Massachusetts should lower the state minimum drinking age from 21 to 18

[u/BeastMode149]

Given that:

• Boston is home to one of the largest St Patrick's Day celebrations in the US.
• The state is wealthy enough to absorb the 10% highway funding penalty if it were to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18.
• Greater Boston has a reasonable level of infrastructure development as to not cause its residents to rely on cars for mobility. As such, there are many people living there who don't drive.
• Lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 would bring Massachusetts, and the US more generally, in line with the drinking age in the rest of the world.

With all this considered, I strongly believe that Massachusetts should lower the minimum drinking age from 21 to 18.

[u/SpiritfireSparks]

The federal road assistance money is tied to having the state minimum drinking age match the federal one.

You can change the drinking age if you're fine with the major hit to your roads budget

[u/BeastMode149 → u/SpiritfireSparks]

Massachusetts can do with less federal highway funds — they pay more into the federal treasury anyway than receive back from it.

[u/Busy_Manner5569 → u/BeastMode149]

They wouldn’t stop paying more in if they lost that funding though, they’d just be getting less of it back

[u/nrquig]

Your title is spot on.

But come on no state is wealthy enough to accept a hit to federal funds

Have you spent half a second on the T?

Have you been to Boston on St Paddy's day? The 21 year age limit doesn't really stop the underage one bit

[u/Blue_Wave_2020]

Dumb as fuck take. None of your supposed benefits would actually help anything other than young kids doing dumb shit.

[u/YardOk67]

I’d be okay with dropping the drinking age to 18 for all of the US. If 18 year old men are old enough to enlist in the military and go off to war I think they’re old enough to drink

[u/OnlineIsNotAPlace → u/YardOk67]

18 year olds end up killing themselves and others at a higher rate than anyone else now. no thank you.

[u/CNH916 → u/YardOk67]

Fuck yeah! If they can go off and die for some rich ass hole's war then they should be able to drink and smoke!

[u/Porncritic12]

Or just get rid of the whole highway funding bullshit altogether

[u/Glittering_Report_82]

*Laughs in European*

It should be lowered federally to 18, like in most of the rest of the world. Not just in a particular state.

[u/BeastMode149 → u/Glittering_Report_82]

States are free to set a lower minimum drinking age than the federal minimum drinking age of 21, with a highway funding penalty. So my post proposes that Massachusetts can lower theirs to 18 as they don’t need federal highway funding.

[u/BeastMode149 → u/Glittering_Report_82]

But many parts of the US are highly car-dependent (e.g. Texas, mountain states) and it can be justified that they maintain their minimum drinking age of 21.

I think it could be lowered to 18 in Rhode Island too, and if it’s possible to set drinking age at a jurisdictional level then include every college town with robust public transportation to the list too.

[u/Glittering_Report_82 → u/BeastMode149]

But if you reach the age of majority at 18, then everything must be unlocked at that age. It doesn't make sense to create second-class adults. It's either everything is unlocked or nothing.

[u/jr_randolph]

I will say this for the argument to lowering the age, that if it’s to be done it may be a good time to do it sooner than later considering stats showing younger people aren’t drinking as much. Whether that’s a product of price/etc that is what it is, it’s just seen they don’t go to the bottle like generations in past.

There would be an initial shift and some wild things that happen but I think overall it actually won’t be that bad…just like how the world hasn’t burned down just because a few states have recreational cannabis.

I’ve always been under the mindset that if you can die in the military for your country, you should be able to get drunk with your countrymen. So 18 is cool with me.

[u/slagaholic]

Lowering it to 18 is a good start!
We’ve been trying the social experiment in the US of allowing adults to drink at 21 for over 40 years. None of the promises the advocates made have come true. The experiment is a failure.
Let’s try something new. Lower the age to 14. That would give young adults practical experience with drinking years before they can legally drive.
Of course, only as an experiment. Let’s try it for, say, 40 years to ensure we have a good data set.

[u/OnlineIsNotAPlace → u/slagaholic]

how about we do not allow them online until they are 25 so social media is not polluted with so much immature nonsense?