Laws In Your Country

What laws are there in your country, e.g. age limits? I'm interested in comparing laws in different countries. For example, here in England the age limits are:

Buying alcohol: 18
Driving: 17
Buying cigarettes: 16
Playing the lottery: 16
Having sex: 16

Are tehre any laws/restrictions in your country/state that you wish were different? Think you should be to do some things at a younger age? Discuss!

These are all state statutes, and will differ depending on where you live

Consumption of alcohol is 21
probationary learners permit is 15, 14 if you live on a farm.
cigs is 18
lottery is 16, i believe.
a person of 16 is of legal age to give consent to sex to anyone at or above the age of 16. persons under the age of 16 are of legal age to give consent to eachother. If any person over the age of 16 has sexual intercourse with anyone under the age of 16 it is automatically Prestatitoury Rape, regardless of consent.

There needs to be a speed lane, allowing you to go however the hell fast as you want on the highway.
there also needs to be a law that suspends the liscnses of stupid people.
there also needs to be a law that regulates the ammount of money rich people can have if their socialists.

Illinois statues:

Drinking/Consumption or purchase of Alcohol: 21
Cigs: 18
Driving: 16
Lotto: 18
Enjoyin a gentleman's club: 18
Well, um thats it, I think....

Israel
Drinking/Consumption of or purchasing alcohol: TECHNICALLY 18, but most people will sell it to you if your somewhere in your mid teens
Driving: 17
Cigs: like 15, i think
lotto: 18
strip clubs: 18
however, when you turn 18 you also gotta go into the army, so its a trade off, I guess.

English sex laws:

A male may have sex with any female at or over the age of 16 where the female if at or over 16, with consent.
A male may have sex with any male at or over the age of 16, with consent.
A female may have sex with anyone (male or female), at any age with the partner being at any age, with consent.
If a female under the age of 16 has sex with a male at or over the age of 16, the male has commited a sex offence (regardless of consent).

In short, girls can legally have sex with anyone they like.
Males can only legally have sex with someone who is 16 or over.

Australia

Purchase of Alcohol: 18
Consumption: usually 18, but the police don't pick anyone up on underage drinking if it's not at a public place, and usually it's just telling them to go somewhere else
Cigarettes: 18 (both alcohol and cigarette purchase are excessively abused)
Having Sex: 16
Lottery: 18
Learner License (L's): 16 and 1/2
Provisional License (P’s): 17, as well as 6 months after Learner’s was issued.
Open License: 20 (having held Provincial for 3 years)
Defence: 17
Also (at least in Queensland) there is a new law that people under the age of 18 must stay in school, be receiving an apprenticeship or working.

South Australia

Drive: 16 (L's)
Alcohol: See Hawk's post. Plus the police here only do breath tests at midday, then tell the local paper they only caught one person driving over the limit last week, aren't we a good state? Guess which state has the highest death toll for car crashes? Yes, put your hands together for SA!!!
Sex: 16

Hawk, what do you mean for "defence"?

defence force: air force, navy, army

Is that like, the age you CAN serve, or the age you HAVE TO serve?

Becuase for us in Israel, we have to when we turn 18

As you would if you were russian or korean.

Russia is the only major country that has a required service period.

No, you don't have to serve, Australia isn't exactly military orientated. Although, and I guess the case is probably similar in the USA, serving in the military is greatly romanticised, and our defence force academy (ADFA) most certainly gets the cream of the crop, so to speak.

Voting in Australia is compulsory, also, although of course if you don't register....
You have to be 18 to vote, but if you apply when your 17, you can vote pretty much that year (regardless of your birth date) if the elections happen to be held before you turn 18.

oh yeah, its illegal not to vote there. Isn't it also illegal not to register?
If you don't register here you get jail time, or a really hefty fine, or both. Thats only if they catch you of course. Registerring here means you register to vote, and you also sign up for the draft, and for jurry dubty.

I don't think anyone who doesn't bother to register gets in any sort of trouble from the government. It's pretty widespread, our police generally don't bother with that kind of thing; one of the main reasons, especially in the north of the country and some parts of the west, they just don't want to cause any trouble with the Aboriginals, which is another matter entirely.
I don't really understand not wanting to register anyway; as much as we'd like it it's not quite possible to totally disconnect oneself from society, it sort of forces the people to take a side in politics, to read newspapers and watch the news, plus, our parties don't have to spent millions on propaganda.