Should the US drinking age be lowered to 18? | Hacker News Reader

Should the US drinking age be lowered to 18?

cnn.com

26 pointsthedob63 comments

As someone barely older than 21, I think the statement "There isn't that much difference in maturity between 21 and 18" is the most stupid thing I have heard. I was most definitely less mature at 18 than I was at 21.

That said, I think people are missing the point - there are two "drinking ages" in the United States. 21 is the age at which you can socially drink with no hesitation and purchase alcohol. However, the age at which you can clandestinely drink alcohol that others have purchased is much younger. At that younger age, you're never quite sure when your next opportunity to drink will come or if the tap will simply run dry - akin to the way cookies were rationed out to many of us as children. Somehow, having the ability to go to the store and eat as many cookies as I want whenever I want has lost it's appeal.

It's a combination of maturity and access that changes one's behavior and I really think that we need for groups on both sides to stop throwing around casual theories and actually figure out how we can have people have more fun with less risk - wow, what a concept! But I guess when I become less idealistic that we can actually create better solutions, I'm going to have to pick one of the stupid sides and become ignorant like them. I'm glad that day isn't today.

I sure think it should be lowered.

I went to UCSD, and groups of college students regularly made the trip to Tijuana, where the drinking age is 18. I read about some parents who wanted TJ to raise its drinking age to prevent this. Amazing. Yeah, Mexico should not be like France, Italy, Spain, Canada, England, Ireland, South Korea, or pretty much 95% of the civilized world. The US has decided drinking ages should be 2-3 years higher than everywhere else in the world, so dammit, anyone who borders us needs to change! Typical.

As for binge drinking... well, yeah, I did a ton of that as a US-based college student. I spent a year abroad in Ireland, and honestly, and we did a fair amount of binge drinking there too, but pub culture does encourage conversation and music over heavy drinking, so 18 year olds did at least have a path toward more responsible drinking.

The lowest incidence of binge drinking I've seen so far was in France, where I lived when I was 13 (though I looked older than my age). Cafe owners would typically go ahead and serve me a beer if I asked for one. Technically I think the drinking age there is 16. They also let me into bars provided I was there to watch a sporting event but bars were a little more serious (and they definitely wouldn't serve spirits to a kid). The shopkeepers would let kids buy wine if they knew it was for the parents (ie., the parents had sent the kids out to buy groceries). It really was a different world, much more relaxed about the rules.

The funny thing was, I was all ready to take advantage of the lenient rules, but the kids on the beach (this was in the south of France) were essentially uninterested in binge drinking. They were perplexed, and slightly amused with my interest. But once I discovered there were no takers, I lost interest myself (what am I going to do, go get tanked by myself?). So I had a beer or two as a novelty, and that was it.

The thing that irritates me so much about MADD is that they won't just let it be a state-by-state decision. I see absolutely no reason why voters in Utah should have the slightest say over the drinking age in Louisiana. Yes, "State's rights" have been used as a cover for severe civil rights violations, but if ever there was a situation where one state should butt out of another's business, this is it.

In regards to MADD, I think they really go overboard.

In fact, I've thought many times about forming a counter group, Drunks Against Mad Mothers (DAMM) but never really had the guts. After all, who wants to go up against a bunch of angry/sad mommies? It'd be like throwing a piece of fresh-baked apple pie at your mom or something.

I think the problem with MADD is that it achieved many of its objectives, and didn't know what to do next. In the early days of MADD, severe, repeat drunk driving wasn't recognized as the serious crime that it is and should be. MADD had a lot to do with getting this recognized - in law and in society at large.

But now, I think MADD is a texbook example of an organization that achieves it's objectives but needs something new to do with its fervor. So now they've been pursuing a kind of neo-prohibition under the guise of preventing drunk driving. I don't believe the original founders have much to do with it anymore, and have actually even renounced the organization.

Yes, they go overboard. Mothers are like that. You can't be a parent and stay totally rational about everything.

MADD is pretty low in my opinion. They refuse to put many donated dollars towards helpful programs - and put most of their donations into TV commercials.

They also push spot checks for drinking and driving which I believe is misuse of tax dollars.

I am against drunk driving, but MADD go way past the line.

I don't think they are really against Drinking and Driving. They are against Drinking. Period. And they are also largely about inflating their own reputation and salaries.

Yeah, I like Germany's style: 16 for beer and wine (unless with a parent, then whatever), 18 for "schnapps"

That way, drinking is something you are first exposed to at dinner with the family gasp

> south of France

Italy is the same way - quite healthy attitudes towards alcohol. It's very rare to hear of anyone getting drunk just for the heck of it, and it's usually something people are embarrassed about, rather than proud of.

I'll preface with saying that I am 18 and I support lowering the drinking age, but there is a fallacy that needs to be pointed out. A common argument is that if you are old enough for the army then you should be able to drink. This is an illogical argument. The reason why 18-21 year olds make good soldiers is why they make bad drinkers-- their decision making ability is not fully developed and they have not matured completely. There are great arguments for lowering the drinking age, but the fact that 18 year olds can join the army or be drafted is not one of them.

The point isn't how great their decision-making capability is (or not). The point is that we've regarded them with enough decision-making capability to do lots more harmful things than have a few beers on Friday night.

And it's not just the army. Being able to vote is one of the most powerful choices we allow citizens (I'd vote firearm ownership as #2) It wouldn't make sense to trust people to elect leaders and not with alcohol.

The problem with your comment is that you don't really grow up until around 35 or so. I don't see anybody making the case to raise the drinking, driving, and voting age to that age. The goal isn't to wait until you reach some level of decision-making ability, it's to be consistent between various freedoms that are available to you.

And the young have always fought wars. As it should be. When you get older, it's not that you somehow get too smart to have duty or honor, it's that direct war-fighting is a very boring activity punctuated with extreme athletic moments. 45-year-olds simply wouldn't survive long enough to be worth the training you'd give them.

"The problem with your comment is that you don't really grow up until around 35 or so."

Har. Lemme guess...you're 36?

The problem with age as a metric of "growing up", is that the cutoff is always older than you are, but younger than the guy who makes the rules.

Kind of a tough pill to swallow, eh?

In any case, my point isn't that people should receive some benefit based on maturity. It's just the opposite. We live in a society where kids at 12 can have credit cards, at 16 can drive, etc. It's perfectly fine, imo, to allow people to do things while they are still immature to some degree.

The "guy who makes the rules" is the guy who votes. That's people 18 years and older.

The reason alcohol is regulated while lots of other things aren't (hey, tree-climbing isn't safe either) is because it's easy to regulate and it has easily quantifiable impacts on those who use (abuse?) it and those around them. "Good judgement" more generally can't be regulated and can't be so easily quantified (or even identified, if you're a politician).

And re: 45-year-olds - there are less of them in combat for very practical reasons: a) they've already retired (45-20 is 25, and most people join younger than 25) b) they're promoted into ranks that don't get into direct combat.

I think the notion that a 45-year old would have a lower survival rate is just silly, unless you've got some particular set of facts to back it up.

Well, if 18 year olds are good soldiers because they aren't fully mature, why not allow 14 year olds to be soldiers? Or 8 year olds for that matter... after all, as African warlords have shown, even a small child can be a great soldier with enough cocaine.

"'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."

Wait, do they seriously not know? Somebody please tell MADD that underage drinking occurs on every college campus in existence, and will continue to forever

Worse, their logic sounds exactly backwards.

Presidents who support lowering the legal age are implying that they take the law seriously. If they didn't care about the law, why would they care about changing it?

Shhhhhhh. Please allow them their delusions, as it keeps them quiet(er).

If you can vote and go to war you should be able to drink.

In fact, I'd be curious as to how people age 18-21 were constitutionally able to be disenfranchised for so long. What would people say if we decided, for instance, to prohibit driving after the age of 75?

People would be pretty dang angry. And for good reason. Public safety arguments be damned, freedom means nothing if it doesn't allow you to take risks. As long as you don't have a reasonable chance of hurting others, we should respect your freedoms once you have suffrage.

> prohibit driving after the age of 75

I, for one, would welcome that. The unpredictability of elderly drivers is every bit as dangerous as the stupidity of inexperienced ones. I saw an elderly man take out 8-10 of those construction barrels the other day just because he drifted over a bit out of his lane. Thank god no one was working that day.

I agree that we should have the freedom to take risks, but one has to weigh the risks taken with the lives of others. An 18 year-old that drinks alcohol is primarily a risk to himself, whereas a 75 year-old that is physically unfit to handle a vehicle is only one step away from a drunk driver.

I find it amusing that we have all these laws to protect ourselves from, well, ourselves, and yet we don't do obvious things like determine if someone is physically fit enough to operate a vehicle in public.

My problem with MADD and the whole debate is that somehow the drinking age got attached to drunk driving. Last I checked, there was no minimum age at which driving while intoxicated becomes illegal. It's always illegal. Regardless of the drinking age, drunk drivers should be punished severely.

For that reason, (and the cookies argument pointed out by someone else here), I think the age should be lowered to 16 or so. (I'm 25, and I feel more strongly about this now than I did at 18.) Let kids have their first experiences with alcohol with their families, which are more likely to instill some responsible habits. At the same time, I think drunk drivers should be punished more severely, including the use of public shaming (in additions to fines/loss of license/jail time).

> What would people say if we decided, for instance, to prohibit driving after the age of 75?

In Ontario, they have started making people over 80 take mandatory vision and knowledge test's. There hasn't been alot of outrage over this. I'd say that most people consider this to be a good idea.

In Spain, driving license is renovated every 5 years until age 30, then every 10 years until age 50, then every 5 years until 60, then every year.

And each renovation means: pass a vision test, past a reflexes test, pass a general medical test.

The thought of having people enjoying their "freedom" on the road while exposing anyone to a car accident because of their bad physical condition sounds ridiculous to me (I'm Spanish.)

21 is the traditional age of majority in common law, so that's the "default" - most statutes or constitutional amendments of states that lower it have explicit provisions dealing with beverage laws, etc.

It just annoys me that the age where you're "an adult" is completely subjective. It used to be you're an adult at 18, which should imply you're done with age restrictions, but no, you can't drink for three more years. But if you go to the movie theater or a fair and they charge more for adult tickets vs. kids tickets, suddenly you're an adult at age 12 in their eyes

It’s certainly not completely subjective. These standards derive from completely differing causes:

Get drafted at 18: needs to be old enough to not enlist child soldiers, but young enough to have a reasonable pool of eligible men.

Vote at 18: pissed-off drafted soldiers got tired of being sent to war without any political power of their own.

Drink at 21: whether or not it’s empirically better, this is for public health and safety reasons.

Pay more for fair tickets at 13: this is up to the fair, and is based on profit maximization.

I think it should be raised to 28 - because I'm 28 now and nobody younger than I am should have any fun.

How about a sliding minimum age - one that gets raised as you get older?

Upvoted for chuckles.

In terms of strict legality, in the U.S. you can vote, run for office, and serve in the military at the age of 18. Though rare, we actually have elected officials that can hold office but not drink. I detest the idea of different rules for different groups of people, especially when they are largely mandated by public opinion and much less on scientific data.

To allow marriage without being able to drink is just cruel. Also in the UK the whole point of going to university is to get drunk and meet people... surely.

Are you from the UK? The US drinking age law is broken all over the place, especially in college. Taking out people who tee-total for religious or health reasons, I suspect that less than 5% of people have their first drink at or after 21.

I always found it strange this link between drink driving and the drinking age. To me it reads as follows: "We can't let people drink until they're 21, cause they'll drive drunk". Okay, but what happens at 21? You're so much more mature at 21 that you'll not drink drive? Once you're 21 it's okay to drink drive?

What's really odd is that attitudes to drink driving in the US are so much more lax than other western countries, _despite_ the 21 age limit. Maybe the work MADD should be focusing on is how to change the general attitude to drink driving, as opposed to pursuing their prohibitionist agenda?

Just my 2¢

Side note: I was always amused by the fact that they won't let you rent a car until you are old enough to drink.

I've heard some people suggest that at 18 you should be allowed to get either a license to buy/drink alcohol or a license to drive, but until age 21, you can't have both.

I'm lukewarm on this idea because it seems so easy to evade: get a driver's license and then ask a peer with a drinking license to get you your booze. But the current system certainly seems broken to me, and maybe a split-license system would be more politically feasible than simply lowering the drinking age to 18.

I enlisted out of high school and had the good fortune to be stationed in Germany. Having a drinking age of 18, as Germany did, didn't cause any problems for them (compared to our problems). As one expert said, "the 21 year-old drinking age fosters rampant violation of and disrespect for law…"

http://www.opposingviews.com/arguments/legal-age-21-erodes-r...

I live in Ontario, Canada, where the drinking age is 19. The neighbouring province of Quebec has a drinking age of 18.

The main problems I hear of are on the edges of legality. For example, 18-year-olds from Ottawa, ON cross the border to Hull, QC, where they can get into bars. And, of course, as with anywhere else, there's binge drinking of newly of-age teens.

The worst problems happen when underage kids drink themselves to the point of alcohol poisoning, then don't get medical help because they're worried about getting in trouble.

Basically, my opinion is that the drinking age should be set to the point where there's a medical reason for it not to be any lower. I'm not sure exactly where this is, but 18 is probably a good number. I don't think that you can count on males being finished developing at 17.

"For example, 18-year-olds from Ottawa, ON cross the border to Hull, QC"

I'd be interested to know how many MORE drunk drivers this puts on the road.

It's not exactly that far. I believe there are public transit routes that cross the bridge. :)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q...

I've never lived there myself, but you bring up a good point. I'm sure lots of people do drive drunk across that bridge in the wee hours.

You can take a taxi, for about $5.00 from the bar area in Ottawa to Hull, Quebec. Alternatively you can walk it in about 15 minutes.

Luckily for ride programs you have to cross a bridge and there are cops policing it most weekends.

No, there shouldn't be a drinking age. Let parents decide. Why is this on Hacker News?

In Germany parents can decide - when they are around. For young people on their own - there are rules.

does MADD back up the claim that it will increase drunk driving with any hard data?

no, but they will say that when the drinking ban was added, and their "don't drink and drive" campain started in the late 80s, alcohol related deaths were reduced.

Yet, they fail to explain how in Canada there was similiar drop in alocohol deaths, yet madd was not active there.

Could it be just that cars are getting better, and improving the chances of surviavility? There is a lot of stats out there, and you can cherry pick certain stats, in order to prove your claims, and get away with it, as few people will actually look into them.

MADD is fairly active in Canada, and they've been influential in getting the legal blood-alcohol level lowered. Most provinces now have penalties (not criminal) if you're over .05 to go with the preexisting criminal penalties for over .08. I think that the penalties for drunk driving are harsher and more enforced than in the past too. And they also have graduated driver's licenses for young people now, which (I think) include zero tolerance or something.

But overall probably more sane to try to stop drunk driving by young people rather than drinking by young people.

But in the 80's, when this fall took place, MADD Canada wasn't around (it was formed in 1990) and driving laws were a lot more lax.

Late 80s is pretty close to 1990, and I'd bet MADD USA was active in Canada before they actually created a formal organization. Not that I really know that for sure.

In general (I was around in the late eighties) I'd say that that's the time when drunk driving basically became socially unacceptable in Canada. I think it's still acceptable in the US to a much greater extent. Whether that was because of MADD or not, I don't know.

social acceptability is the big problem. driving is the only activity most people commonly engage in that routinely kills people. It needs to be taken more seriously and the step towards that isn't legislation it's making it socially unacceptable for people to drive recklessly.

Lower it, you shouldn't be able to kill (join the Army) before you are legally allowed a beer. It just seems to me like a law from god knows when, which the US government don't want to change just in case the majority don't like it. Same with legalizing cannabis (Marijuana) to an extent.

Its not like the age limit works, teens drink anyway - it just means bouncers have to turn away ADULTS from bars.

Here's a proposal: reduce the drinking age, forbid drivers under 21 from driving with any detectable level of alcohol, and raise the alcohol tax.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/drug_policy_/2008/08/of_am...

The drinking age should be 13, with supervision. In practice, it is. What kid doesn't get xmas or passover wine?

Well, it would go great lengths to control the population.

If someone can come up with a much better way to combat drunk driving, I'm all for lowering the drinking age. A combination eye-scanner/breathilyzer to start the car might do the trick.

Ok, obviously whoever downmodded me has never had a friend or loved one killed by an under age drunk driver. To give 18 year-olds more access to alcohol in a society where "being accepted" and "being cool" is at the forefront of their minds is very irresponsible unless it can be controlled.

If you think you were as responsible at 18 as you are now, then you're still very irresponsible...

The thing is that lowering the drinking age doesn't dramatically raise the availability of alcohol for 18-year-olds. I know that when I was underage, I had no problem getting booze. And I work with teenagers now: they still don't have problems getting booze. What the higher drinking age does do is drive the drinking underground. So 18-year-olds have to drive more so that they can drink at bush parties. Or when a friend gets alcohol poisoning, they are afraid to get help.

Also, I would say that 80+% of people have their first drink before they legally can. This means that their parents usually have no clue they are drinking, and so they are less able to give their children guidance.

I don't deny that 18 year-olds have access to alcohol. I did plenty of drinking well before I was 18. It would be hard to argue however, that lowering the drinking age to 18 wouldn't give them more and easier access to alcohol.

There are tons of laws that I disagree with in this country but this isn't one of them. In fact, I think penalties for selling to under age kids should be much more harsh than they are now.

You have your head in the sand. I have been on both sides of a crash, my brothers best friend lost his fiancée after she was hit by a drunk driver and a guy I grew up with killed 2 people drinking and driving about a month ago - he saw a cop and was worried about getting pulled over so he sped away and hit two people walking down the road. One was over 21, one under, either way they were still dumb enough to drink and drive. When I was under 21 I didn't drink and drive, and now that I'm over 21 I don't do it.

No doubt that lowering the drinking age would increase access and alcohol consumption. I'm just saying that I would think it would raise these too dramatically.

I do think that the negative effects that driving drinking underground are greater than the effects that increasing drinking would have.

I'm hesitant to say this, because I don't think anyone's opinion should be dismissed because they haven't had a tragic experience. This is a matter of policy, and it affects everyone. In short: you don't need to have experienced what you described to have an opinion.

But actually, I have. A good friend's wife was killed by a drunk driver as she jogged on the sidewalk. The guy was way over 21, and absolutely blitzed. It was a repeat offense. Another very good childhood friend of mine had to be pried from his car by the "jaws of life" after getting slammed by a drunk-driven pickup truck on the wrong side of the freeway. Fortunately, he lived and did experience what I believe was a complete recovery.

That is what MADD was originally formed to combat, and it was (and I mean this without any irony) a righteous cause.

But now, we're at the point where people will be arrested, thrown in jail, and carry a criminal record for driving at BAC levels that have a lower incidence of accidents than driving while chatting on a cell phone ($50 fine in California as of last month). To me, this is clearly the neo-prohibitionists at work. It's wildly out of proportion.

I've also been stopped (in Palo Alto) by cops who saw me walk out of a restaurant/bar and get into my car. They pulled me over because - and I swear I am not making this up - "your idle was running loud... have you been drinking this evening, sir?" Not a single traffic violation, no speeding, no running a stop sign, nothing. They pulled me over because my "idle was running loud" (my car was an old peugeot, I was a poor recent college grad, so yeah, the idle did run a bit loud, though I wasn't aware this gives the police the right to pull me over and make me be their trained monkey for fifteen minutes).

They put me through a bunch of tests (stand on this leg, stand on that leg, look in the sky and count backwards) and another cop car showed up as they gave me a breathtest. Oh, what do you know, the guy with long hair who drives a peugeot isn't drunk. Well, so long sir, be safe tonight.

I was on a date - it's really fun to go through this while your date is watching from the passenger seat.

Considering my experience with drunk drivers, it's pretty remarkable that the police and Madd have managed to turn me into someone who is instantly suspicious of the motives of people who claim to be combatting "drunk driving". I see it as a way to pursue prohibition, and to erode a citizen's protection from random search of their property and person.

What I'll say to that is that if you lowered the age now, there will be a few years of excessive drinking by those previously not allowed to drink. Which President will take that responsibility?

No. It should not exist.

Lower the drinking age to 16, raise the driving age to 18.

no, it should be lowered to 14, that way the kids can adjust to alcoholic before they get behind the wheel of a car.

I read

Should the US drinking age be lowered to 18? (cnn.com) 18 pints by thedob

Lol.

What is your goal? Do you want to save lives?

Accidents involving those aged 18-20 dropped by 13% when most states upped the drinking age to 21: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-20-drinkingage_N...

OTOH if your goal is to reduce global warming then we should lower the drinking age as much as possible. And also start more wars, spread more diseases, &etc.

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