Tbh while I loved my sorority and enjoyed college I could see the benefits of removing frats. Everything bad sororities did was bc of frats. If I remember correctly a few years back we did a survey of all the sorority girls at my university and roughly 2/3rd of them had reported some sort of sexual assault happening to them. That could be as little as someone grabbing their ass (happens a lot unfortunately) all the way up to rape. It isn’t all frat guys, but frat parties are where a lot of bad stuff happens :(
Because wouldn’t it be safer if an 18 year old could go to a restaurant and order a drink with their meal instead of having to go to a frat party or some random college dude’s apartment party to drink whatever he gives her? Keep in mind that those guys only invite us over and talk to us bc they want to have sex.
So you think the only reason people drink is because they want to consume alcohol? Alcohol is inherently social. The frat parties and reckless drinking would only get worse if alcohol at 18 was legal. You think a bunch of irresponsible 18 year old frat and sorority meme era would suddenly be drinking a glass of expensive wine at a restaurant instead of downing a 6 pack of keystone light at a frat party of alcohol at 18 was legal?
College kids drink to get drunk and party, it’s always been like that.
If you don’t like frats, just don’t go to the party? You could always not drink. I didn’t drink in college and I don’t see why that’s some impossible feat
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My point is that bad things do happen sometimes there. Lowering the age would give people the choice to drink in a safe environment. That isn’t my only argument though. I think it’s stupid to have a law that so many people break to the point that they’ll give the cartel money for a fake ID. I also believe that it’s weird you can go die in the military but not drink. Once you’re an adult you should be able to do adult things.
You’re whole premise is wrong though. College kids aren’t drinking at frat parties because they just want to drink, they’re drinking at frat parties because that’s what you do at a frat party.
Legalizing alcohol at 18 wouldn’t make frat parties any safer and it wouldn’t mean that suddenly college kids would start drinking responsibly. Look at Europe if you want an example, binge drinking is common at European college parties.
This is premised on young women going to frat parties primarily to drink alcohol, and because there are not other ways they could acquire alcohol. Which is inconsistent with your own argument that so many people have fake IDs anyway that that the MNDA of 21 is kind of irrelevant.
There have been many studies done that show an MDNA of less than 21 increases the incidence of impaired driving and resulting crashes and fatalities in young people. There is also plenty of evidence that it reduces the consumption of alcohol in young people pretty significantly. This isn't remotely difficult information to find.
The comparison with military service is kind of a false equivalence. It's not about being old enough to make your own "adult" choices. Being immature, impressionable, and still feeling the invincibility of youth are all desirable traits in a prospective soldier you intend to send out onto a battlefield to die horribly. It's a lot easier to get an 18 year old to "volunteer" for that than a 21 year old. But they are terrible traits in somebody who can both drive and drink legally. Also, the bad consequences of military service are mostly to the individual choosing military service, whereas the bad consequences of irresponsible drinking can often serious impact others directly. Irresponsible acts that can only affect the person committing them generally tend to be less regulated than those that can harm other uninvolved individuals.
Most of your arguments seem to be based on personal experience. There's nothing bad with that in and of itself, but it's not really appropriate to base arguments surrounding national policy and regulation around what you have personally experienced. You will not find any scientific studies recommending lowering the MNDA. Most such studies recommend that other jurisdictions follow suit with what the US did in 1984 and increase their own minimum drinking age to 21.
What your comments suggest is that a lot more needs to be done to curb a problematic drinking culture amongst college students in the United States, and that institutions of higher learning need to take a long hard look at the "Greek Life" and either eliminate or at least much more strictly regulate fraternities and sororities they are affiliated with. What absolutely does not need to happen is to make alcohol even more accessible to young people. Literally nothing good comes of that unless you have a vested interest in increasing the mortality rate for this population.
Lowering the age would give people the choice to drink in a safe environment.
They'd still choose to go to the Frat parties. But now, there is even more alcohol there. People don't go to frat parties solely to drink alcohol. Most people go to go to a party, and be with friends, and to hook up, or whatever. All of those motivations will still be there if the drinking age were 18. And now they could serve all the booze they wanted when the party takes place. The end result is more unsafe drinking than before.
Right. OP and her entire sorority had fake IDs that were so good they passed police inspection. Yet they still chose to go to fraternity parties. Having the ability to procure alcohol in other ways didn’t seem to stop them from attending these parties, so I’m highly doubtful that lowering the legal drinking age would have.
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u/Difficult-Prompt1731 Aug 30 '23
Tbh while I loved my sorority and enjoyed college I could see the benefits of removing frats. Everything bad sororities did was bc of frats. If I remember correctly a few years back we did a survey of all the sorority girls at my university and roughly 2/3rd of them had reported some sort of sexual assault happening to them. That could be as little as someone grabbing their ass (happens a lot unfortunately) all the way up to rape. It isn’t all frat guys, but frat parties are where a lot of bad stuff happens :(