Search Results: local groups

By the end of the first year of its creation when I handed it over to someone I trusted, I was told that the group would have never got as far as it did without me, having established networks with local charities and businesses, gained a lot of members, ran a lot of events, gained a good reputation and even winning a local community award. But a year after, I handed it over, it's almost unrecognisable, they've gone even further, grown even more and I'm wondering how much I did actually contribute to its success.

Once again, there is a move afoot to lower the age of legal alcohol from age 21 to age 18, beginning in California, the bellwether state/province of the USA.

This will probably face fierce opposition from civic groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), who successfully lobbied to impose a civilian legal drinking age of 21 nearly nationwide by 1988.

MADD did this by lobbying for a 1984 Act of Congress that gave a 10% penalty in federal road funding to states/provinces that did not adopt a 21 year legal drinking age. While most roads are state/provincial and local matters, the Interstate Highway System is National, and vital for many American cities and states/provinces.

Prior to 1988, and indeed for all other matters from 1933 forward, laws regarding alcohol sales and legal drinking age was decided on the basis of Federalism, varying by state and often even by counties and localities within a state.

And the trend had been to lower the legal age of alcohol consumption, just as the age for voting had been lowered from 21 to 18 state by state, and eventually nationwide by constitutional amendment in 1971.

Lowering the voting age came out of an overall protest against the Vietnam War, people under 21 being drafted to fight it before 1972, but not having a vote about same.

(NOTE: within the US military, people under age 21 always have purchased alcohol at the post or base exchange).