Currently, the legal drinking age in Ontario is 19. Our goal is to change the legal drinking age to 18. The purpose of this is not to increase the availability of alcohol to youth. Instead, our purpose is to place buying and consuming alcohol on the same plain as other actions such as voting. We see placing alcohol in a different category from these actions as problematic. It places much more emphasis on the significance of both accessing and consuming this substance. Therefore, we believe that lowering the legal drinking age will decrease its emphasis as a desirable yet forbidden to youth.
We understand that due to Ontario's history, changing the legal drinking age to 18 is not a simple task. Values from the prohibition era continue to exist today. Also, we have observed much harm caused to individuals due to the consumption of alcohol. However, we reiterate that statistics have shown that youth under the age of 19 continue to consume alcohol at rates that are not greatly different than their legally aged peers.
Efforts have been made in the past to lower the legal drinking age in the past but have not found any success. (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/03/28/drinking-age.html?ref=rss) From our research of the current policies surrounding youth drinking, this is due to the social climate in Ontario. This climate is dense with youth anti-drinking efforts including alcohol sale, advertising, and legal repercussions.
In addition, constructions youth in our society portray youth as irresponsible and immature in comparison to adults. Therefore, our objectives involve transforming the social climate to provide accurate information about youth drinking behaviours as well as the ways in which youth are oppressed due to common ideologies that exist today.
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