British lad (be nice) :D

[Bookworm]

Hi Scotty,

[monk]

Welcome!

[Zet]

Welcome to the forum mate

[mrk2010]

Once again cheers, hmmm sounds like it going to be a very sober experience. Or I will just raid the mini bar in the hotels

hahahaha, that is a good plan wish I thought of it when I was younger. :biggrin:

[ZackT]

The drinking age is what it is because of out-dated thinking and laws from the early 20th century in the States. No one's bothered to change it since then. It's pretty stupid that you can join the military, vote, smoke cigarette's, get a driver's license or run for most public offices, but you can't legally drink alchohol before 21.



Welcome to GS I like Brits

[Inchante]

The drinking age is what it is because of out-dated thinking and laws from the early 20th century in the States. No one's bothered to change it since then. It's pretty stupid that you can join the military, vote, smoke cigarette's, get a driver's license or run for most public offices, but you can't legally drink alchohol before 21.



Welcome to GS I like Brits

Not quite right:

Year Event
1934 Original ABC Act stated that the legal age for purchase, possession or consumption of any alcoholic beverage was 21 years of age.
1974 Legal Drinking Age (LDA) for beer lowered from 21 to 18. LDA for wine and liquor remained at 21 years old.
1981 LDA for beer remains at 18 for on-premises consumption and is raised to 19 for off-premises consumption.
1983 LDA is raised to 19 years old for all sales of beer.
1985 Persons born on or after July 1, 1966 will be able to purchase beer, wine and liquor on and after their 21st birthday. Persons born before July 1, 1966 will retain the privilege to purchase, possess and consume beer.
1987 LDA raised to 21 for all alcoholic beverages.

It's been 20 years that America has had a minimum federal drinking age. The policy began to gain momentum in the early 1980s, when the increasingly influential Mothers Against Drunk Driving added the federal minimum drinking age to its legislative agenda. By 1984, it had won over a majority of the Congress.

President Reagan initially opposed the law on federalism grounds but eventually was persuaded by his transportation secretary at the time, now-Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

Over the next three years every state had to choose between adopting the standard or forgoing federal highway funding; most complied. A few held out until the deadline, including Vermont, which fought the law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (and lost).

Twenty years later, the drawbacks of the legislation are the same as they were when it was passed.

The first is that the age set by the legislation is basically arbitrary. The U.S. has the highest drinking age in the world (a title it shares with Indonesia, Mongolia, Palau). The vast majority of the rest of the world sets the minimum age at 17 or 16 or has no minimum age at all.

Supporters of the federal minimum argue that the human brain continues developing until at least the age of 21.

Alcohol expert Dr. David Hanson of the State University of New York at Potsdam argues such assertions reek of junk science. They're extrapolated from a study on lab mice, he explains, as well as from a small sample of actual humans already dependent on alcohol or drugs. Neither is enough to make broad proclamations about the entire population.

[matty7]

hi and welcome m8 , ive been to the states ,,, loved it to bits - im from uk to and goin over there was amazing ,,,plenty of people around ur age on GS so im sure youll make mates on here

[ZackT]

Well, I'm retarded

[HollandofFrance]

hello

im british or english norman Cornish

but we've been here for 400 years or so

[HollandofFrance]

Welcome to GS.
As far as your visit to the U.S. In California, if you are going to be in the L.A. area, the gay section is West Hollywood, and if you are going to be in San Francisco, the gay section is the Castro. New York City's gay section is Chelsea . . . but, I don't know how much luck you are going to have getting into bars and clubs of any kind. The drinking age in the U.S. is 21. People DO manage to get in underage on occasion, but gay bars and clubs are particularly picky in my experience, and I can only imagine they will be even more picky with international visitors. As Gizzie indicated, you will use your passport for the most part while here. As far as checking out the "talent", you are also under the age of consent for the U.S., which is 18. You would have to either have a birthday between now and march, restrict yourself to fellow teens, or hope to find someone with lax character and no interest in keeping themselves out of prison.

Now, having said all that, I hope that you have a good time and don't get your father and yourself . . . or anyone else into too much trouble. I know. I'm such a spoil sport.

i think id almost like to raise drinking age to 25 like it was in sweden years ago