Fan Forum - View Single Post - Topic of the Week #20: Should the legal drinking age be lowered?

**TheAngel** · 09-08-2008, 09:37 AM

I found this, an interesting set of statistics from 2002 about drinking and driving, and the only statistic I could find about age. Drinking and Driving, but it seems to me that age doesn't have a correlation to drinking and driving considering the fact that there is still a huge amount of drinking and driving in the 30-45 and 46-64 age range. Bad decisions can be made at any age.
I'm a student at Indiana University Bloomington, a campus of 40,000 that used to hold the rank of America's Number One Party School and still has a very large drinking culture. Age doesn't matter. It's extremely simply for students to get alcohol no matter their age, and there are a number of 21 and 22 year old binge drinkers. I don't drink. I had an ex-boyfriend who was an alcoholic and I stay away from it after seeing what it did to him, but I don't believe age is the issue. The issue is education.
My parents never kept alcohol secret from me. They actually told me that, if at any time, I wanted to see what it was like to be drunk, they wanted me to do it at home so they could take care of me. My dad gave me sips of his beer since I was about 14 and when I was about 12 they gave me small glasses of champagne at New Years. Here I am, 21 years old, and I've never bought alcohol for personal consumption barring once right after my birthday. I tried one beer, hated the taste, and gave the rest to my dad. I've never seen my parents drunk, they've never said it was OK to be intoxicated, they've warned me about the dangers, including possibly sexual assault and rape as an intoxicated female on a college campus. The drinking culture in the US has to do with a poor education regarding alcohol. The forbidden fruit excuse doesn't fly because there are a ton of 21+ that are still drinking and driving, still binge drinking.
In terms of drinking and driving, I think, if you're caught for a DUI or DWI a single time, you have to have a breathalyser put in your car at your own cost that you have to blow into in order to start the car. That may very well help drinking and driving and keep it from happening. If you do it once, you're likely to do it again, but age isn't the issue, or I suppose the only issue.