DonFck wrote:
{XpLiCiTxX} wrote:
cyborg_ninja-117 wrote:
Yes. Look at holland, drinking age at 16 and hardly anyone having hangovers at school... The younger they expirience alchahol and what it does, the less stupid things they'll do. If you don't lower the age... it wont make a difference on illegal drinking now would it?
This would imply that all people are of the same responsibility level. Which is CLEARLY not the case. I'm pretty sure if the drinking age in New York, where I live, were to be 16, 75% of students in high schools would be expelled.
So, you're saying that if I was introduced to a substance (illegally, because at the time it is illegal for me to consume it) I would gain a responsibility for use later on when the use of this substance is legal? What? I can see the argument but it's so far-fetched I bury this under the rug almost instantaniously.
It's a complete paradox, yet there must be some truth in it. I can only speak IMO, but everyone here does it, don't they?
The first time I've had alcohol was when I was 13 or so, under supervision of my parents. Just one beer, a mild beer, I might add. later on I had small amounts of different alcohol drinks, also under supervision. Of course there was getting drunk unsupervised in parks during weekends with friends (naturally). I consider myself now, 13 years later that I'm a responsible drinker, and have been that already before I turned 18. Why? Dunno?
Did the fact that I've been introduced to alcohol young have to do with it? Perhaps. I remember my classmates from that time (early to mid- 90's) to whom alcohol was forbidden by their parents altogether. They are getting shitfaced still today. It's peculiar, but an observation I've made.
Regarding alcohol related traffic accidents, IMHO the driving age should be lifted to 18.
I have a lot to add about the experiences and effects of underage drinking, adding on to what Cyborg_Ninja-117.
I live in Thailand, but you probably already know that. I've been here for 7 years and have known people as they graduate throughout all 7 years, through my brothers or other means. Here in Bangkok, the drinking age is legally 18. But, of course, as with all things in Thailand, no one enforces it. I've seen five year olds buy Mekong Thai Whiskey (not for the light hearted) from 7-Eleven. And much more than that. Kids drink here, it's a fact.
Now, as each of the people in my school graduates and goes off to college in the US or Canada or Australia, as are the most common destinations of students in my social class, they enter the college life. Now everyone in high school perceives college life as full of parties, alcohol and one night stands. However, that's the American/Canadian/Australian point of view. Experiencing little to no alcohol in your teenage years will only result in more anticipation for the years to come in college. Much of the friends my friends make when they hit their freshman year, drink for the first time. They get wasted, throw up, pass out and are left alone in a bathroom somewhere and nobody cares about them. If they're female, they may get raped. Because it's their first time. And they have fun anyway, and do it night after night.
However, almost all the students who partied here in Thailand who graduate, go to college and return for visits, say that it's not all that different. If anything, it's worse. People don't know you in your first weeks. No one cares about you. Here in high school someone gets drunk, people take care of you. No one really wants to take care of them, but they do so anyway because they feel responsible. Or rather, we, feel responsible, as I've been put in this kind of situation a number of times. No one is going to steal your wallet or rape you when you're passed out drunk at a party. Someone is going to take you home. People know you. Most of the students who graudated from my school don't go to every party because it gets, dare I say, 'boring', though I hope not to bring across a false connotation. They drink responsibly, because they realize that no one is going to help them around in an unfamiliar place. By getting exposed to alcohol at an earlier stage (but of course not too early as for health reasons) allows teenagers to feel like god or feel like shit, in the safety of their home (area, within reach of friends and family). Also, everyone here knows what it's like to be at school with a hangover. Not the fun. And they don't want to have hangovers in their university classes either. Responsible drinking into play again.
This on-going study is based on more than 500 students from their years in high school (approx age 14-19) and the first years of following university, who are from over fifty international countries and all ethnicities.
