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[quote=Anonymous]The reason the drinking age is 21 instead of 18 or younger as in most countries is because there was a huge and growing problem of drunk driving among teens. There was a national movement to increase the legit age for drinking in the 1970s/early 1980s. And the situation is the same - most teens live in car oriented suburban environments. They are not like European or British kids, who do drink heavily but who have public transportation to rely on and very few teens have their own cars.

Colleges have strict drinking rules on paper because of liability factors. Everyone knows the drinking goes on behind doors, but colleges can't afford to appear lenient because some fool drinks too much and falls out his window and dies and the parents sue the school.

The US does have more socially conservative views towards alcohol but I think this is really a reflection by that something like 90% of the alcohol in the US is drunk by only 10% of the population (or something similar). For most Americans alcohol is simply not an issue so there's no need or push to change the status quo, although I admit culture does play a bit of a role. I remember being with a group of British people in Germany, the Americans were scandalized that the British wanted a drink with their lunch as most Americans only drink in the evenings. In turn the British were scandalized that the Germans were comfortable having beer with breakfast. Cultural differences ;) [/quote]

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