Foreign Students: Different Views on Lower Drinking Age
For many American college students, the 21 year old drinking age feels restraining and is an excuse to break the law.
According to a recent discussion by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, international students at the University of Minnesota think lowering the drinking age would be a mistake. A student from Sweden talked about how alcohol “is just used to chill and not get crazy.” But most of the students from European countries agreed that the real problem isn’t just the drinking age, it is the driving age instead.
Although there is a recent trend of American high school students waiting to get their driver’s license, many are still able to drive at 16.
This, combined with a culture of binge drinking, students said, would lead to a large increase in car accidents and potentially fatalities.
But with strong drunk-driving lobbies still keeping Congress from considering lowering the limit, this is and will for the near future remain a moot point.
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- Chicago 12 Year Olds Drink Harder than You Chicago students, rejoice! You've received top honors. A Red Eye/Chicago Tribune article published in February reported that Chicago is the top bing-drinking city in America...
I think the last line sums things up nicely. We blogged on this is as well (my URL entered here has the blog) and it seems like any state that still wants federal funding via the Transportation Act — i.e. all of them — would be unlikely to lower the drinking age, since said funding is tied to keeping the age at 21. And of course, like you say, the lobbyists like MADD et al are going to do whatever they can to prevent any such movement from passing go.
They’ll just have to steal from parental liquor cabinets and get fake IDs like the rest of us, I guess.
I’m an American student in Norway right now, and the Swedish quote was bullshit. The only thing Norwegians and Swedes use alcohol for is to get totally shit-faced as quickly as possible.