Increase the legal drinking age

what's needed is a culture change, we need to try to become more like the europeans, more like the greeks and spanish, who see alcohol as just a small part of an evening out, not the only reason for going out

Increasing the legal drinking age would, as most people have already said, just make the problem worse. Our boys were always allowed to have a drink at home from quite a young age as they do in most of Europe. When they were old enough to go down the pub they didn't see it as a big deal. Is it coincidence that countries where children are brought up in this way have fewer problems with drunken teenagers?
Oh, and Lil Cute Filipino have you ever heard of Prohibition in America? Read about it & find out how well it worked!!

Lil Cute Fillipino - Although your messages responding to other posts are lovely, they are also naive. Hovever optimistic you can be, you can not smile your way out of a bad situation. Unless our government pulls itself together, this country will continue in a downhill spiral. Unfortunately thats just the way it goes. Your right, many people have lost their lives to drink and drugs, so surely we owe them more than just optimism, and I believe the only way we can repay the people that we have lost, or whose lives have been ruined, is by trying to reduce the problem now. Unfortunately, increasing the drinking age is not the way to go about it, but maybe our government can come up with another way that can.

Increasing the drinking age isnt going to help, its just going to make the countries stats look worse. The only way the government can start to combat violence due to underage drinking in the UK is by increasing the age you have to look to buy alcohol. At the moment you have to look under 21 to be asked for ID but it doesnt happen, and 3 years between 18 and 21 isnt very big anyway. If the margin was made, say to 25, it would be harder for people under 18 to get away with underage drinking. Also youd increase numbers of patrol and undercover cops and with the help of undercover minors, the selling of alcohol to illegals will be brought down. By increasing the age to 21, it is only introducing more illegal drinkers in to the UK, and they will be older and stronger, and able to do more damage when boredom strikes.

and sorry for the mistakes that I have submitted !!!!

all of yous try being positive and have a heart, which means try have sympathy from those who died because of drugs,violence and to much alcohol, even if it was their fault.

I mean why don't you try being positive,kurt walsh !!!!

Don't be silly kurt walsh !! Why don't try and be more positive!!

I think pubs should be rebuild and make into sometime better such as shops,hair salons,pet shops etc. And alcohol should be forever banned and violence should also stop because you should learn to forgive and not use violence.And there is a special book from new york, which was written by steve mcdonald, it has lots of stories from other people from different countries,that has experienced violence.


DRINKING AND VIOLENCE SHOULD STOP IN ALL COUNTRIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

im going to repeat what every one of these people has said here, raising the age will not reduce the problem we have but increase it by far! can you imagine the damage that a 20 year old can cause compared to say a 16 year old, we ahve complaints about kids hanging around on street corners people being scared to go out there home's because of a few 17 year olds handing on the corner, wel a load of 19 year olds is a big of a difference, and they 20 year olds causing bother in your town will still be doing the same thing when there 25, you get idiots everywhere you go, they never change and changing the drinkin age will cause far more friction, in my opinion it is the idiot at number 10, Gordon Browns way of showing he is making change so he get voted back into power later this year!

Raising the age won't stop any of the trouble going on now!!!
I'm nearly 18 and if the age was raised I don't know what I'd do.. what do you expect 20 yr olds to be doing.. they're old enough to think for themselves and just because a minority of people can't handle their drink it don't mean the rest of us have to suffer.. What do they expect us to do?
Underage drinking happens everywhere, the legal age doesn't matter.. evreryone drinks on the streets when there young.. they get older people to go in for em! It'll be quite sad to see 20 yr olds hangin round outside shops askin people to go in..
Its just stupid to even think about it.. I'd love to see what happened if they tried to rasie it!

I think the drinking age should be 18 years old. I think this because instead of having 16 and 17 year olds on the streets causing trouble, there will be 16 - 20 years olds which will make violence far worse. Also youngsters will drink at any age so putting the age limit up will not deceased youngsters drinking it will just increase the amount of people drinking on the streets.