If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Essential support for under 25s
Essential support for under 25s
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
So what? Like consistency is worth having anyway. :rolleyes:
Which is the best way of doing things.......
Why is this so unlikely?
Why not just let publicans and their staff make their own decisions as they go? What's wrong with that?
Who said it will solve anything? Who said anything needs solved?
I'm saying the legal age should be lowered in order to be compatible with society and also the effects would probably be beneficial (less trouble on the streets, easier to police etc). There are no counter-arguments which stand up to scrutiny or logic.
I don't see how anyone could think the current system is preferable to having kids drinking in supervised places with interesting things to do. All most teens want is to hang out with some music and a pool table, why is that such a bad thing? Allowing kids to drink in bars can only be a good thing. I would draw the line at allowing them to drink spirits, or to drink in nightclubs, because I don't think they are supervised enough for younger people.
that's an interesting idea but i think it would shock conservative middle england too much...
Legalising drugs on prescription, and allowing kids to have supervised drinks in bars, would solve an awful lot of problems. Kids wouldn't hang around the rec pissed on cider if they could go to a pub and have a few drinks there. Vandalism would go down because everyone would be too busy doing other things to need to want to smash bus shelters (it wouldn't disappear though, I'm not that naive). And as for drugs, if everyone could get it on prescription then there'd be no criminal profit, and therefore no need to rob to get the money to pay the crims for their drugs.
But Middle England has been brought up to see this as "soft" on drugs, and so baulks at it. What amuses me is how the Daily Mail and the rest slag off drug users all the time, when half of Fleet Street is off their tits on charlie.
16 year olds can drink if their parents buy it for them. As far as I am aware they then have to do it in their own home so they will be under supervision. You also are guessing that the effect of lowering the drinking age would be beneficial with no real evidence. What happens at 11 o'clock when the bars shut and you have 16 year old girls hammered? What about 16 year old boys that have drank far too much and start trashing things?
You will actually find that most bar staff will eject drunken people. Drunks are far more trouble than they are worth, and will be ejected by bar staff.
I don't think bars should have a legal closing time.
What about it?
You seem to be labouring under the misconception that the law prevents things. It does not. It merely criminialises them. If I want to go and murder my wife there is nothing to stop me.
So, we have this situation already. And instead of having these people getting drunk safely in a warm pub, we have these people getting pissed on the rec and getting in the way. Why is it preferable for you to have these kids sitting in bus shelters, drinking cheap cider and with nothing better to do than graffitti the bus stop and smash the windows? Surely it is better to give these people a corner of a pub with a jukebox and a pool table, and a landlord to look after them?
I am saying that 14 year-olds should be allowed to drink beer, that they should be allowed to buy it and drink it in pubs. Most teenagers say that they wouldn't stand around swigging cider in a bus shelter if they could go in a pub and play pool with a beer. What is so wrong with this?
16 year olds are not going to go round to their pals' houses to drink under the supervision of their parents now, are they? So i don't really see how that's relevent.
Bar staff should stop serving people when they are drunk? Are you on another planet? People go to the pub to get drunk...duh! I wonder how the brewing industry would cope with a one-pint-per-hour system
At closing time, dispersal from pubs are concentrated...this is far easier to police than scattered groups of youths hanging around here, there and everything.
Can 14 year olds then be trusted not to give alcohol to 13 year olds?
Spliffe that was my point why bar staff cannot on the whole be trusted to follow the law religiously.
Yeah, damn right. Teenagers aren't normal, they'd much rather sit on a wall in the pissing rain than be somewhere warm with entertainment.
Ask any of them why they sit on the rec. The standard answer? "There's nowhere else to go".
:rolleyes:
So what if they can or can't be? Let the 13-year-olds get pissed, what harm does it do? Let the thirteen-yar-olds in the pub too.
It's better than the current situation.
They generally can be, though they use sensible discretion. Cause trouble and you'll be thrown out, but behave and they'll serve you underage. I went to the pub when I was 15, 16, 17, and I got drunk in the pub, and it was fine. What is the big deal?
What about when its not raining? Teenagers will not go to the pub just because they can. I believe recently a discussion was had about a skate park. Teenagers wanted a place to skate so they built a skate park and it widely went unused. Reason being they didn't like being told where to skate. Same logic is going to apply here.