Group Pushes To Lower Legal Drinking Age

POSTED: 9:47 pm EDT August 14, 2007

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A not-so-new debate is brewing once again as a national rights group pushes for a change to the drinking age in several states, including Florida.

While there's no federal drinking age, every state in the U.S. prohibits anyone under 21 to purchase alcohol. However, recently the effort to bring that age down to 18 has been renewed.

The drinking age is always a talker in times of war. During Vietnam, the government changed the legal age to 18, saying young people going off to war should be allowed to have a beer, too.

Now, as the nation is again at war, the drinking age is also on the public menu once again.

Some are calling the fact that men and women under 21 can grab a gun and go to war but cannot drink alcohol a double standard.

"It's definitely unfair. They're putting their life on the line but can't have a beer. It's ridiculous," said James Oswalt, who supports lowering the drinking age.

The National Youth Rights Association is asking people to sign petitions in favor of lowering the drinking age to 18.

Channel 4 talked to the executive director Alex Koroknay-Palicz by phone. He said the movement is nothing new, agreeing that the war in Iraq is bringing the issue back into the spotlight.

"If we decide as a society that at age 18 you are mature enough to go to war, marriage and living on your own, then by virtue of that you are responsible enough to handle a can of beer or glass of wine," said Koroknay-Palicz.

Currently, all states ban the sale of alcohol to minors, but in Florida and other states it's legal for minors to consume alcohol. Sen. Tony Hill called that a loophole and said he would actually like to see a crackdown on underage drinking.

He said the current law is too lenient and makes it too easy for college students to get away with drinking underage.

"It's a serious problem. It's really a serious problem," Hill said.

As the law stands, Hill said police can only arrest someone under 21 if they're caught in the act.

"If I walked in as a law enforcement officer and saw you drinking and you passed the beer to someone else, I couldn't legally arrest you," Hill said.

He worked with a committee last year to put forward a bill that would have made consuming alcohol illegal for minors; however, it was never signed into law.

Hill said that committee plans to bring up the same bill for consideration again this year.

For more information about the move to drop the drinking age, visit YouthRights.org.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/13894929/detail.html

On my list of hot topics, whether 18-20 year olds are allowed to drink is pretty fucking far down. I suppose that I think they should be allowed to drink, but I don't much care.

In Holland the legal drinking age is 16, so when i moved to the US i couldn't buy any alcohol (legally...) for 2 years. Now going down from 21 to 16 is crazy of course, but i'm definitely for bringing it down to 18/19. Waiting another 2/3 years is sort of brutal to a person in it's late teens.

I think that anybody who joins the military should be allowed to drink no matter what age. everybody else can wait til they're 21.

I'd be curious to hear what affects that age has had in Holland, because it honestly doesn't sound too crazy to me.

Though I understand this line, the pacifist in me really hates to tie war to such a privilege.

For the most part, 18 year olds cannot handle themselves when they drink.

In NY, while I was growing up the drinking age was 18. They raised it to 19 while I was in high school and then eventually to 21, with the reason given they were trying to cut down the number of teen deaths related to drinking and driving.
How about they lower the drinking age and raise the driving age- or put a curfew on younger drivers (which I think they do these days with younger drivers in Massachusetts)..

Lower age limits, but increase penalties for drunk driving.