Drinking

Ok, so I think at this point we all know that I like the sauce. What you might not know is that I actually advocate lowering the drinking age. Yes, as a former bartender that was a fan of turning down under age people from trying to drink, I firmly believe that we should lower the drinking age to 18. A recent article on MSNBC.com caught my eye, and is really the source for this post, but it's something that I've debated with people for a long time.

At the age of 18 you are legally able to vote for a President (a right that people clearly abused by voting for Bush), own a gun, and enlist in the military to, at least currently, more than likely die for your country. At the age of 18, however, you cannot order a cold beer.

Recent legislation in a handful of west coast states is pushing through the idea of lowering the drinking age to 18 based on the points I just made, but of course there are those that argue that lowering the drinking age will only increase teenage drinking fatalities and teenage alcoholism. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but I never had an issue getting booze when I was under 21. The difference between myself and most of the people that I knew is that when I was 18, alcohol wasn't a taboo. I typically had wine with dinner when eating with my parents, and when I turned 21 it was no big deal. The reason for this is that I grew up in Europe, where there is no secret about alcohol.

In the US, we like to avoid topics like sex, drugs, and alcohol with our children, so that when they get old enough to indulge in these vices, they over indulge and bad things happen. With the move to lower the drinking age to 18 also comes the requirement that those between the ages of 18 and 21 go through repeated alcohol classes and training - essentially removing the taboo and secrets associated with alcohol and helping those newly allowed to drink learn the truth about what alcohol can and will do to you without the handcuffs that your local high school's health class tends to lay on their teachers.

While I certainly don't believe there will ever be a law passed that lowers the age to 18, what most people tend to forget is that there isn't actually a federal law placing the drinking age at 21. Each state sets their own alcohol standards, and in fact it was legal to drink under the age of 21 in Louisiana until around 1995. The federal government, in their moronic wisdom, decided to mandate that any state that didn't raise the drinking age to 21 would lose 10% of their federal funding for streets and highways. Now, I'm a bit rusty on my history, but the last time the federal government tried to pass laws relating to alcohol was the 18th Amendment - an I think we all know that didn't last.

George R Perry