Me on Alcohol

Freshmen drink. I don’t, but there’s no point in denying the fact that underage 18 and 19-year-old freshmen frequently indulge in alcoholic beverages, and they will continue to do so.

I don’t condone getting sloppy drunk at any age, but why is the legal drinking age 18? I think that it makes any sense. At 18, you are a legal adult. At 18, you can buy tobacco products, you can vote, you can own property, you can go to war, you can have credit cards, and you can get in a club or bar, but you can’t buy beer. Think about what that means. It means that on your 18th birthday, you can buy a blunt on your way to vote for the president of the United States.

After voting for your candidate, you can use your credit card to pay the down payment on a new car in your name and drive to your apartment in your new car before reading a letter informing you that you are going to Iraq. After discovering that you have to go to war, you can go to the bar with your friends, but you can’t even buy a drink to calm yourself down.

Even though I drink that the legal drinking age should be lowered, I think that penalties for drunken driving should be much more severe, and public drunkenness shouldn’t be enforced as strictly. Driving drunk is extremely dangerous and if you’re going to drink, at least be responsible enough not to drive, even if it’s only because you don’t want to hurt yourself. A DUI should carry a license suspension, a very heavy fine, and community service for first time offenders. A second offense should carry mandatory jail time. Jail time is the only thing that will deter repeat offenders.

Community service isn’t always a dreadful punishment, for spoiled rich kids and other wealthy people, a fine means nothing, and a suspended license rarely deters people from driving. I know multiple people who are driving with a suspended license right now.

Public drunkenness has to be one of the most abused and foolish reasons to arrest someone. Unless the “offender” is calling a public disruption, all a public drunkenness arrest says is, that person was arrested for an attempt to be responsible. Maybe he or she knew that they were drunk, and unfit to drive, and instead decided to walk home. Instead of being commended for potentially saving lives, that person is arrested. The law makes no sense. It says that you can go into a bar and get drunk, but you can’t leave while you are drunk because if you drive, you risk lives and get arrested, and if you walk, you still get arrested.

The government needs to take a long serious look at the drinking laws and give 18-year-olds, who they believe are mature enough to defend our country, a chance to prove that they are mature enough to drink responsibly, and walk home afterwards.