Vermont Lawmakers back drinking at 18
Added 2-10-05
By the time he was 19, Rep. Norm McAllister, R-Highgate, had graduated from college, wed and started basic training for the Vietnam War in Leonard Wood, Mo. “But in my home state,” McAllister, a Vermont native, said last week, “I was not old enough to consume an alcoholic beverage. I couldn’t make sense of it then, and I still can’t.” Click for More

Vermont Considers Lowering Drinking Age
Added 1-26-05
If they're old enough to vote and old enough to serve in the military, 18-year-olds ought to be able to buy a cold beer, a lawmaker believes. Rep. Richard Marron, R-Stowe, is circulating a bill that would lower the drinking age from 21, a proposal he thinks makes common sense. "It's totally illogical to me," Marron said Tuesday as he sought supporters for his proposal among his Republican colleagues. Click for More

KU student group taps into lower drinking age debate
Added 11-5-04
If it works for the Irish, it ought to be OK for Americans. While traveling with his family this summer in Ireland, Kansas University sophomore Jared Loehr found he was able to drink beer despite being younger than 21. The experience reinforced an idea he was already working on: Why not lower the drinking age in Kansas? Click for More

Republican Senate Candidate Urges Lower Drinking Age
Added 6-24-04
Colorado Republican Senate hopeful Pete Coors yesterday criticized the legal drinking age, chiding the federal government for coercing states into raising the age limit from 18 to 21. "We got along fine for years with the 18-year-old drinking age," the former CEO of the Coors Brewing Co. told an audience of about 200 people at a candidates' debate here. "We're criminalizing our young people." Click for More

Drinking age debated
Added 4-6-04
The National Youth Rights Association (NYRA), a youth advocacy group, is actively recruiting college students in the District in a campaign to lower the national drinking age from 21 to 18. The nonprofit, volunteer-run organization, is fighting against organizations like MADD and CSPI to amend the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 Click for More

Campaign Aims to Lower Drinking Age
Added 3-23-04
The volunteer-run National Youth Rights Association has been organizing D.C. college students to participate in its campaign to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. Click for More

Students protest drinking age
Added 3-19-04
A youth advocacy organization is recruiting D.C. college students in its campaign to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. While flyers from the National Youth Rights Association have been posted around campus, GW students have yet to officially join the group's effort to change the nation's drinking laws. Click for More

Keg registration would make buyer responsible for minors' alcohol consumption
Added 3-9-04
The Iowa House of Representatives is considering a bill that would require the registration of beer kegs, making the buyer responsible if minors consume alcohol from it. The bill, introduced by State Reps. Cecil Dolecheck, R-Mount Ayr and Mike Reasoner, D-Creston, was written by three high school students from Lamoni. Click for More

Changed alcohol policy leads to more TEMS use
Added 2-17-04
The number of alcohol-related calls to Tufts Emergency Medical Services (TEMS) jumped by a significant percentage last semester when compared to data from the previous year. Click for More

Military requests Japan deny alcohol to young troops.
Added 2-3-04
The commander of Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station, Japan, wants off-base bars to help the base enforce its standards for alcohol purchases. Marine Col. David Darrah asked local bar owners not to sell alcohol to any servicemembers younger than 21. Click for More

W. Windsor council adopts drinking law
Added 11-28-03
Despite opposition from about a dozen high school students, the township council last night voted 4-1 to adopt a new ordinance banning underage drinking. The ordinance allows the police to issue tickets to youths found drinking or possessing alcohol on private property. Click for More

Fighting beer blasts
Added 11-3-03
Never mind that they're not old enough to drink legally. As long as they're on private property, police have had limited power to interfere. Now, in an attempt to create a new tool to battle the problem, the township council here is expected to vote tonight on whether to introduce a new municipal ordinance to combat underage drinking. Click for More

A new way to catch fake IDs
Added 10-22-03
Indiana's liquor stores are tackling the problem of fake IDs by testing new technology at three college towns, including Bloomington. The Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers has initiated a one-of-a-kind trial where it will test the system, which scans the bar code on driver's licenses and lets workers know if the ID is legitimate. Click for More

Teen beer sales bubble over
Added 10-15-03
For the upshot of Florida's underage drinking laws, check with 15-year-olds John Obgoom and Richard Rivera, as they relax with friends in a parking lot near Sickles High School. From where they stand, the prohibition against anyone under 21 possessing alcohol seems a mere formality. Click for More

The campaign against underage drinking targets adults
Added 9-23-03
The Federal Trade Commission this week exonerated the alcohol industry from the charge that it's trying to seduce underage drinkers with flavored malt beverages such as Smirnoff Ice and Bacardi Silver, which critics call "alcopops." Click for More

Government looks at lowering drinking age
Added 8-24-03
An NDP MLA says government politicians are discussing whether to lower the legal drinking age in Saskatchewan. The idea is being floated to keep young people in the province. Click for More

Readers speak out on the drinking age limit
Added 8-24-03
AI have always believed that any one who serves his or her country ought to be able to buy a drink Click for More

Limits sought on parents buying alcohol for kids
Added 8-21-03
A Wisconsin legislator is seeking to change a state law that allows children to drink in taverns as long as they’re accompanied by a parent or guardian. But a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Restaurant Association says the measure could mean the loss of an educational opportunity. Click for More

Horsey's Burning Question: Should the legal drinking age be lower?
Added 8-20-03
Am I a terrible person? I was sitting at dinner the other night and right across the table from me a guy named Alex was engaged in an illegal activity. I didn't try to stop him. I didn't call the police. I just let him do it. Click for More

Let My Teenager Drink
Added 6-5-03
My 16-year-old called me from a bar. She said my 17-year-old was there, too, along with the rest of the gang from high school: "Everything's fine, Dad. We'll be home after last call." Click for More

Major cruise lines lower age for drinking, gambling
Added 4-19-03
Alert to near-adults, and those who finance their trips: Several major cruise lines have changed age rules for drinking and gambling within the last year. Royal Caribbean, for example, lowered the age to consume wine and beer from 21 to 18 on all but its Alaska cruises. Click for More

Choice for our young troops?
Added 3-17-03
Romero, D-New Iberia, is planning to introduce two bills in the upcoming legislative session dedicated to troops here and oversees, he told a gathering at the Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce Tuesday. One bill will grant all Louisiana military personnel with full adult rights, he said. That means allowing soldiers under 21 to purchase alcohol or gamble. Click for More

Teens Swill a Fifth of U.S. Alcohol
Added 2-27-03
Teens and adults who drink heavily account for more than half of all alcohol consumption in the United States, with teens alone accounting for nearly 20 percent, even though they're not legally allowed to drink, a study released Tuesday said. Click for More

Alcohol Industry Says Study on Alcohol Abuse Flawed
Added 2-27-03
A recent study of alcohol consumption by teen drinkers and alcohol abusers is an "attempt to manipulate data to get sensational headlines," representatives of the alcohol industry said Wednesday. Click for More

New law jeopardizes all-ages concerts
Added 2-20-03
Bars may be forced to cancel all-ages shows and re-evaluate how to hold events with minors under a state law that goes into effect today. For people under 21 to be present at an establishment with a liquor license, there will have to be one attentive chaperone over the age of 25 for every five minors. Click for More

Drinking Age of 21 Creates Lawbreakers
Added 11-14-02
Nearly 200 underage drinkers were arrested at a party across from a UW-Whitewater dormitory complex on Sept. 12. Whitewater, campus and Walworth County authorities entered the basement of a duplex to find 300 partying young people, two-thirds of whom were under the legal drinking age of 21. Click for More

Is Joseph Califano A Gateway Drug?
Added Added 4-8-02
What happens when America’s most irresponsible flimflammers on teenage sex (Kaiser Family Foundation) and drug use (Joseph Califano Jr.’s Center on Addition and Substance Abuse) team up? A junk-science survey wildly exaggerating modest teen-risk percentages to 50...73...yes, even 89%! Click for More