Alcohol is a tough one. I’m an alcoholic, working on twenty years sober.
I came up in the libertine early seventies, when the drinking age was lowered for Vietnam. I had places where I could buy it at fifteen, because I was six feet tall. A lot of society wanted to get us off the nasty drugs of the late sixties and onto the legal drug, alcohol.
Many of my peers became alcoholics. Others didn’t. With some in the eighteen to twenty one age group, it’s just the party years.
I opposed Reagan raising the drinking age. I was already twenty one, but I’ve always thought it strange that you can vote and join the military at eighteen, but still not drink. I do think we should make up our minds and make everything either 18 or 21.
Bottom line question, will it result in more or fewer alcohol related deaths because of the increase in youth drinking?
“Bottom line question, will it result in more or fewer alcohol related deaths because of the increase in youth drinking?”
For me, that is not necessarily the bottom line question. If it were, we could have a discussion about whether or not we could lower the number of alchohol related traffic deaths by prohibiting alcohol altogether. We could lower the number of motorcycle deaths by eliminating motorcycles. We could lower heart disease rates by dictating what grocery stores can sell, and what restaraunts can serve. It’s not the point. The point is, it’s weird that 18 is the age our society universally recognizes as being mature enough to make basically every important decision in life and live with the consequences, accept for the decision to take a drink. For me, the absurdity meter is pegging...