very few friends left in high school. Most of their youngest friends will be seniors, and most likely they'll have lost a lot of contact since there's such a difference in mental age.

By the time most people are 21, they've already seen friends their age pass away. They know people involved in serious accidents. More "reality" has kicked in and they're less risky than 18 year olds. They start to befriend people older than themselves and work on developing a more mature outlook. They know people who have received DUIs and the heartache those cause. They've seen girls get pregnant from one-nighters due to drinking. All of this stuff which we thought of a propaganda starts to ring true.

Not saying that all people fall into this schema, but many people tend to "grow up" after turning 20. There are greater expectations.

I think of my current friends. We rarely party as much because no one wants to risk drunk-driving home. 10 years ago, it was a different story and we drove around drunk and f'd up. Then came the DUIs, the accidents, the kids, divorces, suicides, various deaths and everything else alcohol or non-alcohol related. We've seen people throw their lives away as alcoholics. I saw a man go from being a powerful accountant to dancing topless on a bar for beers, until he finally died from excessive alcohol abuse. These experiences make me think hard about how badly I want another beer sometimes.

I hear you on that, man. I've seen many people, not close friends but people I knew pretty well, get f'd up by bad circumstances of their own design. Not all were related to alcohol, though, and the sad fact is, we never truly stop growing up. By some measures, though, your statement above could be used to justify upping the legal age to 30, which, while many would argue is absurd, is pretty much just as arbitrary as 21. I really don't agree with your statement that people change that much between 20 and 21.

What I'd argue, though, is that at about the time that drinking starts to become a reality---for me, it was around age 16 or 17---there needs to be a change in your "legal status". A phased approach, like getting your learner's permit. So, let's say, at age 16, you can drink, but your parents have to be present and supervising. At age 18, after you've had some experience with it, you're allowed to buy it on your own. This would surely cut down on the underground binge drinking that 16 and 17 year olds undoubtedly still engage in as I once engaged in (god, I hate Zima!).

And this leads us back to my point above: our founding fathers created a federalist nation for a good reason (among others): so that different states could experiment with different schemes. I'm not saying that "anything goes" (IOW, slavery should not be allowed in any state IMHO), but to a certain extent, on issues like this where there is no moral, ethical or scientific black and white, federalism would be a perfect solution. Get the feds out, and let the states decide. If it's 16 in Vermont, 18 in New Jersey, and 25 in Massachusetts, then we can have a pretty objective study of which works best...and as those experiments are played out, more states will begin to adopt the ones that fit their society better. If 18 was too low and caused a dramatic, lasting increase in death and destruction, then I doubt any of the states would continue down such a road.

But when the central fugging government declares a one-size-fits-all solution to most anything, you can be sure that one size definitely does not fit all...and chances are also good that that size was chosen for all the wrong reasons. Thus, the reason for a federalist system.

 

[olllllo]

If it's 16 in Vermont, 18 in New Jersey, and 25 in Massachusetts, then we can have a pretty objective study of which works best...and as those experiments are played out, more states will begin to adopt the ones that fit their society better. If 18 was too low and caused a dramatic, lasting increase in death and destruction, then I doubt any of the states would continue down such a road.

But when the central fugging government declares a one-size-fits-all solution to most anything, you can be sure that one size definitely does not fit all...and chances are also good that that size was chosen for all the wrong reasons. Thus, the reason for a federalist system.

Aaah, but it's not just that issue in a vacuum. A free-market economy longs for a unified and stable set of laws to transact inter and intra state commerce. For every Jeffersonian there's an Adam Smith.

 

[olllllo]

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

You guys are looking at this backwards.

Drop the legal drinking age to 16 and raise the legal driving age to 21. Problem solved. It's much easier to catch underage driving than underage drinking (they usually crash into stuff).

I mean really, what kind of teenagers have such IMPORTANT jobs that they need to drive around? Take a damned bus. Or ride a scooter. It'll teach you the rules of the road without giving you enough mass to go around killing others. It will also reduce our dependence on foreign oil and decrease emissions (as scooters/motorcycles start to have mandatory catalytic converters just like cars).

There have been enough scientific studies that show that the 16 year old brain just isn't completely developed, that it tends toward irrational behavior. Then these creatures go off in multi-ton vehicles piloting them between houses and sidewalks filled with pedestrians? I'd rather give them a shot gun.

 

[Dr_Deathweed]

You guys are looking at this backwards.

Drop the legal drinking age to 16 and raise the legal driving age to 21. Problem solved. It's much easier to catch underage driving than underage drinking (they usually crash into stuff).

I mean really, what kind of teenagers have such IMPORTANT jobs that they need to drive around? Take a damned bus. Or ride a scooter. It'll teach you the rules of the road without giving you enough mass to go around killing others. It will also reduce our dependence on foreign oil, decrease emissions (as scooters/motorcycles start to have mandatory catalytic converters just like cars).

There has been enough scientific studies that show that the 16 year old brain just isn't completely developed, that it tends toward irrational behavior. Then these creatures go off in multi-ton vehicles piloting them between houses and sidewalks filled with pedestrians? I'd rather give them a shot gun.

Oh that would never work because that might mean that parents would have to drive their older children around and know where they are at all times, and that is just like SOOOOOOO embarassing.....

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Oh that would never work because that might mean that parents would have to drive their older children around and know where they are at all times, and that is just like SOOOOOOO embarassing.....

So buy them a scooter.

 

[Dr_Deathweed]

yeah, but scooters and mopeds are alot like fat chicks.... fun to ride until your friends see you

 

[Buford]

There have been enough scientific studies that show that the 16 year old brain just isn't completely developed, that it tends toward irrational behavior. Then these creatures go off in multi-ton vehicles piloting them between houses and sidewalks filled with pedestrians? I'd rather give them a shot gun.

Hey, here in VA you can get a hunting license and carry a shotgun at 14 - I know, 'cause I did

 

[rdwj]

yeah, but scooters and mopeds are alot like fat chicks.... fun to ride until your friends see you

Better to be seen on a scooter than having mommy drop you off.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Hey, here in VA you can get a hunting license and carry a shotgun at 14 - I know, 'cause I did

I have NO problem with that.

 

[Evan!]

Aaah, but it's not just that issue in a vacuum. A free-market economy longs for a unified and stable set of laws to transact inter and intra state commerce. For every Jeffersonian there's an Adam Smith.

Thus the reasoning behind the interstate commerce clause. Luckily, the ICC wasn't meant to extend to all facets of society. Equality in commerce laws can and should be limited to laws pertaining to, um, commerce...and in order to keep the government from abusing the clause, it is self-evident that the definition of commerce-related should be narrowly defined. Unfortunately, we've seen the government abuse this clause far too many times---for example, to justify federal prohibition of medical marijuana use---so one can easily see why it's necessary to limit the scope and definition of "interstate commerce". On the other hand, it's hard to see why sales taxes vary from state to state (an obvious commercial issue), while something that has very little to do with commerce between states (like legal drinking age) are set by the feds.

Without a clear definition of what commerce is, an Adam Smith-ite could easily follow your argument to its logical conclusion: an almost robotic society, where a universal "world government" governs everything from sales tax to what color pants you can wear. Our obvious role, then, is to limit the scope of what is included under "interstate commerce". Adam Smith-ite or not, one can easily agree with that.

So, to the extent that actions governed by a central government should be commerce-related, where does that leave something such as the drinking age? IMHO, in the hands of the states. I fail to see, pragmatically, where such discrepancies would hinder the smooth workings of a free market---outside of obvious border-area issues such as 18 year olds crossing over the state line to score booze from a more lenient state. But such isolated issues won't have enough of an effect to be a concern---unless one is operating in theoretical absolutes...in which case he or she should just admit to being a keynesian and be done with it.

 

[Fingers]

I think a person should be considered an adult under law at a particular age, and I favour 18, for ALL applications. Contracts, military service, etc. To do anything less is hypocritical. Either a person is capable,... or not. That's notwithstanding all the immature 18 year old arguements or the the mature 14 year olds. We need a dividing line that is consistent and common.