Why is the drinking age in america 21?!
if ur old enough to be indepandant and driving a car at 16-17, why cant u drink at this age??
what are ur thoughts? btw im 17 turning 18 in 3 months when i can legally drink.
Answers: in australia its 18, and most people start at around 16. what is the starting age in america then? like 18 or is it still 16?
if ur old enough to be indepandant and driving a car at 16-17, why cant u drink at this age??
what are ur thoughts? btw im 17 turning 18 in 3 months when i can legally drink.
Insurance companies discovered that the percentage of accidents and deaths was much higher among drivers under 21 years old. Although they were acting in their own interests, it wasn't hard to convince most state legislatures to make 21 the legal age. There was a time when most states, but not all, required you to be 21. New York and Louisiana (There may have been others.) set the age at 18. As a result, there was an extremely high rate of drunk-driving accidents caused by 18-20 year-old kids who drove into these states, bought booze legally, and drove back drunk. As it is with so many laws, responsible people are penalized for the sins of others.
the drinking age in america is 21 because the government feels that people are not mature enough to handle the responsibilities of drinking until that age.
also, by the age of 21, your brain has fully developed. drinking at a young age stops brain development, but if you start drinking at 21, your brain is fully developed so it won't be affected as much by the alcohol.
The answer that I was given in Biology is that a certain part of the brain continues to develop until the age of 21. Alcohol supposedly inhibits this growth. I personally believe that if you can join the military (at age 18) and die for your country then you should be able to drink a beer when you want to.
21 - legal age
18 - almost 90% of people have drank some alcohol
16 - almost 60% of people have drank some alcohol
most people drink because the age is so high. everyone i know binge drinks because we don't know when the next time we will be able to drink.
The biological reasons are correct.
Also, since there are at least some people in high school who are 18 the government here does not want alcohol "in" high schools. If the age was only 18 then obviously alcohol would be prevelant in high schools.
The already have this problem in colleges. Some college students are over 21 and obviously are willing to supply alcohol to those that are 18 to 20. (Or younger for that matter).
So the government feels that is is bad enough that this happens in colleges and would be even worse if it were to happen in high schools (and it would.)
Also, this is a matter of money. The fines for drunk driving are higher for persons who are 18-20. Also, there are fines for people drinking under 21 and this includes 18-20 so of course that means more money in fines. Also, there are big fines for anyone supplying alcohol to a person under 21 alcohol. There are millions of people who are 18-20 and this translates to millions of dollars in fines. They kinda figure why not "capture" that extra income in fines.
What gets me is that people can drive a car at 16! lol
Things are are just stupid and always all about money. What we need is more education on the use and possible misuse of alcohol not more fines.
Jeff nailed it! At one point the drinking age was lowered to 18 and there were too many accidents so it was raised again.
And for the person who claims he HAS to binge drink because he doesn't know when he'll get the chance to drink again. You're a moron! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, save yourself some time and just drop out of college now you braindead idiot.
In my opinion it's because of the well-documented prudishness of Americans. I'm American, but I've lived in Europe for 8 years or so, and I've seen the differences in behavior. European people typically don't drink in excess unless they are celebrating something. Now granted they seem to always be celebrating something, but there is still a reason for it. They don't get hammered because it's Friday, or because their buddy somehow scored a bottle of vodka. They don't make a big deal out of drinking, so kids don't look forward to the day they can go get slammed in a bar. For Americans though, turning 21 is huge...they can finally go buy their own liquor so they're going to be there when 1 minute after midnight comes along and will be passed out by 2 am. I think it's yet another one of the things Americans need to rethink. I moonlight as a bouncer here, and 90% of the time if there is trouble from a drunk, they're American.