Wondering how you feel about the lower drinking age in other countries, such as Canada (18 or 19, depending on the province).

In fact, the United States does have the highest legal drinking age of all of the countries in the Americas (save for Paraguay). And there are many countries in Europe that have no legal drinking age for private consumption, but do indeed have a purchase age. It looks as though the United States does indeed have one of the highest legal drinking ages in the world.

I guess I wonder what that means. Are American youth believed to be responsible enough to be charged with the defense of the country but not responsible enough to enjoy a beer? I think the problem is not what could occur with a lower drinking age, as youth below the drinking age certainly don't allow something petty like the law deter them from boozing it up like rabid dogs, but rather what the law says about how we view youth responsibility.

Take for instance the legal smoking age. In most states in America, the legal smoking age is 18. So what is the law actually saying here? It's okay for youth to smoke, but it's not okay for them to drink. Why is there such a distinction?

I believe that the American youth tabling this dissenting point of view need to broaden their scope, sure, as there are a number of "age injustices" in the United States. Their preoccupation with drinking certainly harms their cause, as does their flawed presentation. Perhaps if they prepared their statements with a little less frat boy enthusiasm and a little more investigative questioning, they might accomplish their goals.

I do find it strange that our laws are all over the place; one for smoking, one for drinking, one for driving, one for the military, one for renting a car, and so on. . . I think kids drive too early and probably drink too late; if that is, they can serve our country, I think they should be able to buy a drink. What I don't get is our pre-occupation with getting drunk. Kids go out to get drunk. So do adults. People binge drink like crazy. That is where education needs to start. Getting drunk every weekend, at every party, on every cruise or vacation, or just any and every chance one has, means you have a problem, no matter what you call it. I think a cocktail or a glass of wine with dinner, a beer on a cold day, are all fine--but I never have understood this pre-occupation with getting pie-faced drunk every time you pick up a drink. You want to have a drink each night when you come home? Okay. But three, four, five? Or even two every single night? What are we numbing? Why do so many teens and young people feel the need to get completely drunk every time they drink? That, I think, is the problem with making it legal any younger. It doesn't, however, seem like most young people(and lots of older ones) are making good decisions about drinking.

Most of the 21 year old laws support comes from mothers against drunk driving which is actually a veiled temperance league.

If you're old enough to be tried as an adult, serve in the military, or vote in federal elections, you're old enough to drink--no ands, ifs, or buts.

I think legal age has to be removedand drinking should be encouraged by special incentives by the federal and state governments as it will grow economy in this difficult time.

Nice try, SK.

Ok, I'm 17, but I'm not much of a drinker to be honest, but I do think the drinking age should be lowered. 17-year-olds are going to drink even if it's illegal, so we might as well make it legal.

Monitor Drinking to Teach Moderate Drinking

I have commented on this subject a few times on NPR radio when the Dean from a Vermont college (I believe he was from Middlebury College) approached this subject a few years ago.

I believe that the best way to handle the lowering of the drinking age would be to place some restrictions on the young adults starting at the age of 18 to to perhaps 24 years of age. Perhaps limiting consumption of a 1 liter bottle of either beer or wine, not both, on a daily basis via use of a monthly issued punch card at a state or local government agency or by a liquor store itself could be a possibility. It may sound a little complicated and/or unnecessary but protection to abuse is important. Other means of monitoring are open but a method to limit access and stress its importance can be a teaching aid to young adults. Kegs of beer and hard liquor would not be accessible to age group that venerable to abuse. the daily limit to beer and wine could be change to perhaps a daily six pack of beer and/or daily bottle of wine at the age of 20 or 21 while maintaining a restriction to kegs and hard liquor until the age of 23, 24 or 25. Most people of this age are out of the colleges and/or of an age where they are more mature thus limiting the contact with the younger less mature college students and being more mature, would understand the perils of over indulgence better than an 18, 19 or 20 year old.

A young person joining the military and willing to lay down their lives for our freedom and security should be exempt from all restrictions and able to drink at their peril!

I agree with you 100 percent, Diane! Young people at age 18 are no more ready to be responsible drinkers than they are to be responsible soldiers, automobile drivers, OR voters! Parents whose children are now coming of age have worked hard to give their children everything they didn't have when they were growing up, and it is now rearing its ugly head in American society -- most of these kids have been handed everything without having to do anything themselves to get it, and now have this attitude that the world owes them something, maybe everything. Time for America's young people to find out what the REAL world is like, you work for what you get, instead of expecting somebody to hand it to you, or you don't get it. More mature attitudes need to be cultivated before you are handed the privileges AND the responsibilities of adulthood.
I also take issue with the argument that more exposure to alcohol at an earlier age will result in less alcohol and substance abuse and fewer deaths from alcohol poisoning by inexperienced drinkers -- excuse me, but I know people whose parents decided to allow them to drink at home instead of risking them going out somewhere else and getting drunk, and most of these people are some of the most actively practicing alcoholics I know!!

Then let 18-year-old soldiers drink.

Eighteen year old soldiers used to be able to drink. I can remember going on the base with my dad and seeing vending machines filled with beer for 25 cents a bottle.

I would be for lowering the drinking age and raising the driving age, such as is done in other countries. Or, as Diana has suggested, raising everything to 25, including military service, voting, and the age of majority.

I must say I was shocked the first time I went to the US and was forced to show ID ("New South Wales' drivers' licence - where's that, man? Oh, Australia ... hey, you speak pretty good English") in just about every bar I went to, having been allowed to drink legally in Australia for three years.

My view: if you're old enough to vote, old enough to drive, old enough to pay tax, old enough to be conscripted into the armed forces and packed off to war, old enough to buy a packet of smokes, old enough to need your own passport, old enough to be considered an adult in terms of any criminal convictions you might acquire over the age of 18 (because you are suddenly considered old enough to be responsible), then you are old enough to drink legally.

The ridiculous part of this is that in America, the legal drinking age means diddly squat anyway - people get fake IDs, or drink illegally at private parties, so it's hardly making any difference.

I'd say most of the parties I went to in the US had large numbers of people aged between 18-21 who were drinking illegally.

Big deal.

What are you America? The ultimate nanny state?

That's nothing, Stan. The second day of my first visit to the States, I went to a TGI Friday's and decided - naturally enough, one would have thought - to order a beer. Fortunately I just happened to have not taken my passport out of my jacket pocket yet, or I wouldn't have got a piddling drop. Being from the UK, where one doesn't habitually carry ID, I was unprepared for the way things are in the Land of the Free (smirk © Pablo 2008), especially since back home I had been legally able to drink for sixteen years.

It could still easily have been Diet Pepsi time, since the waitress - like most of her compatriots - not only didn't have a passport herself but didn't even know what one looked like.

Is that fair dinkum, Doc ... you had to show your passport to prove you were legally able to drink, what in your thirties?

These are a chain of restaurants, aren't they, rather than bars.

Truly, that is bizarre (unless, of course, you've held your age extremely well :) .

On that note, though, I had to use my passport on a couple of occasions too because they wouldn't accept my NSW driver's licence - which I was (legally) using to drive in America, and even to hire cars, etc. It was good enough to enable me to deliver a car from San Diego to Virginia Beach. One guy at the door of a bar in SF said: Australia! Sorry, we don't accept European licences)

Mind you, I wasn't driving that well in view of the fact Americans have bizarrely put their steering wheels in the passenger seat, and insist on driving on the wrong side of the road, but it WAS legal.

The other side of the coin was that production of my British passport, which I'd used to travel to the UK so I wouldn't have to line up in the foreign queue at Heathrow with my Aussie passport, once got me a pretty damn good date with a very nice American waitress who had been told by another woman in the restaurant about "the British guy", so I 'spose it's not all bad :)

Like you Doc, I do love American women ...

Yep, TGIF is a chain of US-style burger joints. Not sure if they have 'em Down Under, although there's at least one in London.

Problem was that the passport was the only thing I had. I didn't drive at the time, so no licence, and as I said, Brits don't carry ID cards.

Luckily for me, the waitress went and checked with the manager, who'd been to Tijuana once and so at least knew what an international border looked like. Cheers.

Lol. What, she'd never seen a passport so didn't know that it could be used as ID?

Ah, deary me - those Yanks ... they're a bloody weird mob, aren't they? A lot of the time, they just leave me completely gobsmacked and scratching my head.

You must have lots of fun - daily - living amongst them :) Lucky you've got an American missus who can explain all the idiosyncracies, and of course that allows you to get used to the strange accent much more easily.