{"id":1016377,"date":"2021-11-15T18:13:33","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T23:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1016377"},"modified":"2021-11-15T18:13:37","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T23:13:37","slug":"fact-check-has-the-legal-drinking-age-in-south-carolina-been-lowered-to-18-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-has-the-legal-drinking-age-in-south-carolina-been-lowered-to-18-years-old\/","title":{"rendered":"FACT CHECK: Has The Legal Drinking Age In South Carolina Been Lowered To 18 Years Old?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffact-check-has-the-legal-drinking-age-in-south-carolina-been-lowered-to-18-years-old%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1016377&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mya.nolackin\/posts\/429758601870460\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook post<\/a> shared over 1,000 times claims South Carolina has lowered its statewide legal drinking age to 18 years old.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Verdict: False<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A bill to change the legal drinking age has been introduced in the state legislature, but it has yet to be formally debated or passed.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Fact Check:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Since the 1980s, every U.S. state has barred people under 21 years old from purchasing or possessing alcoholic beverages, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov\/underage-drinking\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism<\/a>. One post shared on Facebook, however, claims South Carolina recently lowered its legal drinking age to 18. \u201cThey just lowered drinking age to 18 in South Carolina!!\u201d reads the post.<\/p>\n<p>Contrary to this claim, South Carolina has not lowered its drinking age. Check Your Fact searched the South Carolina General Assembly\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/search.scstatehouse.gov\/searchblox\/search.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">website<\/a> but found no record that any bill lowering the drinking age had passed. Likewise, there are no <a href=\"https:\/\/governor.sc.gov\/news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">press releases<\/a> from South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster about the legal drinking age having been changed.<\/p>\n<p>The viral claim appears to have stemmed from news that, according to NBC-affiliate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmbfnews.com\/2021\/11\/10\/state-rep-pre-files-bill-lower-sc-drinking-age-18\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WMBF News<\/a>, South Carolina State Rep. Todd Rutherford had pre-filed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scstatehouse.gov\/billsearch.php?billnumbers=4512&amp;session=124&amp;summary=B\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bill<\/a> on Nov. 10 to lower the minimum drinking age for beer and wine in the state to 18 years old. However, the proposed legislation will not come up for consideration until the state legislature reconvenes in January 2022, according to local news outlet <a href=\"https:\/\/wpde.com\/news\/local\/rep-todd-rutherford-pre-files-bill-lowering-drinking-age-to-18\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WPDE ABC15<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThis is a personal freedom issue,\u201d Rutherford told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmbfnews.com\/2021\/11\/10\/state-rep-pre-files-bill-lower-sc-drinking-age-18\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WMBF News<\/a>. \u201cIf you are old enough to fight for our country, if you\u2019re old enough to vote, if you\u2019re old enough to sign on for thousands of dollars of student loans for a college education, then you are old enough to have a drink.\u201d <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/checkyourfact.com\/2020\/02\/28\/fact-check-survey-38-percent-americans-corona-beer-coronavirus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/checkyourfact.com\/2020\/02\/28\/fact-check-survey-38-percent-americans-corona-beer-coronavirus\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1637082796774000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0SmvJZytUTe2xDOyYl8CoL\">(RELATED: Did A Survey Find 38% Of Americans Won\u2019t Drink Corona Beer Over Coronavirus Concerns?)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is not the first time South Carolina legislators have attempted to amend the state\u2019s drinking age laws. In 2008, a former South Carolina State Rep. Fletcher Smith introduced a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scstatehouse.gov\/sess117_2007-2008\/bills\/4274.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bill<\/a> to reduce the drinking age in the state from 21 to 18 for all military service members, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/south-carolina-debates-lowering-drinking-age-for-military-personnel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CBS News<\/a>. That <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scstatehouse.gov\/query.php?search=DOC&amp;searchtext=guard%25&amp;category=LEGISLATION&amp;session=0&amp;conid=7766992&amp;result_pos=3100&amp;keyval=1174274&amp;numrows=50\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bill<\/a> did not pass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Facebook post shared over 1,000 times claims South Carolina has lowered its statewide legal drinking age to 18 years old.Verdict: False A bill to change the legal drinking age &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1016377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}