Sound Off: What Would You Want More? Lower the Drinking Age or Legalize Pot

lower the drinking age to 18

It IS 18, well at least in Australia. :P

Lets see….drinking age is 16 and pot is well, not legal but you won’t get arrested for it. And if you happen to be arrested and you got pot on you, they give it back after you’re released. So I would say legalize pot, although the costumer will not notice much change, maybe prices will go down.

i would increase the drinking age (because alcohol causes shitloads of deaths every DAY) and legalize marijuana.

More than 100,000 U.S. deaths are caused by excessive alcohol consumption each year.* We’re still going fucking apeshit over the twin towers and only 3500 people died in that tragedy.

Alcohol is a real problem in the US because of our strict refusal to grow the hell up and act like adults. It is as if Americans believe that giving up our youth and taking responsibility for our actions is something to fear; i don’t get it. I don’t drink or smoke or take any drugs that aren’t prescribed by my doctor; but to me, alcohol is by far the most dangerous in the US right now. If marijuana use was as common as alcohol use I might feel differently, but it’s not.

* http://www.gdcada.org/statistics/alcohol.htm

id say lower the drinking age because so many people are already drinking at 18 and its a hassle to get someone to buy for you…. but thats only because im responsible when drinking. in reality it would be better to legalize weed to mellow people out and give them an alternative to getting drunk and reckless.

lower the drinking age to 18, but raise the driving age to like 25.

give me the legal weed.

“The first decree is to legalize marijuana.
The tyranny and the bullshit’s gone on too long.
You old f*ckin’ shrivs who blocked it’s legalization,
you’re banished from the land!”

Thank you Jack Black.

Can we have both? If not, I want the drinking age lowered to 18.

pot is healthy, legalized it!, drinking… not so much. (im reading to much digg lalely)

Don’t smoke, don’t drink much, and 40yrs old, so neither appeals to me.

But if I had to choose, legalize pot. Why is it illegal but alcohol is ok?

My question is; Why make things worse?

drinking age needs to be upheld at 21. other countrys yea its awesome keep your drinking age at 16 or even if you can see over the bar

how ever in america that is in no way going to work kids who dont know how to handle there shit will be drinking and driving and causing more deaths then needed. becides i think everyone needs to go through the struggle of the last 4 months of being 20 its hell!

and i think pot should be decriminalized for a trial period, if anything to get america on its feet with helping its own country in college i wrote a paper and i took the norm of people who smoke on a daily it was like 14.8 million people in 2004 tried smoking weed and its somehitng like 20 million out of the 301million in america who smoke weed every day a normal marijuana user smokes about a 8th and a half a week so im going to say thats about 70-80 dollars a week if the 20 million(ish) people did that in one year its 1,600,000,000,000

kinda a rant but you get what im sayin
(numbers are a about im not 100% sure how exact they are but they should be close)

personally I say ban alcohol and keep pot the way it is……. but we all know how that worked……. or rather didn’t………….

Well I don’t drink but I do smoke weed so I say legalize weed =)

Look at countries that have lower drinking ages, and drinking socially is more a part of their lifestyle. Those countries typically have fewer problems with the younger ages abusing alcohol than countries like the US that has quite a rampant problem with not just underage drinking, but with underage BINGE drinking and alcoholism.

But on the other hand, it would be difficult for the US to lower the drinking age without many problems, at least with the current teen age group.

@ Jerimiah: Kudos for not drinking, smoking, or doing drugs! It is very hard to remain abstinent with so much peer pressure and media floating around glamorizing drinking. I think though that the drinking age should stay as is, but your point of taking responsibilities for our actions is very valid. In my opinion, the penalties for drinking and driving, or driving while intoxicated (DWI) and driving under the influence (DUI) should be much harsher. This is coming from a person whose dad got a DUI and whose brother has had multiple DUIs.

I believe that the main punishment (house arrest, no alcohol for the time period of house arrest) does wonders for the people who follow through with their sentences.

@ PJ and Paul B

I’ve got this crazy thing for German girls, don’t care to explain much, but basically when I stumble upon them in my life, I date them… with this knowledge I’ll have you know I have learned a smidge of German and differences in our cultures. Now that we have that out of the way.

The girls I have dated basically all said the same thing. In Germany you can drink starting at age 16, however you don’t receive a drivers license till you’re 18. Although this does cut back on some of the drunk driving deaths some also think it increases them due to the 2 years of learning how to walk drunk, so you think you can drive that way now.

Also realistically I don’t want to point any fingers BUT the only thing the drinking age stopped me from drinking was “being social”. We started drinking in High School at house parties at like 15 or 16 years old, once college came around there were many a nights of house parties and beer pong tournys, and the occassional slip a bouncer a 20 to get in the door. Now that I am of age however all of the sheen of basically gone and drinking is just a social event at this point… drinking used to be a drinking event ;).

now once more.

Legalize it pls, k thx

Alcohol is a far more dangerous drug, so I might say legalize pot. On the other hand, it isn’t like weed is difficult to attain right now, and legalizing it would drive the price very high due to taxes.

I think things are cool the way they are, granted I don’t live in a state like Texas that has ridiculous laws on marijuana possession.

Also, legalizing pot might lower prices of the raw materials, as more people would cultivate it. So the overall price may be unaffected…we will never know unless it is legalized.

Well, considering I’m 26, legalize pot!

Although, I’ve never smoked pot and really have no desire to, so I don’t know how much my life would change if it were legalized.

LEGALIZED POT!!!

Drinking is L-A-M-E!

Both.

legalize pot. In the end, it is still just a plant – it’s grown, cut and dried, then smoked..that’s it. Other drugs are manufactured, even alcohol isn’t that simple… here’s the REAL reason marijuana is illegal today…..

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

instead, how about making the age at which one becomes an adult, can vote, can be drafted, can drink, etc. all the same age? it doesn’t make sense that you could do things like die for your country or get married, but not have a drink. surely if anyone needs a drink, it’s those two categories! ;)