I have been reading and hearing a lot on the news about the Amethyst Initiative. One side will talk about hoping to stop binge drinking and therefor the problems that binge drinking causes. The other side says that lowering the drinking age would cause more fatal car accidents. Who is right?
I don't know. What I do know that at the age of 18 my son will have the right to vote, have to register for the draft, can join the military, and if found guilty of a crime be charged as an adult. However, he as an adult who can go to war and be killed for serving the country, sacrificing his life if he so chooses. He at this age can do all of that is not allowed by the same government who he might choose to serve, cannot at the end of a long hard day have a beer. Or at the celebration of achieving something is not allowed to have a celebratory glass of wine.
Am I the only one who this does not make sense to?
1 comment:
I think when they changed the drinking age to 18 way back when and then raised it - it was because the statistics showed raising it saved a lot of lives. Eighteen year olds were buying liquor for their 15-17 year old high school friends. It really, really was a big problem (I know, I was in that age group that was affected by the change and I remember high school drinking vividly).
In the military, even though I was 17, I drank, because I could buy liquor on post. Thank God I didn't have a car. My brain certainly wasn't wired properly to make good choices after I'd been drinking.
However, on the civil liberties front - absolutely - if you are old enough to die for your country, you should be able to enjoy all the adult rights the rest of us enjoy.
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