"My pappy always said never drink anything older or stronger that you are".
Posted on 04/11/2007 5:09:48 PM PDT by JTN
It's been 20 years that America has had a minimum federal drinking age. The policy began to gain momentum in the early 1980s, when the increasingly influential Mothers Against Drunk Driving added the federal minimum drinking age to its legislative agenda. By 1984, it had won over a majority of the Congress.
President Reagan initially opposed the law on federalism grounds but eventually was persuaded by his transportation secretary at the time, now-Sen. Elizabeth Dole.
Over the next three years every state had to choose between adopting the standard or forgoing federal highway funding; most complied. A few held out until the deadline, including Vermont, which fought the law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (and lost).
Twenty years later, the drawbacks of the legislation are the same as they were when it was passed.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Ping
“The second drawback of the federal drinking age is that it set the stage for tying federal mandates to highway funds, enabling Congress to meddle in all sorts of state and local affairs it has no business attempting to regulate — so long as it can make a tortured argument about highway safety.”
Should we be surprised that kids who have not seen alcohol sometimes go completely crazy when they first arrive in the college/university setting?
The period since the 21 minimum drinking age took effect has been "marked by a shift from beer to hard liquor," Seaman wrote in Time, "consumed not in large social settings, since that was now illegal, but furtively and dangerously in students' residences. In my reporting at colleges around the country, I did not meet any presidents or deans who felt the 21-year age minimum helps their efforts to curb the abuse of alcohol on their campuses."
This analysis is certainly true here at U.Va., and I suspect that it's true at most other colleges.
What are you nuts? I think global warming ranks above this idea and I think GW is all BS. Attend a funeral of a dui 18 year old sometime.O r worse yet a victim of a drunk driver.
I still believe that if you are old enough to be responsible enough to serve in the armed forces, or be bound to a legal contract, then you should be able to drink.
"My pappy always said never drink anything older or stronger that you are".
Old enough to die for us, old enough to drink.
"My pappy always said never drink anything older or stronger that than you are".
Spell check can't always save me.
21 is really a stupid age to set as a limit. If you think about it, the drinking age should always be lower than the driving age, if you want to introduce alcohol more safely.
It would be more reasonable to set the drinking age at 14 and the driving age at 17.
My sentiments exactly.
But if we lower the drinking age, how can we sue them down the road?
The year I graduated from high school we had 5 pictures in the annual framed in black. All killed by drunk drivers. None of them even made it to age 18. Two of them, Donna Cole and Jackie Brower, were in my German class. In each case, the drunk driver was in the vehicle that struck the one carrying the student.
l8 is old enough to die for your country, marry, enter into contracts, assume all personal responsibility and liability but not old enough to drink alcohol?
Doesn’t make sense.
19 should be the drinking age, IMO. Also make 19 the age to join the military, gamble, vote, smoke, view porn, etc.
19?
Anything special there or just something between 18 and 21?
When you’re 19 you’re out of high school and making adult decisions.
Let kids drink, but don’t let them be away from home after 8PM without a parent.
Let college kids drink, but only on campus, with no driving involved (bikes OK).
Let ANYONE drink at their residence. Parents can set rules for their children, not needing criminal laws.
18 to buy anything.
18 to drive after 8PM.
When states are free to choose, we can then learn what works.
Spare us the implied “if it saves on child” justification for a nanny state.
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