Let the kids drink

Every year around this time, millions of American kids graduate from high school, throw massive parties and get drunk. Police end up arresting a lot of these kids, causing them legal trouble for months or even years. So, every year around this time, there's a new debate about whether we should lower or even abolish the legal drinking age.

In the wake of the UK's new guidelines for parents with drinking kids, I think we may be onto something here, especially since we have another story today about "21 for 21", the game where peers try to pressure their legal-age friends to kill themselves with alcohol poisoning.

It's called "21 for 21," a college drinking ritual with deadly consequences.

Students down 21 alcoholic drinks on their 21st birthday, and, according to the largest study of its kind, researchers at the University of Missouri determined that many students jeopardize their health -- and their lives.

...

"We have reports of people dying from this going back several years," said Rutledge. "One young man, Brad, who died on his 21st birthday, consumed 21 shots in under 24 hours."

Okay, kids do stupid things, alcohol makes the stupider. Shouldn't Darwin have something to say about this? On another note, my school had a "Century Club", where you had to do 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes. It was ugly. Much puking and passing out. No one died though, I think most were underage. Woot!