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During the discussion on lowering the voting age, I came to wonder about the drinking age, primarily after North said the following:

I think the right to vote should be simple. Are you required to partake in all the responsibilites of adulthood? Are you expected to? Fine. Then I should have the right to vote. Set the age to vote at the same age you can serve in the military, get married, smoke or drink and pay taxes.

It brought up an interesting question to me, should we lower the drinking age? After all, at 18 we allow people to vote, get married, smoke (in some states), pay taxes, take out loans for education and go into debt, join the military, and people are generally expected to be an adult at 18, yet they can't drink.

So, what do you think?

Honestly I think the better option would actually be to raise all the other things to 21, if I'm being honest.  I mean, this does not benefit me saying this, but considering the brain isn't completely developed until at least 25, I really don't think that people should be allowed to make any decisions with any lasting consequence at pre-adult ages.  (That being said, giving people more votes depending on how many children they have might be a good way to increase the amount of people who care about climate change/far future, but that's a different rabbit hole altogether.)

I'm not sure if I can get behind a voting system that gives different people different amounts of votes. Seems a bit....unfair.

As for drinking, sure, let kids drink when they are 16. After all, they will do so anyway. At 16, I have no problem with someone drinking. At 14 is another story but 16, sure. And since many, many armed forces across the world think 16 is an acceptable age to join the army or pay taxes (and I sincerly doubt governments will change that) then I say 16 is good to vote, or in this case drink booze. Speaking of, bottoms up :]

The idea I suppose would be for the adults to have extra votes to represent their children, but I doubt they would actually use those votes to do that. Older and younger generations tend to be far apart on many issues, and chances are they would use those extra votes for what they wanted, perhaps reasoning that their kids are just too young and impressionable to know what's best for them.

Personally, I've never drank, have no interest in it, and think too many people use it as a crutch to handle their emotions, but for me the more fundamental question is whether it's the government's place to save adults from their own bad choices, and to me the answer is no. People have the right to make their own decisions, even bad ones, and contesting those decisions is more the place of family and friends than government. To me it doesn't matter if they're 18 or 21.

I support lowering the voting age, and also reforming the laws around alcohol consumption.

I have a few issues with the fact that all of the state governments deem those under 21 able to die for their country, yet unable to drink. It's fundamentally absurd, in my honest opinion. And yes, in the US the drinking age is set by the states, and if a state or territory doesn't have the drinking age at 21 they don't get funding in some things. This is also why, in some states, those under 21 can drink if their parents give it to them. Meaning in states like those even if you are a grown ass adult and have been living on your own for a few years, in order to legally drink you need to have your parent (or legal guardian) give you the alcoholic beverage. This is asinine.

So, what do I propose? Let's look to other countries, and in my case I will be looking to Germany. I look to Germany because it has really relaxed laws, and even then the laws are primarily designed to protect the youth, and teach them how to consume alcohol safely. This is important, as knowing how to be safe when doing something risky (like drinking) is important. Yes, drinking alcohol is a risky endeavor, your ability to make decisions is impaired and you can drink too much and get sick. So what are the laws in Germany? First private consumption by minors of any age is not banned in Germany, instead it is the responsibility of the parents to ensure their child is safe, as there is an obligation of the parent to keep the child safe. So at a home, a child can drink whatever they want if the parent allows it. Public consumption and sale is regulated though. So then what is the drinking age? Well, Germany has three:

• At the age of 14 you are allowed to drink undistilled (fermented) beverages (such as beer and Wine) so long as you are in the presence of a Custodial Person (Parent, Guardian, ect.).
• At the age of 16 you are allowed to drink undistilled (fermented) beverages (such as Beer and Wine) by yourself.
• At the age of 18 you can drink any alcoholic beverage, along with eating food that contains non-negligible amounts of a distilled beverage.

Additionally, minors can not be arrested for underage drinking, however they may be forced to get rid of the alcohol. Most of the punishment is on the person that sold or gave it to them, which is usually a fine.

This is actually a nice setup, as it slowly introduces and allows for the consumption of these beverages. It allows someone to start drinking under parental supervision, which means that they can be monitored a bit more, and can have their parents help guide them and teach them how to responsibly drink. Additionally, by allowing the slow and gradual opening up of these beverages, you make it easier for people to learn their limits and allow them to develop these habits for themselves, and makes it less likely for someone who just turned 21 to drink too much or not have developed safe habits for drinking responsibly. Also, while I will admit that Germany has a different culture around drinking, I would argue that the culture is partially a product of its laws. As such, I do believe that such a law setup would be successful in the US.


Sources
This information comes from three sources, first the Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen, und Jungend (Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth) has a website which states:

Alcoholic beverages such as beer, wine or sparkling wine (including mixed drinks) may not be given to children and adolescents under the age of 16 and may not be consumed under the age of 16. The supply of other alcoholic beverages such as liquor, liqueur, grappa, vodka, alcopops, mixed drinks such as coke / rum or alcoholic foods such as beans to children and adolescents under 18 years is prohibited.

(Original is in German and is found here)

The law itself is the Youth Protection Act (Jugendschutz), which can be read in German here, with Section 9 (the section concerning itself with Alcohol) being here. An English Translation of the act itself can be found here (Note that the translators took the word that means distilled beverages that is used within the law, Branntwein, and translated it as Brandy.)

Some additional information on the Alcohol Laws in Germany can be found on wikipedia here.

Lower it.  Kids my age (18-20) are going to find ways to drink anyway, and at least if it's legal, people that get abused at parties and stuff feel safer reporting that shit.  Not to mention driving accidents from kids who weren't comfortable calling for a ride from a relative.
And seriously, why is the United States still more conservative on this than England?  It's about time we took another progressive leap.

If you're old enough to smoke I think you're old eenough to drink. At least wine can have a healthy impact on you. Not tobacco though, it's harmful through and through.