should beer be available to 14 year olds?

[dunno001]

KingFate said:
I think if we got rid of the age of drinking most kids wouldn't they would lose the fun of it "being bad". It has some merit to it, also it works wonderfully in Europe. This is coming from someone who despises alcohol.

Under normal circumstances, I would agree with this. The problem is, that when you suddenly permit more people to do something, those new users will have quite a few people who are irresponsible with it, to a degree much larger than the general populous. Even if the drinking age were just lowered to 18, the amount of people between 18 and 21 who would suddenly drink irresponsibly would be very significant. Yes, I know that many people are irresponsible on the day they turn 21. But, imagine now, that you just gave permission to about 1000 times the number of people to do that all of a sudden. This is where the problem comes in. Enough people would be out visibly with the problem, that I think it would immediately cause a recall of said bill.

Of course, there's also the issue of the developing brain and all, but that's been brought up already...