• The drinking age should be lowered to 18
• Smoking marijuana should be made legal in private residences (and maybe allowed in some specialty places)
• Smoking cigarettes and cigars should be banned everywhere except private residences (and maybe allowed in some specialty places)

Discuss...

 

In this American society which lacks responsibility, I would HATE to see the drinking age at 18. There would be more drunk driving-related fatalities than ever.

Marijuana is a drug. 'Nuff said.

DIAF.

 

1. No
2. No
3. No

 

Good point.

But if the drinking age wasn't lowered to 18 then I think that people should legally become adults at 21.

 

I hope your fever kills you :fawk:

 

I hope you are fever kills you.

Please rethink your response and type in the appropriate context, where applicable.

 

Big man....picking on drunk people...

 

1. yes
2. yes
3. no

 

1. Absolutely NO. By lowering the legal drinking age, we'll likely see a rash of DUI related fatalities and property losses. At the age of 18, most people do not have the requisite maturity to drink responsibly.

2.*EDIT* On second thought... no. The danger of driving while intoxicated is too great. Credit PacificDude for prompting me to reconsider my position..h:

3. There is no valid legal precedent for a wholesale ban on tobacco products. Even if you stretch the point to include Prohibition, the sheer power of industry lobbyists would kill the legislation before it even hit the floor of the House. For the near future, this simply won't happen.

 

1) No. Most 18 year-olds don't have the maturity level to be responsible with that kind of privilage. If you take away the fear for being caught doing something wrong, then you've unleashed a whole new monster. You would have that many more people stumbling out of bars at 2am and impared of making safe decisions.

I know that teens will not stop having fun with alcohol, but let's not give them license to run freely in public to endanger others. They don't have enough experience on their own to make good long-term decisions without alcohol getting in the way.

2) No. Marijuana is a drug. It doesn't matter if it is chemically safer than cigarettes; cigarettes don't create the imparing effect that marijuana does. If given the opportunity to legally use marijuana at home, it won't take very long for people to abuse the privilage.

You get the munchies and nothing at home will satisfy. Are you going to wait till you're not stoned anymore so it's safe to drive? Fuck no, you're hungry NOW! So you jump in the car to find the perfect food. This may be a silly example, but people do it all the time. Or you could be so stoned that you got preoccupied with something and forgot to keep an eye on your 2 year-old, who is now floating facedown in the pool. You can see where I'm going with this.

3) Possibly. It's bad enough having all the other pollutants in the air that create free-radicals that damage our bodies. If you're a non-smoker then you don't need someone elses bad habit to contribute to ruining your health. If someone wants to smoke then do it at home, so as to not share directly more airborne pollutants with others.

Well then since the average age of high school graduates are 18, lets just tell all the parents that they have to be responsible for their kids' bad decisions for 3 more years. A lot of people would not be happy.