It didn’t always used to be that the drinking age in Guam was 21. It used to be 18. It’s not unusual to see that certain areas go through changes in their drinking ages. Many of the changes in different countries’ minimum legal safe drinking ages come from traffic accidents and other drunk driving accidents that occur. Sometimes, these events spawn social outrage, and people want to see change, and new laws put in place to help safeguard against youth drunk driving accidents. Many times, the people involved in these crashes are barely above the legal age to drink alcohol, and they have been driving in a car irresponsibly when they’re consuming a lot of alcohol.
It’s these kinds of incidences that cause the citizens to get up in arms and demand changes to the minimum legal drinking age. Many of the laws in the United States, related to the minimum legal drinking age, even before the passage of the National Minimum Legal Drinking Age Act of 1984, in the different states, were related to the incidences of drunk driving traffic accidents that happened with drivers who were right above the legal age limit, but still showed themselves to immature to drive sober when they were given the privilege to drink at a young age. Many times, it’s necessary to change the drinking age to 21, because of the immaturity level of the people in the area.
The drinking age in Guam is 21. The drinking age was raised to 21 in Guam in 2010. The governor in Guam signed a new piece of legislation that raised the drinking age from what it was at, at 18, to 21, and the law also placed a ban on sales of liquor between 2 in the morning and 8 in the morning. The U.S. Air Force was quick to comply with the new law, and they put the same restrictions on their bases too. The Navy had a higher drinking age already. There was a lot of public outcry after a traffic death in 2006, and a bicyclist was hit by a car that was being driven by a sailor that was 20 years old.
The driver was later sent to prison for vehicular manslaughter for 12 years. Bringing the drinking age higher was a big issue in Guam, always. After a lot of deliberation, and amendments were written, in 2010, all 15 senators voted to raise the drinking age to 21, from 18. The amendment allowed adults who were aged 18 to 20 to keep serving alcohol though. There was a rationale for this amendment in that i might cause hardship for youth who had gotten jobs in bars, and they might lose irreplaceable benefits and salaries. The new law had a very lengthy path, and it was debated hotly for years, but it was finally passed in response to the traffic accident in 2006 which killed a bicyclist. There were several coalitions in Guam which played a big role in getting it passed.