Bagpuss, the mighty catlike pink organism, said:
The US drinking age is 21.
I once asked my mother why the drinking age was raised up to 21. She was a nurse, and saw a lot of people who'd injured themselves while intoxicated, and based on what she saw, the reason was this: They raised it to 21 so that the effective drinking age would be 18.
In other words, back when it -was- 18, she saw a lot of 16 year olds who'd been able to pass for 18 and buy beer, get drunk, and hurt themselves. After the government "encouraged" the raise to 21, she saw lots of 18 year olds who'd passed for 21 to buy beer, get drunk, and hurt themselves.
I always thought that made a lot of sense, given how the U.S. government works, heh. Since then, of course, it's turned more toward 21 being a hard age, since people check ID more often, etc.
So like, that's way off topic. So:
We drink whatever, to personal taste. One guy drinks mostly water or chocolate milk, I drink Coke or RC.. there's another guy who's almost always just getting off of work before we play, so he's got his gi-normous beer, etc. We eat a lot of chips, and cheese. They all love bleu cheese. I stick to chips, mostly doritos or a nacho-esque knock-off.
(Edit: oh yeah, the drinking age is set by the individual states here. The federal government just uses money subsidies (funds for road repair) as a tool to encourage the states to follow their suggestions. Louisiana, I believe, still maintains an 18 drinking age, but I could be wrong.)
