Drinking Age Debate

I am glad the dialog has become public. The legal drinking age debate will spur many passionate discussions because almost everyone has been touched by the issue in one way or another.

Living next to a prominent college, and once owning a music club that served alcohol, I have intimate knowledge of the drinking age challenge. The fact of the matter is...the college kids are going to drink whether it is legal or not. So then the question becomes, how do you make it safer for them without condoning it? Logically, you really can't. Those who try give mixed messages, swinging door crack downs and wink-wink policies. Really we are teaching our kids how NOT to obey the law, which sets up so many other issues after they graduate.

College is supposed to be a "half way house" to becoming a functioning adult. How can you teach them moderation when they spend all their time trying to find a way to break the law...which usually means they binge drink. Fortunately for many students who get caught, the University will try to protect them all they can, so the bad choices they make won't follow them thru their bright future.

Worse results happen with kids who don't go to college. They are just thrown into the adult world with no training wheels. Everyone drinks around them...so they just start making stupid choices and their lives are possibly ruined forever with legal woes should they get caught. It is hard to dig yourself out of some of these problems if you don't have the tools or the money to do so. It is a vicious cycle.

Kids are natural rebels. So are adults...remember prohibition? Plus there is also the point that we give our kids guns and send them to war, we allow them to kill themselves with cigarettes and allow them to sign contracts that may have devastating consequences...but we don't think they can handle a beer. That is almost a joke.

I don't have the answer, but I do see the flaws in our current logic in dealing with alcohol and our youth. Maybe with an open dialogue on the matter we can come up with a better plan. I'm in.