Comment by sarchertech

1. There is no scientific evidence that the "forbidden fruit" theory is correct. Studies of minimum drinking ages show a near universal reduction in drunk driving deaths, alcoholism, and crime rates.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3018854/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3586293/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4961607/ https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/10/you-must-be... https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/underage-drinking/minimum-legal-...

If you care to google it there are dozens of additional studies that all say the same thing.

2. You're writing this as if you don't understand what it's like growing up in a country where 8 year olds don't have easy access to alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs.

And you're writing this as if you don't understand what it's like growing up was a kid growing up in America specifically. My young children and the young children of everyone I now could not regularly drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes without their parents knowing about it. When I was 8 I couldn't have done either regularly without my parents knowing about it.

Again this isn't about stopping every single kid in the world from ever trying alcohol. This is about making it harder for them get and easier for parents to enforce.

>end of the day the buck starts and stops with parents...

That's a completely unrealistic view of the world and it's just flat out wrong on the face of it because every study we have on the subject shows that minimum drink age laws reduce harm--they work. If it were solely up to the parent they wouldn't work.

The easier you make it for parents to do the right thing, the more of them will do it.