If there's one thing that I've learned in life, it's that history repeats itself. Regardless of the generation or time period, youth are considered badass and rebellious and the parents/grandparents are always complaining about "the youth of today" and all that jazz."Damn the youth of today!" was heard loud and clear recently in London, ON as a local health unit voted in favour of petitioning the government of Ontario to raise the legal drinking age to 21.
Currently the drinking age in Ontario is 19 and apparently the "low" drinking age is "promoting" drinking amongst youth and causes motor vehicle accidents. Apparently, if the drinking age is raised to 21, fewer youth will drink and there will be fewer motor vehicle accidents.
I'd like to quote this winner from a London high school as to why this idea is pure crap.
"'I think it's kind of dumb because everyone drinks from Grade 9 on anyways, so it doesn't really matter,' said Adam Abel, a 17-year-old student."Eloquently put, my man.
Youth drink at ages way below the legal drinking age and if you raise it, it will become even cooler to drink at 16 because it's not just illegal, it's like... really illegal. I'm straight edge and have never been drunk and I STILL see through this.
Now I'm all about giving credit where credit is due and one of their resolutions does make sense.
The same Health Unit is also calling for the legal-blood alcohol in drivers to be lowered from .08% to .05%. That is something everyone who isn't a raging alcoholic will get behind and support. Drinking and driving is never okay.
Otherwise this resolution is a craptastic idea. I understood when they raised the drinking age from 18 to 19, because it meant that no student could have alcohol at school or be under the influence at school and legally attempt to get their way out of it. So by raising it to 19, they ensured that high school-aged students would not have some sort of legal loophole. That makes sense.
But 21? Are you kidding me? Where are we.. in Texas? Until this month, it was illegal to sell sex toys in Texas. Do we really want anything in common with them?
1 comment:
Number one, I want to drink that picture. Especially the Strongbow- delicious.
Number two, I don't know the stats on this, but is impaired driving and accidents higher in youth? Cause I would think that adults who think they know what the hell they're doing are very likely to get in a car after drinking and crash. My friends never drink and drive anyway.
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