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Originally Posted by Ford Prefect
You may be right. I have to confess that I don't follow the goings-on in the US all that closely, so thay may well be the case. Twenty-one seems a bit high to me if that's true. As mentioned, freedoms like taxes and military service should at least be accompanied by the freedom to use non-prescription stress reducers. You gotta turn the kids loose eventually.
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According to this, the United States has the highest drinking age (21) in the world.
http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/LegalDrinkingAge.html
Wikipedia says the whole country is 21.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_d...e#The_Americas
I have a friend in the US and if you are caught entering a bar underage the pentaly is way siffer than Canada, she tells me. Our punishment seems to be to take away their fake ID and kick them out of the bar. The US's punishment (well South Dakota anyways) is community service and the loss of your drivers license for 30 days and a fine. Little overboard I think. I like the rule that everyone else is saying, if you can go to war and get your arm blown off you can come home and have a beer.
Ideally I would like to see alcohol have an even lower age restriction. It will have to be coupled with responsible parenting of course. But if alcohol is treated so strictly and forbidden until the age of 18-21, it will just make it more desirable for teenagers.
Actually the more I read that Wiki article is says that might actually be the case already. Although it isn't treated as such. Most parents never teach their kids about responsible drinking. I bet most kids have their first alcohol behind their school with their friends. And I am sure it is binged as well.
Drinking by minors under adult supervision is permitted in licensed premises in the provinces of Manitoba and New Brunswick and at home in Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan. [2] Legal drinking age legislation falls under provincial jurisdiction.