Students look forward to their newly gained rights

by Miguel Perez

While turning 16 may have granted us the right obtain a license, turning 18 grants us the rights to smoke, gamble, vote, go to clubs, and do other activities that were long before only restricted to adults. These are rights that many under-age students look forward to gaining and that adult students enjoy.
To many students, the idea of turning 18 is one that they were looking forward to, as shown by their pre-meditated plans. It was to them, an event that they had been eagerly awaiting more than their 16th birthdays. And it was easy to see why so many students were eager to turn legal.
Many members of the under-18 crowd had devised various plans to enact when they became legal. For example, one senior, Mike Van Dyken said, "[When I turn 18,] I will smoke while I'm voting. There's only so much you can do."
Another student, junior Will Currer had something else in mind:
"When I'm 18, I'll go to a [gentlemen's club] and get wasted," he said. He did realize afterward that the latter wasn't legal until he turned 21 and the other was heavily restircted in the state of Virginia.
Others were excited about accomplishing their civic duty: voting. When asked, junior Hammad Saadat, said, "[Heck] yeah! I'll be voting for Obama if he wins the nomination."
With the exception of Van Dyken, there seemed to be a consensus among many students on smoking, since most students were opposed to it.
Saadat said, "No, I don't plan to smoke because it's bad."
While Caitlyn Kear, junior, said emotionally, "No! Smoking kills! I do not plan on smoking."
Similarly, another junior, Zachory Bryson, gave his thoughts against smoking. "Smoking in any way will never fit into my life," he said.
The majority of the under-age students planned to go to clubs.Junior Nathan Freeman said, "I'll probably go to a night club."
Senior Melissa Heuer, who went to a club on her 18th birthday, said, "I bought a lottery scratcher and my friends and I went to dinner, then I went clubbing." She offered some advice about clubbing in the DC area. "Buy a table and don't go early," she said. According to Heuer's club rankings: Platinum, "sucked," while she said that H2O was a "good club," and that Dream was "hard to get into."

By Stephanie Axelrod |  March 23, 2007; 8:08 AM ET
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