Your daily news source delivered with style by Mic Check Radio, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
If You Can Fight In Iraq, Shouldn't You Be Able To Have A Beer?
April 3, 2008
We’ve all heard it before (mostly from college kids, rationalizing their boozin’). But now states are starting to consider it. In seven states across the country, legislators are considering lowering the drinking age, "fueled in part by legislators who contend that men and women who are old enough to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan are responsible enough to buy alcohol legally." [ABC] [USA Today]
Some examples:
- Kentucky, Wisconsin and South Carolina: Bills have been introduced "that would lower the drinking age only for military personnel."
- Missouri: Considering a bill that would "allow everyone 18 and older to become drinking age adults."
- Minnesota: Considering a bill that would let 18 year olds buy booze in bars and restaurants, but not from liquor stores until they’re 21.
The risks:
- If a state changes the rule, they lose federal funds: In 1984, Ronald Reagan signed the Uniform Drinking Age Act, requiring every state to adopt 21 as their drinking age. If it didn’t a state would lose "up to 10 percent of its federal road money."
- The 21 drinking age lowers drunk driving rates: The National Traffic Highway Administration estimates that "the 21 minimum drinking age law has saved about 900 lives per year" since it was adopted. [MADD]
But John McCardell, the former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, disagrees with the 21 drinking age.
He advocates "lowering the drinking age in controlled environments such as restaurants and campus pubs or anytime with parents [while not allowing] young adults to buy alcohol in retail stores to take home to get drink as that is not responsible drinking behavior.”
Says McCardell, "We need to support public policies that reflect reality, not our illusion of what reality is." Sounds about right to us.
Social Bookmarking
--------
Comments
|
!
Change the age requirement for the military to 21. Young people die enough from drinking underage as it is and they should also not bear the burden of fighting in wars for which they are also not ready.
— Dennis - Apr 3, 08:06 PM - #