Even a 43-year-old can get Wasted- Critical Refutation

Lessons From the Drinking Age

This website is pro raising the age a person can smoke to 21 and uses the current United States drinking age as an example of why raising the smoking age would be beneficial to the country.

However, many facts presented about alcohol, used as support for their cause, are questionable, and inaccurate. The first issue is presented:

“The substantial drop in adolescent consumption of alcohol occurred in the absence of increased enforcement."

As demonstrated in the 60 Minutes video, underage drinking is proven difficult to enforce. Of course alcohol consumption in adolescents is down because it’s not recorded. The video went on to mention that more and more kids are drinking, but they are drinking underground, in the privacy of their own homes and house parties where law enforcement cannot consistently monitor.

"Thus if access is raised to age 21, teens younger than 18 will face increased scrutiny from sales clerks, further inhibiting their chance of ever starting or impeding their progression to established addiction."

This seems to be the consensus amongst many blogs and websites pro maintaing the current drinking age. They have this idea that by keeping the drinking age at 21, teens will not fall in to bad habits or put their lives or others’ in danger. This does not make sense to me. Raising the drinking age does not take away the side-effects of alcohol. Anybody under the influence, at any age, can get alcohol poising or be involved in a drunk driving accident. Just like one can still get lung cancer from smoking cigarettes.

Point: taking underage drinking and smoking out of context, say somebody never drank or smoked till they were 21. Are they all the sudden, exempt from the side-effects and dangers drinking and smoking causes at 18?

The source fails to mention lung cancer or emphysema or any other side effect of smoking. Instead, they focus on the risk of addiction on teens. However, many “30” something adults are addicted to smoking, likewise, many “30” something adults still abuse their alcohol consumption.

The reason why I decided to critique a source that was not specifically opposite to our stance on raising the drinking age is because drinking, like smoking, is a risk, no matter who you are. If at the age of 18 you are an adult, than you should have the right to make your own decisions.

Critical Refutation

Top Reasons to Keep Legal Drinking Age at 21

4 Prevention

REFUTATION

http://4prevention.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/the-top-five-reasons-we-should-keep-the-drinking-age-at-21/

This site is a collection of facts on why the drinking age is currently 21, and it phrases those facts to steer the reader’s thoughts to keeping the drinking age at 21. It starts out with a neutral introduction by giving just the brief history of political concerns for having the drinking age at 21 and adds in some other facts that do not concern the reader.

The first statement for why the drinking age is 21 is about how the federal government will not deduct a proportion of their funding for streets and highways. This then puts the ‘blame’ on the federal government because the states are just doing what is in their best interest given the situation the federal government has put them in.

Another argument by this site is that the alcohol related accidents within a vehicle has dropped over the past 20 years. Which, like all statistics, is skewed by a number of different variables. Things like driving test standards have increased over the last 20 years (2pass). The abilities for cars to handle the roads, and even now cars can stop themselves if it is built in the last couple years. Also I know plenty of places that when I started out driving, I would know some corners were increasingly dangerous and in the 5 years I have been driving many of those have been taken care of. Over time society develops and we learn from accidents. There were accidents that were saved

from increasing the drinking age, but to contribute that fact to solely the drinking age is wrong.

The argument of a developing brain has been brought up on numerous sites, as well as this one. It is true that our brain is still developing at 18 more than it is at 21. However, I believe at the age of 21 a person is more free and distant from their parents than they are at 18. At 18 parents can be more involved in the development of responsible drinking, but at 21 many of them are at college or have moved out away from a parent or someone who has experience drinking socially.

The refutation I made in the paragraph above about the developing brain also can apply to the next

argument made on this site, that earlier exposure to alcohol increases the chance that he or she will gain dependence to it. Drinking can be an issue just like any habit you can have. They are hard to get rid of and can negatively affect someone’s life. If knowledge and experience with a safe use of that habit is brought upon in person’s life by someone they trust then these bad habits can be eliminated. Many people have had the solution of educational training outside of school like the current drivers training programs that exist in America. Many people believe that this would be useless and a waste of money, however, if you believe in parents teaching their children how to properly drink we already have some parents that don’t know how to themselves and a program would fix that issue. Also knowledge of how alcohol affects the body will at the least slow people down when they first consume alcohol, which will lead to more personal experience and knowledge about their own body and alcohol.

http://www.2pass.co.uk/page3.htm

Lower Drinking Age Proposal

Alcohol Education: Informative Citation - Chelsea Pettit

Choose Responsibility

Author: A. Barrett Seaman, President and founder of Choose Responsibility, Editor of Time magazine

On this particular page of the website the author discusses the idea of alcohol licensing. The idea is that in order to start drinking you would have to go through something similar to Driver’s Ed, and pass a test at the end. The idea is to encourage education about the dangers and consequences of alcohol ahead of time. Too much alcohol education takes place after the fact. The class would provide new material regarding safe drinking habits instead of simply pressing abstaining from drinking. The result of the drinking education would be a provisional license for 18-20 year-olds.

The Choose Responsibility foundation is in favor of lowering the drinking age to 18. They have many arguments in favor of the change. However, I found this particular page most interesting. Instead of simply presenting the arguments, the site came up with some new ideas regarding education about the dangers of alcohol. It is certainly an intriguing idea. We would never even consider simply allowing 16-year-olds to start driving without passing the driving test, so why shouldn’t we require a drinking license? Education will not completely solve the problem, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction.

Be sure to check out more of the Choose Responsibility website, they have lots of facts and statistics regarding drinking, as well as some more arguments for lowering the drinking age. You may have heard the foundation mentioned in some of the videos on this page. John McCardell, president of Middlebury College, who argues for lowering the drinking age, has been involved with Choose Responsibility as well.

Alcohol Education: what we must do

Author: David J. Hanson, Ph.D.

In his book Hanson dedicates a chapter to the questioning of alcohol education. He compares the effectiveness of different styles of instruction in the 15 years preceding the book’s publication (1996). Specifically, he compares the “drinking responsibly” education to the abstinence approach. In his analysis he declares that responsible drinking education has shown more success and is more reasonable. Prior to his chapter on education Hanson discusses a history of American attitudes towards alcohol.

Although he does not specifically stress a lowering of the drinking age, I thought the alcohol education theme related to the website discussed above. Hanson specifically references the prohibition, stating that it was unsuccessful and resulted in a black market. This underground effect is what we are starting to witness in underage drinking, under 21-year-olds are still drinking, but they are taking it into the basements. The drinking occurring “underground” does not always reflect safe practices. For this reason, whether or not the drinking age is lowered, we need to consider implementing responsible drinking education.

Hanson has been researching and writing about alcohol for many years. If you would like to check out some of his more recent ideas about alcohol, check out his website: http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/index.html

Glee Episode: Blame it on the Alcohol

Author: Ian Brennan

 One of the most recent episodes of Glee focused on alcohol awareness. The episode was entitled “Blame it on the Alcohol”. The episode opens during alcohol awareness week at the high school. The principal asks the glee club to perform a song warning of the dangers of underage drinking. While preparing for their performance the students decide to explore new horizons, they all end up drinking at Rachel Berry’s (played by Lea Michelle) party. The episode displays some of the negative effects of alcohol. Spotlighting on poor behavior and mistakes they would later regret. Underage drinking as well as alcohol education are clear themes in the episode, although it does not argue for a lowering of the drinking age.

I was excited to find a very current discussion of the issue of alcohol education and underage drinking. I had some concerns that the episode would glorify underage drinking, however, it definitely focused on the dangers and personal image consequences. I found the opinions on awareness the most relevant to our issue. Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), the glee team’s coach emphasizes drinking responsibly as opposed to abstinence. He recognizes that some of his students will likely continue to drink, so he encourages safety. At the closing of the episode, he asks them to stop drinking, however he admits that this may be an unrealistic request, so he passes around a pledge form. On the top of the form is his cell phone number, while handing these out Mr. Schuester states, “That’s my cell phone number. Part of your pledge is that if you do slip up, no matter where you are or what time of the night it is, I want you to call me to drive you home.” Alcohol awareness is something we will always need no matter what the drinking age is. I propose that with an increase in education as well as a decrease in the minimum drinking age will result in the safest and fairest conditions.

Below you can find the full Glee episode linked from hulu. Even if you have seen it before, consider watching it again while considering these new insights. The show commonly focuses on controversial topics regarding teens; it presents these topics in a fun and sometimes educational way. This particular episode focused on alcohol, but if you enjoy it consider checking out some of the other episodes! If you are a glee fanatic let me know what you thought about this episode. There are tons of television shows that discuss alcohol awareness, let me know if you think there are any others worth mentioning.

Drinking is Classy not Trashy: Affirmative Argument

 

Why do kids and teens start drinking when they are not of age?

We could go into many psychological factors that a high school student goes though in their health class such as, peer pressure or because you want to be “cool.” Insert tacky “Explaining Peer Pressure,” VHS, circa 1997, here. Regardless, there’s something glamourous about drinking at any age. Perhaps that’s why the cool kids do drink. Perhaps it’s the reason why Frasier spends an evening over a good bottle of sherry. What? Frasier was cool right?

The fact of the matter is there’s some sense of coolness that one gets out of drinking alcohol. In an underage drinking matter, it’s the risk that makes up for this coolness. A study, published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states:

"Scientists believe that this lengthy developmental period may help explain some of the behavior which is characteristic of adolescence—such as their propensity to seek out new and potentially dangerous situations. For some teens, thrill-seeking might include experimenting with alcohol. Developmental changes also offer a possible physiological explanation for why teens act so impulsively, often not recognizing that their actions—such as drinking—have consequences.”

check out the study on underage drinking

Thus, we find that if the United States decreased there drinking age it decreases this risk, this high, this sense that drinking is so

me amazing thing to participate in.

So what is the whole idea of deglamorizing drinking? Under age drinking in America follows a stereotype that is wild fraternity parties, beer bongs, beer pong, drinking to be drunk. Sadly to say, being drunk in America is well, rather glamorous. Extreme intoxication can be seen in the media through TV. It’s in our music: “bottoms up,” “brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack,” Ke$ha, herself is a prime example for alcoholism. Alcohol ads feature young people, enjoying themselves with a bottle of beer or a glass of Skyy vodka. Jersey Shore, the most intoxicated reality show in existence, holds the top spot in viewer ratings in the age demographic that starts at only twelve years of age.

So how does the lowering the drinking age help deglamorize drinking? If kids are getting drunk because of what they see on TV or hear in music, doesn’t it make things worse? The fact of the matter kids are going to drink no matter what age because they are so sensitized to it. If we lower the age to 18 it would take away that risk that many underage drinkers find thrill in.

Because eighteen year olds would now be more accountable for their alcoholic decisions as DUI fines and punishments are greater than those of underage drinking. Sure, if we lower the drinking age, tons of 18-20 year olds will go out and drink as if Applebee’s happy hour was an all you can eat buffet, but they will learn real quick that there is more responsibility held when they are legal to drink as opposed to when they are not. It takes away the fun in just going out to get intoxicated, it takes away the fun, glamorous side of getting drunk.

If we were to lower the drinking age a tremendous focus would be on socialization with drinking and not drinking as socialization. This goes along with the world drinking stage as previously posted. We think that if we lower the drinking age and deglamorization occurs, it would prompt a alcohol national cultural phenomenon similar to many other countries. France is known for wine. Germany is known for beer. America is known for drinking. Perhaps if we lower the drinking age, America would slowly rid itself of its vices and disregard drinking as simply getting “wasted.”

The "Facts..." - Critical Refutation

http://drinkingage.procon.org/#background

This is data put forth by multiple different sources presented and collaborated by a critical thinking website.

There is plenty of data out there supporting both lowering the drinking age and keeping it at 21. Regardless of drinking age, people between the ages of 18 and 20 drink illegally. This is known by everyone who has gone through high school. Brought up by this article is the opinion that “allowing these young adults to drink will hinder their academic experience. The fact is that these people already drink. It doesn’t matter if the drinking age was 21 or 31 these students would drink regardless. Saying lowering the drinking age would result in lower academic performance is irrelevant because these students are already drinking. If you choose to not believe this you are just being naïve. At any high school there are plenty of students that admit to drinking. Most of these students that participate in alcohol consumption still graduate with no problems.

Alcohol can’t be the sole reason for poor academic performance. Poor family structure, poor support, and low motivation can also cause academic deficiencies.

Another point this article makes is the gateway characteristic of alcohol. They say that that it leads to other drugs and social ills. Once again, alcohol isn’t the sole factor in this accusation. There are many other things such as poor social networks that can cause problems like this Lack of education and inadequate punishment could also lead to abuse of other drugs and behaviors included in this statement.

Bottom line, alcohol cannot take all the blame for the arguments put forward by this site.

Drinking Age Worldwide: Affirmative Argument - Chelsea Pettit

Growing up, learning about alcohol, and being exposed the media it is easy to discover that attitudes and laws about alcohol are not universal. Many countries have differing minimum drinking ages, while others prohibit it all together. When considering lowering our own drinking age, I thought it would be beneficial to take a look at the situation in countries that currently have lower minimum drinking ages.

The United States is one of very few countries that currently enforces a drinking age higher than twenty. The majority of the world uses age 18 as a limit. The map seen in the background of this blog and also posted to the right is a great summary of this. Several countries completely ban the substance; however, this is often for religious reasons. Surprisingly some countries have no age restriction at all.

Of course, just because the majority of the world is doing it, doesn’t mean we should. In some cases it’s better to be different from the norm. So the question is: Is the lower drinking age working for those countries? Many fear that a lower drinking age will increase the risk of alcoholism and car accidents. There is a large variety of data about many countries, so I have chosen a few to spotlight with a variety of age minimums. Below is a graph displaying the percentage of 15-year-olds who experienced drunkenness before the age of 13. It is divided up by country. These numbers don’t mean much until we consider the minimum drinking age in some of these countries.

We can quickly observe from this graph the wide varieties of numbers, even in nearby countries with similar drinking ages. England, with one of the highest rates of young drinking has its minimum age set at 18. Meanwhile, with the lowest incident of young drunkenness, Italy has no minimum drinking age (although you must be 16 to purchase alcohol). Some other ages from the countries shown above include: Ireland-18, Poland-16, USA-21, Spain-18, and Portugal-16. A full list of drinking ages can be found at http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/LegalDrinkingAge.html. So what does all this data mean? The data is very sporadic and does not reflect any pattern with respect to minimum age. This suggests that underage drinking is not intensified by a lower drinking age. In fact it is far more likely that underage drinking occurring as early as 13 is due to the cultural attitudes towards drinking in those countries. An article posted on the BBC News website discusses the attitudes toward alcohol in Europe. Italy showed a very low instance of young drinkers. It is common in Italy to drink at dinner, however getting drunk in public is seen as disrespectful and irresponsible. Spain similarly showed low numbers of youth drunkenness. The Spanish take part in slower social drinking; for example public places often sell smaller drinks. Contrastingly, according to the United Kingdom’s alcohol issues website, alcohol is too readily available. Drinking in England more often takes place in pubs, and there is little education on the daily guidelines for alcohol consumption.

These arguments are in no way definite, however, the numbers suggest that education as well as respect towards alcohol use are far more important factors in dangerous underage drinking than the minimum drinking age put in place by the government.

Of course, whenever someone mentions lowering the drinking age, everyone’s minds immediately jump to traffic safety. However, examination of the numbers in a few countries suggested that drinking age may not be as big of a factor as we thought. In the United Kingdom (drinking age 18) 17% of traffic fatalities were linked to alcohol-impaired conditions. Meanwhile Italy (age 16) showed 25% of deaths on the road were related to drunkenness. Here in the US, however, about 32% of traffic fatalities are accounted for due to alcohol-impaired conditions.

Finally, an increasing concern regarding global drinking age is study abroad students. It has become increasingly common for college age students to travel to another country for a few months to enhance their education. It can be difficult for these students to return to the United States and not be allowed to drink. On a personal note, I have some cousins who traveled internationally during their high school and college years. Upon returning, they found the “forbidden fruit” aspect of drinking in America all the more enticing.

So the question is, since a minimum age of 18 seems to be working for the rest of the world, why is our drinking age still 21? What makes us so different?

Links:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7093143.stm

http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/53852/E91416.pdf

Changing the Drinking Age. Informative Citation

Author: MacKenzie Misel

A CBS news clip about people in Minnesota, (this video can be found a couple posting above this!) and lowering the drinking age. Individuals in this clip show both sides to this issue. I believe the kids and adults in favor of the change give good reason and feed back to why it should be changed.

however, here is the link to this webpage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yU3EOpmxc4

(video)

Would Lowering the Drinking Age Curb Bingeing on Campus.Scott Hensley, Health Blog talks briefly about why the drinking age should be lowered. This blog relates back to

my earlier post about college presidents being involved and for the change in the drinking age.

James F. Jones Jr. of Trinity College says, "“is counterproductive because it simply fosters this counterculture of binge drink

ing, which is epidemic at colleges.” I thin

k it becomes clear that certain people are going to be for this change and many against, a comment was made in the article that Who wants to go against Mothers Against Drunk Driving.. It just seems wrong but everyone needs to get their evidence straight and come to mutual decision. This blog has over 130 comments on this issue, I encourage all of our blog followers to check out the great discussion going on!

And yet... We have more college presidents, and advisors for the issue!

College Presidents Seek Lowering the Drinking Age. Associated Press. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,405766,00.html

If this doesn't grab your attention... I Don't know what will...(article)

"College presidents from about 100 of the nation's best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus."

Now we don't just have presidents from the smaller colleges.. I know f

or some small town people.. personal example, my parents small-town people and they had a lot of friends that drank and they simply said it was because they had noth

ing else to

do. Well now we have presidents of prestiges colleges, and you can say that they are not big colleges because THE OHIO STATE president has even spoken up, and even though I am a Gopher girl, and will be a gopher fan until the day I die. I believe that if the Ohio State President is speaking many other will. Ohio State is a great example of school full of great athletic programs and for those people that wanted to small town small college excuse.. Ohio State throws all of that out the window! I Ohio State is known for great athletics and it located in a big city, and they still want to drink and their president is still for lowering the drinking ag

e, So I think that tells you

something!

I encourage all our fellow blog followers who are against me on this topic to read this article, and I challenge you to a discussion on why this should be lowered! Bring on the arguing please :)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,405766,00.html

60 minutes on lowering the drinking age

Drinking Ages Around The World: Informative Citation

Alcohol - Problems & Solutions

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/LegalDrinkingAge.html

Author - Prof. David J. Hanson, Ph.D.

This website discusses how the United States drinking age compares to the rest of the world and its efficiency. This site is against the current drinking age, which is 21, and gives multiple reasons for why it is counter-productive. It believes that although the law had the right intentions it has only caused greater problems when it comes to underage and abused drinking. While other research of mine has shown that the age restriction is counter-productive because the rush that kids have while doing something illegal is more intriguing than the drinking itself, therefore, once that rush is gone drinking is not as fun. Another fact this site uses is that the question is should the U.S. lower the drinking age? It is not asking whether or not the drinking age should be changed or increased everyone is always wondering if the US should lower it. This site doesn’t use reasoning for the counter-production, but talks about how education of alcohol could improve its abuse. With my experience I have been educated about alcohol through 9 hours of required service and I personally wasn’t affected by gaining that knowledge. I am more curious about how I will feel after turning 21 and it is no longer legal. So this site, like the initial law, has good intentions however I believe isn’t the solution to the problem of underage drinking.

Daily Blog: Lower the Drinking Age

http://www.askmen.com/daily/blogs/politics/lower-the-legal-drinking-age.html?t=1300730771

This blog brings up the recent movements, politically, to change the drinking age. Referencing a Vermont non-profit organization and how they have been researching the pros and cons of the drinking age. Then an organization call Moms Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has opposed this movement greatly by bringing their own research to surface.

I posted a comment in the blog to try to stir up some more conversation with a possible idea I have about the culture of drinking for minors in America

Should the drinking age be lowered from 21 to a younger age?

http://drinkingage.procon.org/

This website introduces the topic and gives the logistics of why the drinking age is 21 as well as why individual stats have not changed their drinking age. It quotes the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 which, “prompted states to raise their legal age for purchase or public possession of alcohol to 21 or risk losing millions in federal highway funds.” This site then compares the pros and cons of what a reduced drinking age could cause, saying that lower drinking ages have caused increased alcohol-related crashes in the ages of 18-20 but the costs of enforcing a minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) could be used to educated young adults on the dangers of drinking. Another interesting piece of the website is a chart used to show how other countries compare in their MLDA. This chart shows the number of countries in each age restriction of drinking, ranging from the ages of 14-21.

Alcohol and Safety. Affirmative Argument

Author: MacKenzie Misel

Safety and Alcohol

When thinking of underage drinkers I think of their safety. Underage drinkers are not in the proper settings to be taken care of when involved in alcoholic situations that would create any type of injury. Just from my friends alone I have heard of countless stories where someone is seriously injured let’s just say a couple common injuries could include, a confrontation at a frat party or a simple stutter step and fall down the steps and other underage drinkers are afraid to seek help because they are afraid of getting in trouble themselves. More than 1,700 college students in the U.S. are killed each year, as a result of

alcohol-related injuries. This is

where it would be a good idea to lower the drinking age. This topic of safety does not only concern me but it concerns, parents, guardians, and college presidents. President, John McCardel of Middlebury College in Vermont believes that the drinking age should be also be lowered. John McCardel describes how the movements dedicated to lowering the age back to 18. It may seem counterintuitive, but he also argues that lowering the age will make kids safer. I think that this is a good argument in any case because of president John McCardel addressing this issue nationally and he is a college president and he understands why the drinking age should be lowered, based on his experience in the college atmosphere and constantly being around college students. This is where I come from on this issue so I can relate to this information.

Underage Alcohol Consumption and Safety

Individuals drinking from age 12-20 years of age drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in the United States, of that 90% of that alcohol consumed is in the form of binge drinks. Under age drinker on average consume more alcohol than “adults” do on a regular occasion. In lowering the drinking age I believe that the statistics of this would go down. When children learn to drink at a younger age it is most likely hidden from parents or guardians. This creates the conception that alcohol is “bad”. Depending on how you look at it, alcohol is a bad thing to most parents with children. Also depending on how you address the issue in households givens children a better understand of

alcohol. But, because our drinking age is so high many children who have grown up with parents that are strict do not have the freedom of doing what they would like to do. Hence, when the child goes to parties or college they have the feeling of “freedom”. In high school this feeling of freedom is only temporary, for instance just one evening while you are staying over at a friend’s house. However, in college this freedom is permanent and you can do it when you want, however much you want, and however many times and it does not result much more than a really bad hang over the next day but in some cases worse things. Because kids are hiding this in high school it is not ver

y safe. 1- Because most kids in high school are under the age of 18, and I do believe in lowering the drinking age but not any lower than 18. 2- Most kid’s turn 18 in the summer before going into college, and at that point in your life you are considered an adult moving on to your next step in life. At that point in life you are then around alcohol because you are an adult. 3- I believe that it will teach kids, turning into adults the proper way to drink socially without binge drinking. Moderation will be easier to control because drinking is something you are used to and you know how much your body can handle before you could do anything stupid, or something you would regret.

Overall lowering the drinking age would create safer environments with parents and their children, or parents and their adult-children. This would help to create a positive enforcement on alcohol in life and teach their children not to hide things when alcohol is involved. As well as the proper amounts of consumption in social situations for the safety of all others around.

Really... REALLY?? (Affirmative Argument)

There are young men and women based all over the world because of their military commitments. Some of these individuals pay the ultimate price with their lives defending our country and the freedoms we all hold dear. We dishonor their role in our national safety when the ones that do return can’t even fully realize the freedom and laws they put their life on the line for. Depriving these brave soldiers of the opportunity to celebrate a fellow serviceman or women’s accomplishment or the life of a fallen friend with a drink at the bar is ridiculous. We trust these individuals with our country’s freedom and when they return they are unable to participate in one of the things that make America “the land of the free”.

The military isn't the only place we see this. There are also professions that these young men and women hold that make you think "huh...that doesn't quite make sense." I work on an ambulance and the things I see and deal with on a day to day basis require personal qualities that only maturity can provide. Other team members on my crew are in the age group of 18-20 and deal with the same things I do and are equally as competent to do so. We are able to give medications to very sick people and provide life saving care to people who need it. There is quite an emotional toll this job takes on the professionals that choose to do it. Although it is a choice to pursue a career like this it does take a special personality to deal with the emotions that are felt during life threatening events. It doesn't make sense that people can trust their lives to these young adults but these professionals are unable to enjoy a beer at the end of the day.

We need to realize that not all eighteen to twenty year old are college students. These are plenty of individuals that choose to go straight out into the workforce. This itself doesn't justify the responsibility and maturity that is needed to consume alcohol responsibly but it does make you wonder why we find it OK to let these people contribute to society in numerous other ways. If we are going to restrict these young adult on the drinks they can consume why don't we restrict them on other rights?

Just as a reminder...

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/03/21/top-10-best-paying-jobs-you-can-get-right-out-of-high-school/

It is dishonorable and unfair to this age group to withhold privileges that all citizens should be able to realize. If putting one’s life on the line or saving a life doesn’t deserve a beer with friends, I don’t know what does and the fact that this is the way things are just frankly doesn’t make sense. Maybe a little common sense would be useful…