a question for the americans
 

first off this is not about george bush or politics in general, in fact its much more serious! :p

i don't think i've asked this before, apologies if i have. why is it in america someone can drive a car at 17 yet they can't drink until 21? so a 17 year old is trusted with a car that can easily be a deadly weapon in the wrong hands, but they can't have a beer? :wtf: the system over here is a lot better, you can't vote, drink (well legally LOL) or drive until you are 18. so if someone could give me a good reason why the above is the case i would be pleased.

You can get your liscense at the age of 16, younger if there is a special need. As for the legal age limit to drink it is 18, ONLY because thats the legal age of consent. the states are the ones that set these limits. The reason that all 50 states adopted this policy is because the federal government brided them. How this happened was with congress going to the states and telling them to either adopt this age limit or they would cut money away from that states federal highway money. Sounds awful but it happens a lot here, its a way for the federal government to get states to pass something that is only the states have authority over.

18? i was sure it was 21! i remember when lleyton hewitt won the u.s open at the age of 20 he couldn't have a celebatory drink because he was not 21 yet, yet could drink legally in australia by 2 years. there was an alcohol ban over there at one stage if my history serves me correctly....right? see australia never had that problem 'cause we were settled by convicts so if some religious dude told australians they couldn't have a beer all hell would break loose LOL. imagine getting to 21 and never having even a single drink..........

Ok, I didnt explain that properly. The reason that its the age of 21 is because congress forced the states to do so the way I mentioned above. Otherwise the age would be whatever the states had chosen, 18 being the youngest they could go.

oh i see.....so is it ever discussed to change the legal drinking age to 21. i think it would make sense to lift the driving age and lower the drinking age. if you do the wrong thing with alcohol you wake up with a hangover, or wake up next to some girl you don't even know. you do the wrong thing with a car and you kill someone.

The drinking age is 21, the age of consent is 18 (adult). Lowering the drinking age wont help anyone, we're americans (as cliche as that sounds). It the same reason with legalizing drugs, legalizing drugs wont lower dependency, wont stop crime, wont do anything other than make it easier to get things. You stop a black market but you make it easier for people to get thier fixes.

i think a better solution is to change the drinking culture. the problem with societies like ours is really the only time we drink is to get flat off our faces. now people can have a good time and get drunk, not a problem at all but if every time you have a drink you are off your face there is a problem. the european culture has people drinking with their meals all the time and people don't get drunk every meal obviously. heck in holland you can soft drugs legally and the rate of problems arising from that is lower than where its prohibited like australia.

yeah, what Al's talking about is pretty much a bribe (I can't remember the exact poly sci term, stupid me!). I'm pretty sure in this case it's tied to transportation funding (i.e. roads). So, with such a large chunk of money coming from the Federal Gov't to keep the roads in shape, no state is going to back away from this money just because of any objections to keeping 18-20 year olds from drinking.
I remember my dad talking about how, in the '70s, living in St. Louis during his first couple years of college (at a local community college), he and his buddies would go into Illinois after work and what not to go to a bar since, at the time, the legal age in IL was only 18 (MO had upped it to 21 by then). I think, too, that IL had a pretty shoddy reputation for its roads but after "giving in" to the mandate, they've got some high-quality transportation over there. Driving from MO into IL is a stark contrast, b/c our roads here in Missouri are in the bottom 5 or 10 in the nation.

that'd be a hard thing to do, change the drinking culture. you'd prolly have to start out by banning colleges in general. and maybe high schools, too lol. IMO, alot of the responsibility is the parents', at least in raising the kids. My parents were fairly strict and I didn't dare drink in high school (even tho they said, if you ever go to a party and need a ride but can't get one, don't hesitate to give us a call... we'd rather you did that than be afraid of us punishing you and wind up dead or seriously injured) and really haven't had much of a desire to do so in college either (particularly this semester, which is ironic b/c I just turned 21 a month+ ago). unfortunately, people seem to like the carefree qualities which alcohol instills and won't easily give it up.

true but half of this stuff comes from it being prohibited. if people could have a drink (or even a joint) at an early age, then it would lose that appeal and people probably wouldn't care so much about it. now harder substances should be dealt with the full force of the law but an 18 year old arrested for having a beer? just plain stupid......
also if young people were raised with alcohol around them at an early at early age (and not just at parties) it probably wouldn't be abused so much.

Amen!!!!
 

excatley if we are raised around junkies and drunks that decreases the chance of abuse now if its forbidded it it only draws us more to being curios and being rebelous

... yea and if everybody did thier part.... You honestly have a better chance of parting the sea than doing that. You can warp the culture as much as you'd like to whatever floats your boat, but the case youre missing is that alcohol is addictive. Doing what you will the culture is not going to reduce the addictive nature of the susbstance. Drugs, cigarettes and alcohol are still going to be as addictive after as they were before. Point in case, caffine. My girl loves Coke and trying to get a sip form her drink is like taking a bone away from a pitbull. I'd rather go through testicle-crunching stones than give up my Dr. Pepper. See my point?

yes everybodys addicted to something if you hooked on pepper and coke Mullet i would consider you a junkie as well its all the same Dude Really

i'm not so sure that by merely legalizing for people over 18 or even 16 that'll reduce the problem. I mean, even after people turn 21, they still get piss drunk and do stupid shit. and i honestly don't think lowering the age is going to have that drastic an effect to make 18-20 year olds stop wanting to binge so much merely b/c it wouldn't be illegal anymore.

on a side note, the town in which I attend college (it's a pretty big town, about 180,000, with one major state school of about 18,000 and several smaller schools) recently passed a law (it might even be state-wide, but i'm not sure) referred to as an MIC (an MIP, as you may know, is a Minor-in-Possession... if you're under 21 and have an alcoholic beverage in either your actual or constructive possession, you're toast.... an MIC is a Minor-in-Consumption). the way I understand it, if you're being safe and walking home from a party (or walking on campus, as many do) and are a little tipsy (I think your BAC has to be 0.02... 1/4 the 0.08 to be classified as legally drunk), you can get written up as though you had a beverage in your possession. likewise, if you have a party and there's minors there, the police can allegedly get you too for serving alcoholic beverages to minors (I think this is part of a different law, but recently enacted nonetheless)... all pretty retarded, if you ask me