This past week, Q-Line asked: The Amethyst Initiative, a group of college and university presidents from around the country, claim the current legal age to drink needs to be lowered. It has sparked a nationwide debate regarding the controversial subject. How would lowering the legal drinking age play out? Do you think it would lead to more problems or make young adults more responsible when it comes to binge drinking? Here are your responses: “DRINKING AT ALL AGES HAS increased markedly over the years. Changing the law will mean nothing. Excess drinking has become a national problem, along with drug addiction. The children and young people copy what the adults do, and what they see as acceptable on TV and movies. Great role models.”
“THEY SHOULD NOT LOWER THE DRINKING age — we got enough idiots getting drunk all the time without lowering it. Then they drive and stuff. There’s no point to lowering the drinking age. In fact, drunk drivers should get taken out and shot.”
“THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF BOOZE, tobacco, and other forms of hallucinogens. Any age group can find a supplier who is often an older adult or from the family home supply, especially the booze. Reducing the legal drinking age will open a new vista for the 18 year olds who will now be able to cut out the older adult middle person and now be readily able to supply the 17, 16, and 15 year olds who in turn will supply the 15, 14 and 13 year olds as the beat goes on. Although binge drinking is a deadly game, those who use these products will continue to behave as they always have.”
“ALL THE OTHER DRUGS COMBINED PALE in comparison to the problems created by alcohol. Alcohol is the only real drug problem in America. However, legislating morality creates an immoral police state. Thousands of people’s lives have been ruined only because they ingested something someone else says is bad. This is a failed and narrow-minded mentality and is against our freedoms. Anyone who is of legal age to fight our wars should be free to enjoy alcohol, gambling, prostitution, and any and all drugs of their choice without fear of the prudes from the far right and far left making laws against anything enjoyable.”
“AS A MOTHER OF A TEENAGER, I THINK it would work only if you were to raise the driving age. It would work on the East Coast, it would work in places where the driving age is higher. That would be the deterrent here. Unfortunately it would not work because of that and would probably cause too many accidents. But it’s a good idea. Alcohol awareness at a young age is the way the Europeans do it. It works. I’ve seen it work. And it causes less binge drinking. As a mother of a teenager, that’s how I feel.”
“WITH REGARDS TO THE LEGAL DRINKING age, this is an old comment. If people 18 or older go to war and just get killed for killing people overseas and just die and they can’t even drink a drink, I feel like there’s some question in that. Whether it would lead to more problems or think adults would be more responsible, or whether it would like binge drinking … you know, I don’t know. I think everyone’s been drinking. People drink in high school. You go to college, they drink a crapload over in the fraternities and stuff like that, especially freshmen and sophomore year. So I don’t think that’s going to happen except people who are younger and probably more ignorant will drink. But I think they probably deserve to.”
“NOW YOU HAVE A BETTER IDEA WHY IT costs the billions of dollars for the overpriced education in this country — with crackpot ideas such as this. Also, like voting, people should not drink until they are 21. What does an 18 year old know about anything, especially moderation? Why do you think the United States Marines are one of the finest fighting forces in the world? The acceptance of an 18-year-old college drunk has the intellectual aroma of closeted progressive elitists. Why not require university presidents to earn their high salaries educating and protecting students by expelling and thereby making an example of binge drinkers and binge drinking fraternities. Let non-moderate drinking 18 year olds go to Mexico for spring break. The federalies know how to handle stupidity. Maybe we could issue them work visas so they could inflict common sense on our progressive educational society.”
“THE SUCCESS OF MOTHERS AGAINST Drunk Driving was an early example in recent times of a group of small-minded scared people willing to give up our constitutional liberties in hopes of allaying their fears, let alone undermining any philosophical logic. The curious thing is that we have recently lost almost 5,000 children in Iraq, as I am told, defending the very same freedom the mothers are busy trying to destroy.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 6, 2008. Read the original PDF.