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College chiefs urge new debate on drinking age
http://www.cnn.com/ 2008/ HEALTH/ 08/ 18/ college.drink...
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Raising The Drivers License Age. Lowering The Drinking Age.
http://creditdebtlife.com/973/raising-the-drivers-license-ag...Two recent stories only make me more confused as I get older. Apparently, one group is promoting lowering the drinking age while another wants to raise the driving age. Pretty soon you’ll be able to drive at 19 and drink at 14. No, that’s just silly but it isn’t so far-fetched that in my lifetime people might not be able to drive till they can legally take themselves to the Brew-Thru for their first case of Bud. Group Wants States to Raise Driving Age College Chiefs Urge New Debate on Drinking Age Interestingly the age to enlist is still the same. Being 18 appears to be the magical birthday that makes everything okay. Related Posts No Related Post Reprint this article for free. Visit CreditDebtLife.com for details. Raising The Drivers License Age. Lowering The Drinking Age.
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http://unitedwelay1.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/lower-the-drink...20Aug08 Lower the Drinking Age By unitedwelay1 Categories: Drinking, alcohol, civil liberties, freedom, parents and schools A movement called the Amethyst Initiative has recruited over 100 college Presidents to urge the government to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. Besides it being extremely difficult to enforce the drinking age on college campuses, or any place where large groups of young people are gathered together, it should be reduced even further, to 16, to allow parents and families to teach their young adults how to drink responsibly in the comfort of their own home. It would help reduce drunk driving as well, as teens who don’t have to sneakaround to drink can do so in the privacy of their own backyards and would be more likely to stay where they are, under the watchful eye of parents and neighbors close by. In many countries the drinking age is between 16 and 18, with only the nanniest of states requiring that young men and women who can join the military to die should do so without their first drink. Besides all that, the best way to get people to stop doing something is to make it perfectly legal. Did we learn nothing from prohibition? The forbidden is ALWAYS more fun! My first drink was a wine cooller at 16 under the critical eye of my parents. At 18 my friends and I started having parties, but only when our parents were around (but out of site). At 21 we all went through a legal drinking stage in which we drank too much (but NEVER drove) because we’d had enough experience with ourselves drinking to know what we could and could not accomplish while drunk (unfortunately streaking didn’t make it on the Not To Do list; fortunately, that’s how I saw my husband’s ass a year before I’d even met him).
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College chiefs urge new debate on drinking age
http://ozymandias.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/college-chiefs-ur...I don’t know if I agree with this. (AP) — College presidents from about 100 of the nation’s best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus. The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age. “This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who started the organization. “It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory.” Other prominent schools in the group include Syracuse, Tufts, Colgate, Kenyon and Morehouse. But even before the presidents begin the public phase of their efforts, which may include publishing newspaper ads in the coming weeks, they are already facing sharp criticism. Mothers Against Drunk Driving says lowering the drinking age would lead to more fatal car crashes. It accuses the presidents of misrepresenting science and looking for an easy way out of an inconvenient problem. MADD officials are even urging parents to think carefully about the safety of colleges whose presidents have signed on. “It’s very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses,” said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD. Both sides agree alcohol abuse by college students is a huge problem. Research has found more than 40 percent of college students reported at least one symptom of alcohol abuse or dependence. One study has estimated more than 500,000 full-time students at four-year colleges suffer injuries each year related in some way to drinking, and about 1,700 die in such accidents. A recent Associated Press analysis of federal records found that 157 college-age people, 18 to 23, drank themselves to death from 1999 through 2005. Moana Jagasia, a Duke University sophomore from Singapore, where the drinking age is lower, said reducing the age in the U.S. could be helpful. “There isn’t that much difference in maturity between 21 and 18,” she said. “If the age is younger, you’re getting exposed to it at a younger age, and you don’t freak out when you get to campus.”
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Should the legal drinking age be changed?
http://ywhealth.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/should-the-legal-dr...After all, at the age of 18 you can vote. Die for your country. Watch rated “R” movies, drive a car, have a credit card, and for most of us, attend a university, live on your own, and make your own decisions. So why is the drinking age 21? Some college officials are asking that very question. Presidents from 100 top college universities are seeking to make the new legal drinking age 18 to curb binge drinking, and the emphasis on that infamous 21st day. http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/08/18/college.drinking.age.ap/index.html?iref=werecommend Mothers Against Drunk Driving are the first to raise concern. They say a younger drinking age will lead to more drunk driving accidents. And studies support this concern: since the age was raised from 18 to 21, there has been a reduced amount of drunk driving deaths in the U.S. But is age just a number? We all know that some of us are more mature at 18 than our 23 year old friend. But the government cannot issue beer on a case by case basis. So are we mature enough to handle a younger drinking age as a society? Let’s be honest: most young adults do not wait until 21 to drink. I didn’t. And I turned out okay. But a lot of responsibility goes along with a bottle. Whether they decide to change the age or not: you will still be accountable for you. You have a choice to drink, or not to drink, and do what you think is best for your body. “Minors” are drinking, so maybe it’s time we stop pretending that it’s not happening, and prove that we can handle it.
