Amethyst Initiative

http://www.amethystinitiative.org/

"These higher education leaders have signed their names to a public statement that the 21 year-old drinking age is not working, and, specifically, that it has created a culture of dangerous binge drinking on their campuses."

Basically, this group is urging politicians to reconsider the drinking age in the United States. They go into more detail on the Statement page.

Thought it'd be interesting to see how posters in other countries (where drinking ages are lower) feel.

Would it be wise to lower the drinking age? Why do dangerous habits, such as binge-drinking, develop among minors who legally cannot drink?

Interested in your thoughts.

Is there a culture of binge drinking in universities in France?

legal drinking age here is 18. but it is way too easy for underagers to get alcohol.

All I'm really going to say about the drinking age is that if you're old enough to die for your country in a stupid ass war then you're old enough to drink a beer.

The American legal age to buy alcohol is already stupidly high, raising it any more than it is will have zero effect. Binge drinking will happen no matter what the age limit is, I would imagine like here in the UK its quite easy to get drink if your under age. There are shops that don't care, you get older people to buy it, fake I.D. You can get married, join the army, drive a car, work full time, buy a house and smoke cigs but you can't have a beer at the end of the day, only in America.

If you can die for your country the law should let you get drunk enough to deal with it.

Making the drinking age lower might cost more problems

its all about the $ they make from busting folks..lol...kinda why legalizing maryjane will not happen...best we can hope for in some states is a bit of decriminalization

Originally posted by gryphon28
Making the drinking age lower might cost more problems

It's not as though the current drinking age stops anyone that wants to drink.

no but they make money from busting people for it..creates jobs and makes the states money

What a silly argument. These sort of people really annoy me, when they can't be honest about why they're arguing for a change in the legality of a substance.

Stop all these arguments of "it will curb binge drinking if it can be bought legally" and of medicinal marijuana and go back to the most important argument of personal freedom; people should be allowed to do whatever they want to their own body.

Drinking affects others, too.

It doesn't matter if the drinking age is 15 or 50. If they see their favourite characters on Friends drinking beer, then they're going to too, whether it's legal or not.

Originally posted by apoc001
Drinking affects others, too.

Please, do explain.

The Scottish Government wants to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21 to tackle binge drinking.

Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav
The Scottish Government wants to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21 to tackle binge drinking.

Yeah, I saw that on the news today. Though I thought it was only going to be raised for alcohol purchases from off licences?

Originally posted by chillmeistergen
Please, do explain.

Originally posted by chillmeistergen
What a silly argument. These sort of people really annoy me, when they can't be honest about why they're arguing for a change in the legality of a substance.

Stop all these arguments of "it will curb binge drinking if it can be bought legally" and of medicinal marijuana and go back to the most important argument of personal freedom; people should be allowed to do whatever they want to their own body.

Originally posted by apoc001
Loss of judgment from drinking has led to drunk driving accidents, fights, rape, spousal abuse and child abuse. Obviously, it's not like every time you drink, you hurt someone, but it does happen sometimes.

So, the alcohol didn't go out and do this, did it? People can and do drink responsibly, why should these people have the opportunity to do so legally, taken from them because some idiots do some stupid things? If they break the law while drunk, they should be punished for the law they've broken, but there really is no point in demonising a substance because of criminal acts that a very small minority of drinkers have committed.

Originally posted by chillmeistergen
So, the alcohol didn't go out and do this, did it? People can and do drink responsibly, why should these people have the opportunity to do so legally, taken from them because some idiots do some stupid things? If they break the law while drunk, they should be punished for the law they've broken, but there really is no point in demonising a substance because of criminal acts that a very small minority of drinkers have committed.

Originally posted by apoc001
Did I say they should have their right to do so legally taken from them? No, I didn't. I was pointing out that drinking sometimes affects others. And no, the alcohol didn't out and do these things, but usually the person wouldn't have done it if he had been sober. Heck, just this past winter around where I live a man got drunk and took his two baby daughters to a park and woke up in a hospital with frostbite and hypothermia to find out that both his daughters had frozen to death because of him. It doesn't affect others if you drink responsibly, but a lot of people don't have the strength to.

So why mention it, then? It's like coming into the thread and posting "sometimes, some people break laws".