The debate starts now!

Please make sure you have read the rules.

Now, can a person from the Affirmative Team please start us off

What is appealing to a younger audience? Teenagers that live in an age of rules and regulations? They want to rebel; they want to break out from the society that is holding them back. In a social system where drinking is becoming more and more popular, not being able to do it is becoming more and more 'painful' for young teens. How do they fix this? They drink, and it being against the rules is only more exhilarating for them, all the more appealing, it makes it 'funner'. It is not about the age you are aloud to drink, but the thrill you get when you drink. It is not about the age you are aloud to drink, but the education that is provided to them about the effects of alcohol. If we were to educate teens better about drinking responsibly, there would be no need to keep the drinking age that high.

Even if the teens are properly educated about the effects of drinking, it doesn't nessessarily mean that they will drink responsibly. This is because the teenage brain is not properly developed and is still developing. This means that they take lots of risks, one of which is consuming excessive amounts of alcohol.
Also education has not always worked in the past. In most health classes in high school, kids learn about the effects of all sorts of drugs and yet many still go out and take them, knowing full well the negative effects.
You mentioned peer pressure, which is indeed a strong force. However, while not being able to drink can be socially painful for teenagers in their social environment, giving into peer pressure and drinking alcohol is not the way to solve these problems. If teenagers get the idea that using alcohol and drugs is a suitable way to help solve their problems, it places them in the path for continuing these problematic issues into their adulthood.

Drinking alcohol at an early age has been found in many scientific and sociological studies to predict increased social and psychological issues later in life. Early alcohol consumption has been associated with increased suicidal behaviours. These behaviours include suicide attempts but also self harm, such as cutting wrists and thinking/planning suicide. Early drinking ages is also correlated with increased violence and aggression towards others; random people, family, friends or even complete strangers at the pub. Drinking early may also increase binge drinking, thus seriously increasing the likelihood of liver problems such as cancer or cirrhosis. One last thing that it is associated with: other drug use. Beginning drinking alcohol in the early teens places teenagers in high risk of experimentation with other, possibly illegal, highly addictive drugs.

(And if anybody wants to read the original studies, I can give them to you)

I would like those studies thanks.

No problemo.

Study one
Study 2
and
http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/cgi/content/full/43/1/81

This links should work...If they don't, tell me, I'll save the pdfs and then post them up on my (now unused) blog or something. Because they might be locked from the public.

one of the biggest factors of teens overdosing on alchahol is because its ''forbidden'' to people until they are 18 and over. creating a challenge like getting around the bottle-o age requirements only makes them want to drink more as it would be their way to rebel against society. teens already drink while underage, and they drink far more than they can handle. if the age limit was dropped by a year, then the rebel factor would go away slightly. people may still drink if they enjoy it, but the awesomeness of it will wear off quicker, since they will have had their fair share of experience LEGALLY.

For this week's debate, it was very hard for me to determine which team has won because people didn't write as much I was hoping. I realised that I could have worded the topic better than I did and I'm sorry for that.

In this report, I will comment on what was said by each of you, to give you feedback so you can do even better next time

Cpl. Pickles
Starting off with a question is a good way to get a person to start to think, then you go ahead and explain your side of the debate. Your use of the word funner was hilarious, but I think it should have said, "it makes it more fun" You brought up some good points, including how teens should be educated. It would have been great if you could have expanded on that point

Narurin
Your rebutal paragraph was really good. You explained why the affirmative team was wrong in their argument. Then you went on to explain your ideas to why the age shouldn't be lowered, using many examples. I can see you researched your response quite well, but even though Fade asked for your references, you didn't need to give them to him. The ajudicator assumes the information you are providing is correct and you do not need to convince the other team that you are right

Fade
You wasted your team a chance at posting. Narurin didn't need to prove that she was right. You assume she was wrong because you are of the opposite team

This point is not to attack you Fade, just to bring it up to everyone for next time
There is a problem for posting like this. For one, it does not bring anything to the debate at all. It stops the flow of the debate. You are also supposed to be convincing the ajudicator why your team is correct. That wastes this chance. Also, the other team then has no information to make a rebuttal.

Mijy
No one from your team has posted four days since Narurin's last post and I'm happy that you decided to post to make the debate go on. I am a bit confused by why you wrote your opening sentence as "forbidden". It is legally forbidden but were you trying to say it as, "kids can still get their hands on it"? But, you redeemed yourself Your last sentence was very powerful . If this was a spoken debate and you were the last person to speak, summing up for the team, that would have been a great way to finish off because it gets stuck in the ajudicator's head.

I think that it is a shame that only Narurin from the Negative team spoke in this debate. Also, there was no rebuttal of Narurin's post. There were several points that could have been disagreed on.

I also read the boards I set up for each of the teams, though anything that was written in these boards did not determine who won. Pearly wrote a few posts, but unfortunately did not post in the debate. You had a few good ideas going.

So now to announce the winning team. A very hard decision.

The winning team is...

The Affirmative Team!
It was a good team effort and you brought up some good points

Unfortunately, The Negative Team was disadvantaged because only one person posted. Narurin posted so well, it was hard decision to announce the Affirmative Team the winners.
But, because you posted so well Narurin, you win the Best Speaker award for this week and 5 EXP

Unfortunately, I can only give experience points to the people who actually debated.
So, Cpl. Pickles and Mijy will receive 15 EXP and Narurin 10 EXP.

The next topic will be announced tomorrow morning, so if you wish to debate, please sign up.
I will be choosing one of your suggestions!

Congratulations everyone and good luck for the next debate.

Emilia
xxx