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Eighteen, Enlisted and Eligible to Drink?
listen:
 A new bill looks to lower the drinking age to eighteen for anyone in the armed services. The argument is if they're old enough to fight, they're old enough to drink. But the bill is not without its detractors from mothers against drunk driving to some in the military itself. We'll weigh this debate. Laura's guests are Rep. Jim Splaine, State Representative of Portsmouth and Newington, who is the primary sponsor of this bill. Jennifer Wierwille Norton, Manager of Policy for New Futures, a non-partisan, non-profit group working to reduce underage drinking in New Hampshire. Major General Kenneth Clark, Adjutant General of the New Hampshire National Guard and Representative Richard Marron, Republican Representative from Stowe, Vermont who sponsored a bill to lower the drinking age to 18 in his state.
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Should this bill pass, the current balance in the drinking regulations would break. And seriously, how many more changes and exceptions in the legal system must be added because the Army is desperate to attract young people? It is becoming quite irritating. Coming back from the Army, our brave men of arms would have to stop by a drug and alcoholic treatment center to try and wash off months of heavy drinking.
Dear Laura and guests:
Perhaps the sponsors of this bill have it backwards. Perhaps instead of lowering the drinking age for members of the military from 21 to 18 years, we should increase the age of the military from 18 years to 21 years. We would likely have both less drinking and fewer wars. If you are not mature enough at 18 to make good decisions about alcohol, perhaps you are not mature enough to make good decisions of another life and death nature.
Stephen Gaal
North Sandwich, NH 03259
Laura and crew -
As someone old enought to have been 18 during the brief roll-back of the drinking age,I can make a convincing argument for each side of today's debate. Not always a liberal, I'm concerned about the well-publicised efforts of the religious right to insinuate their strident and exclusionary views into the American way of life. As a longtime resident of NH and a recent presidential election voter, I am also skeptical about the opinions of organizations that are not transparent, i.e.: Swift Boat Veterans... I have to tell you that I would be more comfortable with the pov of an organization that has more credentials than New Futures' description as a "non-partisan, non-profit group." More meaningful to me would be a a diavowance of any religious affiliation, as well as a publication of the top five sources of funding of the organization. It's also not useful for someone to remind us, as Ms Wierwille did, that she's not a source of medical information, then rely heavily on unsourced medical "facts" for her arguments related to damages inflicted on the under-21 human.
I hope you'll consider my points on organization transparency for future programs.
Jan O'Neil
They might have enough years to drink but they sure don't have the experience to handle alcohol.