Legal drinking at 18? At least consider options

The drinking age should have never been raised. We send our sons and daughters off to war at 18. Why can't they legally and publicly drink? It wouldn't be such a game if they were allowed to do it in public, legally. "maybe" some of them wouldn't be getting into so much trouble and be a little more responsible. I vote lower it back to 18. They are adults, they can make their own choices.

I believe we should keep the legal drinking age at 21 and raise the minimum age of military to 21 to match the drinking age.

ahhh!! In my opinion, a classic conundrum. While I see the point re the military, contracts, etc etc, it is extremely difficult to argue the point of greatly reduced alcohol related traffic crashes and fatalities among teens when the drinking age was returned to age 21. While I have no stats to back my argument, is it not true that some studies have shown that children are beginning to drink at a younger and younger age, i.e. 10, 11, 12, and 13 year olds. Why encourage them any more than we already have?

Every indicators shows that among our youth, especially college students, the switch is from a variety of unfamiliar and esoteric drugs to the drug commonly found in the most respectable and law abiding homes. In this society we use alcohol for a variety of reasons; to be sociable, to be accepted, to relax, to gain courage, to improve self-esteem, and yes, to add romance to our lives. And, too often, for many of us alcohol is used to escape from depression, fears, anxiety, and other inadequacies real or imagined. It is for these and other reasons the abuse of alcohol is on the rise.

According to the federal National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, college drinking contributes to about 1,700 student deaths, 599,000 injuries and 97,000 cases of sexual assault or date rape annually.

"Defying one law makes it easier for youths to justify defying another, perhaps with more serious consequences

I can't even believe that people are considering this change!! It is not true that 2 out of the last 3 years of McCook high school graduation, we have lost children to alcohol related incidents?? I am 28 years old and know many people 21 and OLDER whom aren't responsible enough to drink let alone anyone whom is 18 or younger who is responsible enough. We need to ask ourselves whom is the "parent" in this situation. Compromising is not an option when it comes to something that may in fact kill the drinker or someone else. Some people brought up that people can go to war at 18 but can't drink at the same age. What kind of idiots are you? Those that go to war are doing so because the have a choice and a RIGHT to do so. At no time has anyone under the age of 21 been given the RIGHT to drink alcohol legally! Those whom go to war are doing so because they are exercising a RIGHT they have been given. Why are we bending to the "desires" of the children in our lives? Once again whom is the "parent" and whom is the "child"? I know that kids go out and drink prior to being 21 but just because "everyone is doing it" doesn't mean that it is right nor is it legal!! All lowering the legal age is going to do is send the wrong message to the youth that if they go against the grain, they will eventually wear the authority down. Is that really the message we want to send to the youth in this day and age of chaos? The youth of today have enough problems and tough roads ahead of them, do we really need to give them yet another issue to struggle with?? I know that most people consider themselves a "legal adult" at age 18, however does anyone realize that legally parents are responsible for their child's actions until the 19th birthday??

I would not be in favor of lowering the age to 18. I would, however, be so bold as to be in favor of lowering the age to 19; the legal age when I was a younger person. At that point, we were out of high school and were living on our own, either gainfully employed or in college. The young adults that I know have been raised to wear seatbelts and have been subjected to countless ads and parental discussions about designated drivers. Let's lower the age and continue to ratchet up DWI/DUI enforcement. The unintended consequence of the higher age has been binge drinking.

I, too, was one who was "legal" at age 19. So the following comment is from first-hand experience.

I graduated from my high school in '83 (not McCook, not even within 100 miles), and just like any other class before or since, there was beer or anything else readily available if you so desired. The minimum age at the time (again) was 19, and we were all between 16 and 18 at the time. By the time I graduated, I was SO close to that magic age of 19 I could almost taste it! Just the idea of being able to LEGALLY go to the store and buy a 12-pack of whatever I wanted was so appealing! But like so many of my classmates, most of us being 'nerds', we refrained and stuck with Dr. Peppers or the likes.

Then it happened; my 19th birthday! Oh Boy! Here I was, FINALLY able to go order a beer with my dinner or get a 12-pack or anything else that I wanted. So I did...and it was sort of like a blind date, or meeting someone by phone or online before you see them in person. When the reality set in, it wasn't as appealing as it seemed before. Not one time did I ever get "carded", nor did I ever order an adult beverage with a meal like I had dreamed of doing. Once it was legal to do so, it just lost it's "zing".

My point is this: Sure, lower the drinking age to 19. It doesn't make sense that you can enlist in the military at 18, but you can't have a can of beer. But in the interest of give & take, let's also lower the minimum blood-alcohol level to .05%. An average 150-pound adult can drink about 1 to 1.5 beers an hour and be at or below that figure. More than that, and you don't have any business driving anyway. It's a safe bet that the college crowd will get the same reaction I did, and since the "sneakiness" of underage drinking will be gone, it's quite likely that alcohol use/abuse will decrease as well.

*Just a side-note to the author of the original story here; I thought that your snide remark about MADD using [quote] "...a combination of reason and emotion..." was out of line. I don't belong to that group, but know of people who do. The majority of their members have immediate family who lost their lives in alcohol-related crashes, so of course they are going to carry some emotion into their testimonies when asking for the support of lawmakers in their decisions. It's illogical to belive otherwise. I know your article was more editorial than news, but in either case, so as not to alienate your readers from the outset, you should confine your remarks to the facts or to the point of the story.

Nothing personal, but that's Journalism 101, and if you didn't take that class, maybe you should be in the blogosphere, rather than the world of real news.