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The drinking age in Britain is 18. Politicians are trying to raise it to 21. I think this is a bad idea. Britain does have a culture where people drink heavily which isnt a good thing, but raising the law will just give the police something else to worry about. Most people in Britain first get drunk when they are 14, and so to raise the age to 21 is hypocritical. They should try and eliminate underage drinking in very young teens first before they try and stop 18 year olds from drinking. I wouldnt like England to be like America where u can get married fight and die for your country but cant get a drink. What do you think. Is it a good idea to raise the drinking age or is it a bad one?
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That ios not th3e point of the argument the point is at 18 people have the right to do things that need far more responsibility than to have a beer and yet they arent allowed to do it. For example another thing i realised is that you are allowed to have sex when you are 16 in Uk but you are not allowed to watch porn. That doesnt make sense. The alcohol is kind of similar.
Ah come on, i personally believe that its enough from 18+...
As someone said before me which i dont remember,many people first get drunk at the age around 14-15.
Hey, im 17 ,have been drunk a lot of times from 14 years.
Though im close for the 18 years.(27/06/08 birthday)
Its possible that raising the drinking age would make people take it more seriously. Especially if there was more of a punishment for people found drinking underage, since now nothing really happens...
Well to begin, i must first rebuke kanethebrain for using "strawman" when the politically correct term is "straw person" (hehe jk...i can't remember where i saw that written...)
Anyway, I will say that I think it should be raised. But my reasoning is completely from experience. I had lets just say, family problems arise from alcohol and have seen what it can do to a person, regardless if they never get drunk. Having been through it, i absolutely hate it. I think that the drinking age should be raised at any opportunity, it really and truly can and does destroy people. I do not think we should even continue selling it, as it is a drug...
So please understand, i realize that an 18 year old could probably handle the responsibilities but from experience I don't think alcohol should even be legal. (i certainly will be abstaining from it, for my lifetime...if i can...)
Gotta voice my agreement with woody and alguzara (man, what is happening here?)
@morbid_giggle: If you make the law too restrictive, people will just ignore it. Make the law too draconian, and you'll have people protesting in the streets. Making alcohol hard to get isn't going to solve the problems we have with alcohol. We proved that in the roaring twenties when speakeasies flourished.
@eyetwitch: Hey, I learned long ago that if it's a good thing, it's gender neutral, when if someone's at fault, somehow us guys always tend to get the blame...
Also, your experience is suffering from confirmation bias and small sample size. You're looking for a reason to raise the age, so you see people that act poorly with alcohol. You also don't have a wide enough sample to say that alcohol can't be handled by everyone, just your family.
Also, nobody is saying people should have to drink (which you seem to imply, even if you don't come out and say it). If you want to choose not to drink, that is your decision and I'll support that. But even you admit that 18 year olds are responsible enough to drink, so why should we ban them from doing so?
Ohh i think i should clear something here. My situation was caused from degrading of the mind/personality over years of drinking. Which will happen to anyone who drinks too much for too long. (yah we do tend to always get the blame...hmm...wish we could fix that...)
What i meant by me not ever drinking is that my plans could fall through do to peer pressure at any time in my life...as i figure college is going to be particularly difficult in that area...
While i would love to see alcohol banned and disregarded from culture forever...that will never happen. And the prohibition era lays testament to what that can do. So, lets just call my beliefs a hopeless dream. And in the meantime, i will agree with you, becuz making laws more strict only causes more problems....generally...
I don't drink (it's illegal at my age) and I don't intend to. Alcohol being banned would be great, like eyetwitch said, but he's right it won't ever happen. Believe it or not, Alcohol is one of about a dozen goods that makes our US economy tick. If we were to remove alcohol from the market, then there would be a bunch of angry drinkers and alcohol dealers would be out of buisness.
Obviously ninjacube i mean look what happened during prohibition. It was probably the stupidest law ever made. Of course people are going to want to drink.
Personally, I think that it is silly to be able to die for your country, yet not legal to have a drink before you ship out. To be able to get married, but not have a drink of champagne at your wedding. The drinking age in America is silly, and I am shocked to hear that they are thinking about raising it in England. Making the age higher is only going to make people upset and encourage underage drinking. It has been proven that the more you discourage alcohol to your children, the more appealing it becomes. I was personally very lucky in this because my dad is a winemaker. I was brought up to respect alcohol, and it was not completely discouraged because it was part of our family culture. Now, as I am older, I do not feel the need to rebel and drink a whole lot of alcohol because alcohol was not an unknown and taboo thing to me growing up.
Why is the drinking age 21?
Back in the 80s during Reagan's term there was a push for more alcohol research on the youth of America. The push came from MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). Pretty consistently the research came up with the magic number 21. 21 is the age that MOST humans have their brain fully developed. There are several implications to consuming alcohol at a younger age.
Problems?
- The research was done in the 80s. It should be updated. (At least I am not aware of it)
- Paternalistic laws always make people rebel, especially the youth.
- Criminalization of alcohol consumption and possession is wrong, wrong, wrong! There are other ways to deter people from consuming alcohol.
- The US has the highest drinking age, yet we claim to be backed up by research, why don't other countries follow?
Well Carlie it has been suggested but half the MPs in the House of Commons are drunks themselves and vote against it. I just wanted 2 hear wot u guys thought as most of u are American and u have the age as 21. And i agree it should stay at 18. I mean there are always going to be health problems involved but most 18 year olds i know are sensible enough to drinkk in my opinion.
Yea some 18 y/o's have the sense to drink properly, but in my experience I say no they do not. 18-21 equal a strange time in your life that is fantastic. I don't think a person needs alcohol at that time. But if it really does have implications for a developing brain I think US needs all the help we can get. We are a step above room temperature in I.Q.
It's a good idea for Britian to increase the drinking age, this may cause less accidents, as it has had effect in America. It would cause less drunk people, drunk driving, etc.
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