Licensed to Drink
(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the
author of books including Backyard
Ballistics, and the recently-published Absinthe
and Flamethrowers. Follow him on Twitter: @wmgurst.)
While it may sound counterintuitive, would it not make sense to lower the drinking age from 21 to 20 or even less, provided the less-than-21-year-old imbiber obtains a separate license for drinking. And in order to get the license, there is a "drinking skills" program to pass. Not how to drink more, but how and why to drink like a mature grown up.
I think a lot of people (I could drink at 18, so this didn't really apply to me) go kinda nuts on reaching their 21st birthday. And because they're young, inexperienced, and uneducated in drinking, they do dumb things. People could be educated to be "better" drinkers.
From Drinking Learner Permits for Under Age Persons:
In more than 30 states, drivers aged 16 and 17 gain driving experience while holding special licenses that restrict when and how they may drive (for example, no late-night cruising). This permits a slow introduction to an adult privilege. The same concept should apply to drinking.I'm fully aware that this may seem ironic given that I've already posted stories on absinthe and the 1974 Cleveland Indians 10-cent beer night debacle. But I see too many people drinking too much booze way too often. Recently, I came up (over beer with friends, another irony) with an idea for a drinking license. Turns out, several others have had the same idea.
What could be the elements of a provisional drinking license? There could be time and place restrictions. The license holder could drink, for example, only in an establishment where at least 75% of sales receipts were for food (no bars, no liquor-store purchases). No service after 11:00 pm. Moreover, a 19- or 20-year-old could have to undergo formal instruction about alcohol and pass a licensing exam.
While it may sound counterintuitive, would it not make sense to lower the drinking age from 21 to 20 or even less, provided the less-than-21-year-old imbiber obtains a separate license for drinking. And in order to get the license, there is a "drinking skills" program to pass. Not how to drink more, but how and why to drink like a mature grown up.
I think a lot of people (I could drink at 18, so this didn't really apply to me) go kinda nuts on reaching their 21st birthday. And because they're young, inexperienced, and uneducated in drinking, they do dumb things. People could be educated to be "better" drinkers.
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How much you want to bet that if 18 year olds are allowed to drink only in places with 75% receipts for food, pretty soon those places won't have 75% receipts for food anymore.
Disagree. Without drinking and smoking and partying at 17, there's no way I would have caught every Jim Stafford show on the Eastern seaboard. Or shown up at community picnics in full "Kiss" makeup.
It's pretty much the way you learn things in life to overdo it then moderate back to a safe level. there's no harm in education and harm reduction efforts, though, as long as they aren't hijacked by temperance groups like MADD. (Which they almost certainly would be in the US.)
I'm 21 now, so it's pretty much a moot point for me, but I've always felt that the privileges of adulthood shouldn't be based around an age system; I've met people who were 17 who were mature enough to drink reasonably and I've met people who were 30 who still shouldn't be allowed to drive a car, let alone buy alcohol.
Oh for pete's sake. Few go "kinda nuts" at 21. They go really nuts somewhere between 15 and 18. Just lower the drinking age to 18 and get something that might start to a) be enforceable and b) bring some social pressure to bear on college freshmen who otherwise see getting really sloshed as being really cool and adult.
As soon as you tell high schoolers and college kids they can't drink alcohol, they want to do it more. Then they are secretive, ill-informed, and dangerous about it. Then they turn 21 and go hog-wild. It's a pathetic system.
Little kids never thought to stick beans up their noses until their parents told them not to.
When I was a kid the drinking age was 18, and I got a fake ID at 16. I saw lots of amazing bands that I otherwise could not have seen.
Expecting young adults to be responsible enough to vote and be drafted (or otherwise serve in the military), but not be responsible enough to drink sends mixed messages to them. I was lucky enough to be old enough to do all three and did so. I did drink too much sometimes, just like I made questionable decisions when it came to voting. Just part of the process.
I've heard of this idea and as an alternative to just lowering the permissible age back to 18 it's a decent one.
I think it's a damn good idea, especially since the information learned in the education phase applies to other addictive behaviors, and might come in handy...if they remembered any of it.
Overdoing it and then moderating to a safe level...um, some people overdo it, and then continue to ramp it up (I know some who've hit 40 and still haven't got a clue how to moderate...their livers will probably inform them any day now). Starting off (or continuing) with the traditional massive year 21 binge is a classic way to begin an addiction, for too many people. Bringing things up gradually would be less likely to induce future bingeing.
On the other hand, enforcement and supervision of the program would be a real pain in the neck, and not cheap. But then, DUI's aren't cheap, either. And since most kids have begun drinking long before 21, it'd be a good idea to admit it and put programs in place to deal with it...criminalizing it is not working, obviously.
"I think a lot of people (I could drink at 18, so this didn't really apply to me) go kinda nuts on reaching their 21st birthday."
The people who go all out at 21 in the U.S. have already been drinking for a while.
The problem with our current laws is similar to the pot and music downloading problem. It turns the majority of people under 21 into criminals. The 21 barrier encourages young people to drink a lot very quickly away from reasonable adults. Then it encourages them to drive themselves home so their parents don't know.
I think requiring people to go through an educational program before being allowed to drink would be a good thing, however, I don't think it would work in the US right now.
The reason this wouldn't work is that people can't agree on what the facts about alcohol (and addiction) are. For instance, the overwhelming majority of neuroscientists agree that the evidence shows alcohol addiction to be a disease of the brain, characterized by distinct physical changes. However, the general public, and even a large number of doctors, adamantly oppose that view.
The conflict is incredibly important, because people can't be given the tools to make responsible choices if the educators can't agree on simple facts, like whether alcohol is potentially addictive to everyone or not, and what the risk factors and realistic treatment options for addiction are.
I think a breeding licence would be a good idea too, but I don't see that happening either. I think if parents were more reasonable about teaching their kids about alcohol (and drugs in general) that would help, but you still get drunken 20 year-olds going nuts in Australia (where I'm from) despite the drinking age being 18. I don't know if the drunkeness rates are lower or higher in the US, might be worth looking into.
Don't you think we've already done enough to curtail natural selection?
Or, we could look to Europe for inspiration. In general, the drinking age is either 16 or non-existent, although in places where there is no drinking age, the purchase age remains 16.
That, to me, sounds like the most reasonable of all options. Youth can drink, but not purchase. This lets people who have reached the age of majority to control minors' access to alcohol, with the idea that these adults will, in general, be looking after the interests of the minors.
Great idea, but I'll let you burn the millions of dollars and decades of life it would take to get it into law.
Other countries seem to have no minimum age at all and yet far less alcohol abuse comparative to the USA. What gives?
Personally I got over alcohol at a very early age. Around 17 or so I drank so much I was sick for days. I passed out while vomiting in the bathroom, and simply shoved to one side of the toilet and the party carried on. It was terrifying, painful, and disgusting, and humiliating, I never drank to excess again.
how about genetic screening to detect those without the ability to handle alcohol?
Drinking age should 16 and driviers license should be 18. It would save a lot of lives.
What's the data out of Louisiana from when their drinking age was different? What's the data from there once they conformed to the 21 year-old thing (wasn't that in the '90s)? How would drinking classes be any easier to get than decent (read: non-abstinence-based) sex ed classes? Don't some reservations have a different drinking age? What's the data from out of those?
It seems like a decent idea. It also seems rather idealistic. Europeans and USAmericans tend to drink differently, as I understand it. Is this simply treating the symptom, instead of figuring out WHY so many underage kids drink so much, and responding to that issue?
As soon as you tell legal adults (18-20yo) the state forbids them from purchasing alcohol...
How is anyone going to define that for licensing purposes, exactly? Who's yardstick are you measuring by? Yours?
Furthermore, the definitions for "binge drinking" and "alcohol dependence" popularly cited in journalism are ridiculous. IIRC, more than 4 drinks in an evening is "binge drinking", and doing that more than twice a month supposedly implies "alcohol dependence". Nonsense!
Going out to drink/party/dance at clubs and warehouse-style music events 2-3 weekends out of each month at least 10 months a year is quite normal for any high-functioning urbanite adult who hasn't chosen to "settle down" and start a family, well into their 30s. (How else are you going to socially network for business, friends, and sex partners?)
(CBC: Educated, tech-savvy young adults most likely to be "high-risk" drinkers)
Do I really need to be the one to point out that the cultural future of Western Civilization is going to be more like Snow Crash crossed with Vice Magazine than it is some baby-boomer reinterpretation of Ozzie and Harriet?
Rather than limiting purchases by location or time (as someone has already pointed out, receipt ratios would shift, and putting a curfew on purchases seems kind of irrelevant), why not just limit the concentration of alcohol?
I used to go to this wine place, chat up food pairings with the staff, and buy with no questions asked. I guess they figured if I was going to spend $15 on a bottle pinot rather than $5 on vodka, getting soused probably wasn't the objective.
You should be able to drink, vote and fuck at 14. But the driving test should take all day and require a perfect score. Cocktails don't kill people; Toyotas do.
I'm not entirely sure this would help the underage drinking problem. Part of the reason it's so rampant is because something that is restricted or forbidden is that much more desirable. Human nature dictates that we are oppositional as animals and therefore want to do what we're told not to do more than things we're openly allowed to do.
It's a little bit different than a car, since alcohol on the whole is easier to obtain and conceal the use of than an entire automobile. You don't have liquor plates that the cops can do checks on as you're driving back home from the local bottle shop and there's little skill required to get that bottle from your hand to your mouth, unlike driving a car.
This might not be as severe as simply forbidding someone under 21 to drink freely, but putting such steep restrictions on it will only encourage those underage to get the alcohol through other means and drink irresponsibly with their peers when they can get away with it. This means they'll still get fake IDs to get into clubs and bars and simply have older friends or relatives buy the good stuff from the liquor store to circumvent the provisional license restrictions on purchasing.
If you ask me, the better way to approach it is to simply lower the drinking age to 18. Why have some freedoms and responsibilities at that age and not have others? If you make drinking legal at 18, less teenagers will see it as one of those desirable taboos, as it won't be as taboo for as long.
I grew up in Belfast (legal age 18) and the kids who weren't going to finish school (the 'cool' kids) all started drinking at about 13 or 14. They also immediately went for vodka and coke and tasty drinks instead of beer which is a bit disgusting to a childish sweet tooth.
Then I moved to the Netherlands. Sensibly it's legal to drink beer and wine at 16, but for anything stronger you have to be 18. Most kids start on beer and develop a taste for it, rather than getting straight into the hard stuff. By the time they're 18 and can legally drink whisky or whatever they're happy to keep drinking beer with their mates, they know their limits, and if it's not enough they'll just go roll a joint. Legally. If that makes them throw up, they all have a laugh and don't mix beer and weed any more. What's so evil about the process of young people trying stuff and learning their own limits that it should be banned and they should be thrown in jail?
I have a class D drinking license. It qualifies me for single malt scotches, small-batch bourbons, and Belgian beers.
As a designated buzzkill, I feel obligated to point out (at every opportunity) that consuming toxic substances is not something anyone should be doing at all anyway. I see no reason to create an elaborate license system for stupidity.
I actually somewhat admire the hard line US law has to drugs.
or we could just try all minding our own business
In my province it's 19 and even that seems absurd when absolutely everyone is expected to start drinking at 16. Expected. Because that's when you get your driver's license, start working summers/part time, and are old enough to look like your sister's old ID.
Although the idea seems like perhaps an okay bandage to the culture of binge drinking, it's very naive to think that it would really change anything. As much as adults want to spare children the challenges they went through, kids are always going to have to try for themselves to find their own balance. The most well-adjusted drinkers I know are know are the ones whose parents let them drink wine with dinner when they and didn't deny that underage drinking happens and talked about how to find your limit and staying within it, offered to drive them home from parties if they were drunk, that sort of thing. The hardest drinkers I know are the ones whose parents binged when they were younger or have a moral opposition to alcohol and tell their kids to never drink.
I also agree with ZUZU, when I say "binge drinking" I mean getting puke-drunk every day of every weekend, Thurs/Fri/Sat night, not going to a party/club/bar once a weekend and stopping once you're good and happy like most my socially adjusted peers. The media just likes the hype of the big numbers, and I'd make a bet that "amount drunk in a month" is a normal bell curve like most other things.
So much for chemotherapy then. Or all medicines, for that matter.
Not to mention fried foods, refined sugar, red meat, grapefruit juice. Plus, pumping your own gas, painting your house, using a soldering iron and lead-based solder...
Unless you're Ray Kurzweil, everything is toxic to some degree and will eventually kill you.
It's up to each and every individual to decide for his or herself what constitutes an acceptable risk.
As a recently ex-British Teen, I think I had my first drink probably around a New Year when I was 13 and my parents let me have a gin and tonic. It was AWFUL and for two further years, booze held no fascination to me.
So at the after party for my 5th year prom, I headed out with a crate of Grolsch beer, bought for me by my parents. They reasoned that if they bought it for me A) They knew what I was drinking and B)How much I was drinking. While at a party the latter isn't going to hold true, the logic behind this was that if I drank myself into a stupor or hurt myself, it had to be reasonable that I did this on the quantity of booze they bought me.
Factoring in sharing with friends and making crazy cocktails, it wasn't really possible for me to do myself any serious damage.
Sure enough, I drank more than that, spent the next day suffering and to add insult to injury, my mother forced me to attend a days lesson's at school the day after. When you have to stop yourself projectile vomitting in double Maths, you learn your limits very quickly.
So, by introducing me to alcohol and allowing me to make the crucial mistake and experience the consequences, I learned to respect alcohol. It's a great aid to socialising. It's a nice way to relax after a hard days' study at university or a nightmare shift at your weekend job. And as a result of the healthy respect it earned in my youth, I've yet to be arrested for getting into fights, public nudity or any either of the myriad of charges that seem to plague the British youth. Because my parents gave a damn enough to take an interest in my life and make me deal with the consequences of my actions.
Wonder if this kind of thing would work on a wider scale?
Hey, I know two people who have been hospitalized for water intoxication.
Also, cigarettes are an effective (and inexpensive) treatment for Crohn's disease.
Gregory House: I'm giving you a prescription. It’s cheap, which is good because your insurance company won’t pay for it.
Santa: Cojorius?
House: Cigarettes. One twice a day, no more, no less. Studies have shown that cigarette smoking is one of the most effective ways to control inflammatory bowel, plus it’s been established that you look 30% cooler.
Santa: Are you kidding me?
House: About the looking cooler, yeah. The rest is true.
Santa: Isn’t it addictive and dangerous?
House: Pretty much all the drugs I prescribe are addictive and dangerous. The difference with this one is that it’s completely legal. Merry Christmas.
"consuming toxic substances is not something anyone should be doing at all anyway."
Making generalizations like this one about what others should be doing is not something anyone should be doing at all anyway.
& ditto ZUZU #28
Hmm. You'd almost think that people actually started drinking when they are legally allowed to.
I can count on one hand the number of people I know who waited until they were legal, and most of those are still not inclined to drink with any regularity.
Drinking is like sex: changing the laws is likely to have little impact on the actual behavior.
Call me crazy here, but I'm thinking probably, maybe a kids' you know parents and caregivers should like, um, I dunno, teach the fuckin' kid shit.
Damn.
Carborundum's point about Netherlands is one I wanted to make about Spain--and it also indicates how drinking culture differs widely across Europe. Spain has basically the same laws--wine and beer at 16, other alcohol at 18--but more importantly it has a culture that considers drinking as something that accompanies eating and really frowns on public drunkenness.
Most people get introduced to wine and beer in their teens, and it seems to make a real difference in attitudes. Alcohol is not some forbidden substance to be tried in secret and in quantity. Not that alcoholism isn't a problem. People worry about "pubs," establishments that primarily serve liquor, and are a relatively new form of business. During the time I lived in Spain, I learned to have something to eat with a drink, and that drinking was meant to promote conviviality, not drunkenness. I mostly stay out of bars in the U.S. because I can't get something to eat and people are too serious about drinking.
My son was 14 when my Spanish father-in-law brought out a small bottle of beer (1/5 liter) for him at lunch. My wife and I wondered out loud, but her father said, well, he's a man now, let him drink beer. There isn't the moral obsession about drinking we have in the States, and I find that mostly a very positive thing.
OTOH a license won't give you the kind of cultural change that is needed. Doing away with the heavy moralizing about drinking, changing the situations where drinking occurs and the way we behave when we drink in the U.S. won't be easy to change.
Much of this is already true in various parts of the world. The Wikipedia page on the subject has a useful list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age I'm particularly fond of countries that differentiate between the public and private drinking age, and those that take into consideration whether or not one is drinking with a meal.
I do like the idea of the American legal drinking age and driving age being swapped. This isn't surprising, though. I'm twenty-five years old and I've never driven a car, but I'm holding a cocktail right now.
Many Americans seem to think that it's normal to have a drinking age of 21. They may be aware that there are a few other countries with a more enlightened attitude, but very few of us seem to be aware of the fact that, except for the handful of countries with absolute prohibition, we have the highest legal drinking age in the entire world.
If I had my druthers I'd put it back to 18 and not bother with a stupid license. Alas, in this as in so many other things, I don't get my druthers.
(Note: I adopted the nickname "ethanol" because I was a chemistry major in college, not because I'm a particular fan of the stuff; I rarely drink. I simply believe 18-year-olds are adults and ought to be treated that way.)
I can't speak for any other cultures, but I sort of doubt this sort of program would be effective in the US. I'm 21, and I'm about to graduate from Stanford, which has an extensive mandatory alcohol education program. When I first came here, I had to attend an hour-long skit thing about drinking/drugs/STDs along with every other incoming freshman in our main campus auditorium, and then the next day each dorm had a mandatory meeting where people had to discuss alcohol safety. The next year, they implemented an online alcohol education program, where you had to read stuff and then answer questions, and you had to pass it before you moved into the dorms. Also keep in mind this is supposed to be one of the best schools in the country, with students who are supposed to be very responsible and driven.
But guess what? People still don't drink responsibly whatsoever. Our "Senior Pub Nights" were cancelled for a while because the bus company refused to business with Stanford, as they were losing too much money cleaning the vomit out of the buses after every single pub night. When I studied abroad in England, alcohol was forbidden in the Stanford dorms, despite the fact that we were all over 18, which is the legal drinking age there. The janitorial staff had said they would quit because they were sick of cleaning up vomit (and other alcohol-related messes) every day.
In my experience, alcohol education seems absolutely necessary, but seems to do basically nothing. I have no idea how to move toward solving that problem.
Rather than graduated drinking licences or whatever, the Yanks could just lower their drinking age from "absurd" to 18 or 19 like the rest of the world... but that would be too easy.
Of course, I learned to drink on my first solo backpacking trip to Europe at 18, a year before I was legal back home in Soviet Canuckistan. Good German beer spoiled me for cheap crap, too. Now I barely drink because I can't support my alcohol snobbery!
@24: Don't know if it's still in place, but Germany had rules like this when I was an exchange student there in 2001. It was legal to drink in a private home with your guardian's permission; legal to drink beer in a restaurant at 14; legal to go to a bar at 16 (so at least there are adults around); legal to buy wholesale beer and wine at 18; legal to buy wholesale hard stuff at 21.
Driving age is 18, though most of the students I knew weren't planning on getting licenses anytime soon.
Which is another point: how much of the American problem is a problem with booze, and how much is a problem with the lack of public transportation?
Here in Sweden we have different drinking and buying ages. At 18 you're allowed to drink in bars and buy the 3.5% strength beer that's the strongest you can get in grocery stores, and at 20 you are allowed to shop at the alcohol monopoly stores.
Not sure what it does compared to other systems, since there's a lot of drinking going on from 14 or so. Plenty of moonshine and bootleg vodka to go around.
There's one thing about bars that I can say, though, and that is that though the drinking age is 18 establishments are allowed to set higher age limits, and when you get older you'll most likely prefer the places that only admit people over 21 or 23. There might be some conclusions to be drawn from that.
Up to a point, I think it's an intriguing idea. I agree that one of the problems with the 18-20 y.o. crowd drinking is that it's perceived as being "cool" and taboo.
Case in point, in Texas, it is legal for a parent/guardian to serve their child/ward alcohol in a private home or - if the restaurant will allow - they can even buy the "kid" a drink in a restaurant. Before I went to Europe when I was 16, my parents made alcohol freely accessible to me at home, so long as they were at the house.
All of a sudden, the crazy - I mean REALLY stupid - partying I'd been doing with my friends seemed pointless, because I could drink at home and not risk getting arrested or having to lie to my parents about why I had to crash at a friend's house. As a consequence, when I turned 21, it was no big deal.
I'm a moderate drinker, these days - at least IMHO - and yet my boss and I once took a Wall Street Journal questionnaire that deemed us both raging alcoholics - because I have 4 drinks in one night ONCE PER WEEK if that often. But maybe I just think that's ridiculous because I can handle my liquor...
I'm european. I had my first drink when I was 12. A glass of wine at dinner.
I've never vomited, driven or got into fights while drunk.
Responsible drinking is something you learn from the culture you were brought up in.
Like the english, most americans learn drinking is for getting shit faced. Not for the flavour or because it goes well with the food.
In New Zealand the drinking age was lowered from 20 to 18 at the end of 1999 (two months before I turned 18!). We have a real problem here with binge drinking. Recent studies show that people start binge drinking around age 14. Young women are drinking as much as young men which their bodies can't handle. First year university students can go absolutely nuts on drinking binges several times a week - for those in the dorms it's the first year out of home and the first year they can buy alcohol. We have co-ed dorms here so there's a lot of sex and violent fights going on too - I have a friend who was a RA in the dorms and the stories she told me after every weekend were shocking. The ambulance got called out most weeks, sometimes the fire engine.
In 1999 I thought lowering the age was good - it definitely was timely for me. Now I think it should go back. It's not going to fix everything, but it might do something.
I have to say it's a VERY bad idea. While most people could and would benefit from such a scheme, there are those, that when implementing this idea, would end up in dire and tragic circumstances. As an alcoholic, I know that for me to have been of legal drinking age at, say, 18, I probably would have been killed or at best died at an early age. Being young also brings with it the attitudes ( bullet proof), (It can't happen to ME,) etc. and physical abilities to carry such self indulgent behavior off. So it would no doubt enable those with such a disposition, to kill themselves earlier and quicker. I know, I'm going to catch a lot of heat over this one, but I'm an alkie, and most of you aren't. Therefore you couldn't possibly understand. But trust me, I'm right. And I'm not going to back down from this one. Thanks for listening.
Here in the UK, the system is similar:
Legal drinking age is 18- when you can buy and drink whatever you like, whenever you like. However:
At 16, you can buy beer or wine (or various other things, but not spirits) with a meal.
At 14, your parents can buy you beer or wine with a meal in a restaurant.
There's practically no age restriction on whether you can drink alcohol- it's illegal to give alcohol to a child under 5 except on a doctor's orders, but no-one would!
Incidentally, voting age is 18. You can start learning to drive at 17, and get your full license as soon after that as you can pass the test, which is the hardest in the world. You can join the army at 16 (with your parents' permission), but can't be deployed until you're 18. 18 is also where restrictions on what movies you're allowed to watch end, and the age to buy cigarettes (that was 16 until last year).
The thing about the drinking age is money, court systems make money off it, Minor in possession, Minor in consumption, buying alcohol for a minor they have just passed a new law ( like we need any more) that a parent can be fined and jailed for buying alcohol for their child.
At 18 you can ....
Vote
Drive a car
Pay taxes
Own property
Serve in the military
talk about your risk taking behavior.
Star in a adult movie
During a program on the adult film industry they interview a young woman a 18 yr old rising star who commented how odd it was she was doing what she was doing and couldn't buy a beer.
Welcome to the Totolatarian States of America where inspite of the failiure of
prohabition if a buck can be made off
outlawing it the powers that be will
ban it in return for a campain contribution.
Therefore you couldn't possibly understand what it's like to drink, and even "binge drink", responsibly.
Not to mention that most people aren't alcoholics. Why should everyone accept curtailed freedoms that would, at best, "protect" a minority of people who are unable to control themselves?
Don't make your problem into everybody's problem.
@46 You're an alcoholic, your opinion doesn't count...
Just kidding, but unfortunately that's the way the majority of people see it. I come from a family that's been decimated by alcoholism, and I'm one of the lucky few who has escaped by not drinking at all, so I definitely understand what you're saying.
It's a real shame, people suffering from alcohol addiction don't have a voice in our society. Conventional wisdom falsely tells everyone that only weak people get addicted, so people drink. Then the ones who realize that conventional wisdom is wrong, that anyone can become addicted, are automatically discounted because everyone else thinks they must be a weak person.
Both my parents were alcoholics, yet somehow I manage to have a glass of wine every night and not become one. I live in a town where people come to get sober. There's a very strong perception that being an addict is a god-given, fate-spawned, genetically determined state of being. I don't buy it for one second. It's an excuse for not taking responsibility for your own life.
I have two friends in recovery who have a three year-old. One says to the other, "He's bound to grow up to be an addict because we passed it on to him." I'm sure they will pass it on to him, but not genetically. They'll pass it on to him because they've already decided that he's incapable of controlling his urges.
A neat idea, that would fail miserably in practice due to practical reasons. In execution and enforcements this would have more holes than a colander used as shotgun target practice.
The most obvious: it's illegal to purchase alcohol in the U.S. under the age of 21, yet I've been drinking since I was 15 and drinking responsibly with regularity since I was 16 or 17. I'm 21 now (and, amusingly, sipping my first cocktail in a month). License or not folks are going to get drunk if they want to get drunk.
Responsibility is only partially something that can be taught. It also has elements in the personality of the individual. Education can help, but an irresponsible person is still going to drink irresponsibly.
Also, don't you think any curriculum for specialized alcohol education in the U.S. and many other places is going to be fundamentally flawed? The drug education curriculum is, more often than not, tailor-made to prompt youth to ignore and defy its lessons. A quarter of what is said is usually lies, both intentional and unintentional, and after realizing that students are inclined to assume their educators are idiots (as they sometimes are) and brush off the lessons entirely. A student of these alcohol instruction classes is most likely to pay attention at the bare minimum level to pass the exam and forget their entire experience within a month.
I'm a peer health educator at a "large North Western university" and we're already trying to do Harm Reduction Education.
Our entire greek system is required to have an alcohol education presentation at least once a year, so we're already reaching a few people, but not nearly the majority of our campus. We try and do a lot of the things you suggested in your idea of having an alcohol training course i.e. telling people how to drink responsibly, still have fun and not get hurt. People trained to educate about alcohol saftey already exist, we're just trying to reach more people. It's terribly hard to get fundign for harm reduction.
I think it's important that this debate should't be so much about what the legal drinking age is and more about how we inform those who are drinking about minimizing the inherant risks of drinking.
In my experience, no matter what you set the legal drinking/purchasing/whatever age to be, those not yet at that age will find a way to get alcohol if they so desire. More importantly, if the alcohol education system is giving an abstinence only speach, don't drink ever, we're going to have a lot of uninformed unsafe drinkers out there putting us all at risk. We need to reform how we talk about alcohol before we change the age limit.
@51 "There's a very strong perception that being an addict is a god-given, fate-spawned, genetically determined state of being. I don't buy it for one second. It's an excuse for not taking responsibility for your own life."
Yeah man! Just like "schizophrenia", "depression", and "cancer". Friggin slackers.
mmmmmmm.... having entertained many addictions I can say there is something to what the Philentropist avers. On the other hand, is not the process of living just an ongoing struggle of our will against our genes?
@54 Exactly! "Drinking responsibly," to use Antinous's phrase, means understanding the risks and benefits, making informed choices, and accepting the consequences. It doesn't mean denying the risks and automatically assuming you're a stronger person than those who, having taken the same risks, haven't fared as well.
If there's anything I've learnt from the 20th century, it's that you can't fix these kinds of problems with legislation, licensing, EULAs, Terms-of-service, litigation, special powers, prohibition, winning-hearts-and-minds or smugness.
Tak: "...is not the process of living just an ongoing struggle of our will against our genes?"
Or is it our genes versus the social behavior that women impose on us? Somewhere on the X leg that our Y's are lacking lie the genes of social behavior, or so I've heard.
On topic, when I hitchhiked to Denver in '69, we went to a "3.2" bar, where 18-year olds could drink diluted beer. Maybe there are some stats available from what was learned in Denver?
@ Sea Daddy
I'm curious as to your stance on simply not having a drinking age.. I think I agree with that stance simply because I feel that withholding something from teenagers is what gives it its 'mystique' or whatever that makes it so important in North American culture... If that mystique or whatever you want to call it is never built up in the first place, I think (theorize is actually a better word) that people would be less likely to develop poor drinking habits and might be less likely to become alcoholics.
Then again I could just be naive. What do you think?
what about parenting responsibly? just because we can procreate does not mean we should. perhaps we should have licenses for procreation. do we want stupid people having babies? then again...stupid is a relative term. being drunk is not. and randomness can lead to stupid couples giving birth to new genius. though drunkenness can lead to stupid people killing geniuses.
there should be a drunk driving test. it could be another class of license. discuss.
Drinking at 16, driving at 18. Period.
LaurenO
I never would have guessed you were 21. Well played :)
To most all that referred to my post:
We alkies have to take the responsibility for our actions, good or bad. And the parenting thing is spot on as well. You have to lay it out for them and let them see ALL of what it's done, using yourself as an example, and let them make up their own mind. If you have done you job as a parent even halfway right, they will make the correct choices,FOR THEM. I never said anything about drinking age because in real life, it's irrelevant. They will start at whatever age they start at, if they start at all. And Zuzu, quit being a self centered ass, and go take your Xanax, you troll!
One major reason why it's a bad idea to lower the drinking age is that the *actual* age people have access to alcohol is a few years earlier than the *legal* age at which they can buy. Mainly because people distribute booze to their underage friends.
I.e., if you can buy booze at 18, you can bet your ass that 18 year olds (or 16 year olds with fake ids) are going to be throwing parties or just buying booze for younger kids and profiting. However, when you turn 21, it is creepy and lame, socially, to be hanging out with kids in high school, so you'll mainly be buying booze and throwing parties for college kids 18-21.
Thus, I would actually support, if anything, lowering the drinking age for people to buy booze in places where they have to drink on the premises and can't resell to younger folks.
Architexas @ 43:
You just described my teen years and alcohol education, although mine took place in New York state, and the drinking age was 18 then. My parents made alcohol available to me beginning in limited amounts at age 14, and culminating in complete permission at age 16 to drink at my own pace, at home, provided at least one of them was home with me. I remember doing homework while drinking sangria (got good grades, too). My parents even took me to a nightclub with them once, when I was 17. (It was a work function for my father's office; my parents weren't really the nightclubbing type. I just happened to be along because I'd been invited to the dinner beforehand.)
On my 18th birthday, I went out partying with a bunch of my friends. Of the crowd of us, two were still sober at the end of the night: my best friend (who drove) and me. I'd had all of perhaps three drinks that night, because it was simply not a big deal to get drunk "celebrating" my ability to do so legally.
Oops, that should have read "...available to me in limited amounts at age 13..."
You _used_ to be able to drink 3.2% alcohol beer at age 18 in Ohio. You had to wait until 21 for anything stronger. Blame MADD for the rigid standardization.
My grandma's idea was that 16 year olds (we're in Canada; 18 or 19 is the drinking age) should be allowed to buy liquor in liquor stores but not at the bar. She figured this would allow them to "practice" getting drunk so they didn't lose all sense of reasonableness when at the bars...
Seems like a great idea to me.
p.s. to all you Americans horrified by lowering the age below 20: sheesh. It works here just fine.
I think any kind of testing system is fraught with problems.
For example, I took my LSAT's, scored in the top 20th percentile, and couldn't get into Harvard Law.
Yet, I took a breathalyzer test, failed miserably, and still made it into DUI school.
So what does that say about tests?
"It's up to each and every individual to decide for his or herself what constitutes an acceptable risk."
A noble sentiment rendered invalid when taking said risks impacts the lives of others, as is frequently demonstrated in police stations and emergency rooms.
GREAT IDEA.
Although I haven't read every single post above but I don't see anyone pointing out the small chunk of genius here:
Will 18-->20 year olds voluntarily take a half-day course on alchohol in order to acquire said alchohol legally prior to turning 21?
Hell yeah!
I'd bet that if you did a test-vs-control, you'd also find that the correct course would result in huge decreases of alchohol-related fatalities and other problems (particularly a course that dispels myths such as "walking it off" or that chugging a pint of Vodka won't kill you).
But the genius here is getting kids to WANT to take that course so that they can get their hands on some booze.
I've told both my sons that if something is going to prevent them from reaching their potential in their lives and careers, it'll probably be alcohol- a self-imposed curse on man. Neither of them drinks. Smart kids.
We've already seen that outlawing liquor didn't make it go away. I firmly believe that if we were to legalize marijuana, a lot of lives (including innocent lives) would be saved, and there would be a lot less emotional and physical abuse in this world.
Tak: "...is not the process of living just an ongoing struggle of our will against our genes?"
Or is it our genes versus the social behavior that women impose on us? Somewhere on the X leg that our Y's are lacking lie the genes of social behavior, or so I've heard.
I like how in this view of the world, "the process of living" is unique to men. I also like how men don't have to act in socially acceptable ways because they conveniently lack the genes for it.
Lauren, I was surprised to hear this too. But think about it. If you had a laboratory full of babies and raised them all the same, the little girls would play house and the little boys would play war games. The girls would teach manners, and the boys would race and rassle and make things. That's who we are. Of course there are exceptions- we're way too neurotic to be very predictable.
My son went to a prom tonight. Do you think HE thought to bring breath mints, a hanky, or get her a corsage? "Tell her she's beautiful, open doors for her, don't be crude, and mind your manners!" We banged into his head.
Lauren, we need you. Mankind would be anarchy without your extra (chromosomal) leg. Weird, huh?
When I was back in high school that's when they started switching states here in the U.S. from 18 to 21, at least those that were still at the drinking age of 18, in California we had had a 21 drinking age as long as I could remember.
Gee how did the U.S. government get the states to switch to 21...withhold federal highway money. Take away a States money, they lift up their skirts like any $60 dollar prostitute, pass whatever law they are asked to, then hold out their hands for the money. Those laws weren't changed because they had the better interest of 18-20 year old's in mind, they changed them because of $$$, the almighty dollar.
To be honest though at least in the 80's the 21 age limit was a joke at least for me. I never had a fake ID but I was never asked for ID when I bought alcohol. I would drink beer with lunch before going back to class, buy alcohol at the grocery store without being carded or at various liquor stores around where I live in Seal Beach and Long Beach California.
Now at the age of 41, everyone has such an I.D. fetish, I get carded going into bars and clubs. I've been denied entry to bars I've been to hundreds of times because I didn't have my I.D. on me. It's pretty freaking funny and sad.
Seriously though the whole point is moot at least in my area. Kid's can buy weed so much easier than buying alcohol nowadays, it makes the legal drinking age of 21, 18, or 16 pretty irrelevant.
Fine keep em away from the booze, they're already smoking the green.
As a 20-year-old, I would love the idea of a license encouraging responsible drinking. However, I imagine the logisitics of implementing something like that would be incredible - how do we keep the liquor store from selling nachos and calling itself a restaurant, for example?
However, in my ideal universe, I'd enjoy a system that allowed younger people to drink a limited amount in restaurants or other events if, say, accompanied by someone of age. Like a learner's permit. What this would encourage was 'good' drinking behavior, such as having a beer or two with dinner. Unfortunately with the 21 drinking age this is exactly the sort of behavior that is impossible (restaurants almost always card), while it is absolutely trivial for an underage college student to obtain a handle of liquor.
Yes, yes, yes, let us further establish blind administrations over victim-less consensual behaviors. Next point of order: cholesterol licenses, birth-control rations, and appropriate media access cards. Luckily, these pre-approved allowances can reside in the Universal Implant (easier for the paper-hats to enforce).
I, for one, welcome the new masters, who limit the range of knowledge, experience, and destiny, of non-represented groups. People not like me must be stopped!
If you had a laboratory full of babies and raised them all the same, the little girls would play house and the little boys would play war games. The girls would teach manners, and the boys would race and rassle and make things.
I'm not going to threadjack any further after this, but suffice it to say that this is demonstrably false. My sister and I were raised as normal little girls by conservative parents, and we didn't play house. We pretended to be wolves and "rassled." We didn't teach manners. We refused to learn them, and were implored by our father many times to "act like young ladies" well into our teens, whereupon he gave up. Somehow our double X chromosomes didn't make our behavior into feminine stereotypes! And there are plenty of tomboys in the world disproving your point as we speak! Weird, huh?
Back to drinking age: I rather like the idea mentioned in this thread several times of a law that lets your parents buy you alcohol in restaurants. My sister is still underage and tries this while with my mom in restaurants all the time, and they always card her and refuse her alcohol. Do they think she's going to drink herself into the hospital with her mom right there, able to cut off drinks at any point?
Does anyone have statistics that compare alcoholism in the US to alcoholism in countries with laws like that (and similar aforementioned ones that let you buy beer at a younger age than hard liquor, etc)? What about the UK (no such laws, drinking age is 18) vs. the US (no such laws, drinking age is 21)? It'd be interesting to know how accurate our anecdotal conjectures about going overboard at 21 or being tempted by forbidden fruit actually are.
You are kidding right?
You want an already overly invasive government involved in our lives even more? No offense but that idea is just awful.
I live in Australia, and as some have mentioned, Alcohol is an 18+ deal here. I certainly drank before I was 18, and certainly expelled the contents of my stomach more than once.
It didn't deter me as such, but I wasn't keen for another skinful for quite some time after each, well let's call it what it is, binge.
Just before I turned 18 I moved interstate and went off to university. I lived in college style accommodation. Drinking was just what everyone did, so it was what I did too. My experience of 11/9/01 was sitting with about 9 other people in a room, staring at a TV drinking beer all night. Once again, I lost my dignity on more than one occasion. That didn't deter me either.
What really deterred me was when I took a job at a nightclub, where I saw what alcohol did to people through sober eyes. The one lasting image I took from that job was seeing ***squeamish people, look away now*** cleaning up after a guy sitting with the arms of his polyester suit in a mixture of his own vomit, which had the sweet stench of coconut rum and pineapple juice, and a fresh coconut rum and pineapple juice ***end squeamish part***. The worst part of it was that either he was oblivious to his situation, but still managed to sing along to Khe Sanh (other Australians will understand). It's an image that I can still vividly recall, and it's that image that keeps me from overindulging to this day (about 5 years ago)
I still very much enjoy a drink or two, especially a glass of whisky or a wine with a meal, but that's just what it is now, a drink or two. I had all the education about alcohol one could get, but decided that i'd do as I pleased. I never did anything I seriously regret under the influence, but I'm glad I had that moment. The fact that my current job requires me to have a blood alcohol level of 0.00% helps too.
I guess my point is that I don't think the minimum drinking age has much to do with it, give young people independance and money and a lot of the time it will go on booze. It doesn't help if the country has a very strong drinking culture.
That job also landed me with my wife, but that's another story for another day.
Sounds like a revival in part of the Raines Law (no relation), a New York state pre-Prohibition Blue Law (Sabbath business restriction) turn-of-the-last-century (1896) attempt to reduce liquor sales by limiting it to hotels and restaurants on Sundays.
Like many well-intentioned laws, this became of "law of unintended consequences," reportedly promoting prostitution in convenient-to-the-bar "hotel" rooms and leading to the display of inedible mock "brick sandwiches" to allow bars to call themselves restaurants and serve drinks.
@Oxling, above, foresees a repeat of this under such a new law. However, I could imagine a parallel set of unanticipated social side effects of the proposed "drink only with someone older than you" alternative.
I enjoy studying such laws and the human behaviors they induce to gain insights into the limits of effective regulation in a representative democracy, as well as an ongoing celebration of the spirit of human creativity in response to legal oppression.
It's a paradox - there's plenty of evidence that drugs and alcohol, etc. can and do damage some people, and that others can manage themselves without much of a problem.
This BBC recent interview with a London doctor highlights some cases he'd dealt with in a typical week http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8083763.stm
You can sense the frustration of someone who's trained to save lives having to deal with preventable illnesses and deaths due to alcohol - Oppression isn't then the right word to describe attempts to ban drugs and control drinking age.
As far as I'm concerned it's well intentioned but not the exactly right way to go about it.
I certainly do agree with phasing in alcohol, it's just I don't think this does it well enough.
1) No drinking age per se. A parent/guardian (or reasonable proxy thereof) should be allowed to serve alcohol to sober minors. This would have to be direct service, not simply making it available, so the adult knows just how much the minor has & has had. This would include ordering it for them in a restaurant--bars would still be age-restricted.
2) At maybe 16 a sober minor would be allowed to order one drink as part of a meal. Perhaps 2 drinks at 18.
The basic differences are a requirement that it only be served to those who appear sober (as in 0 BAC) and that parents can permit supervised drinking.
Today, I am 35 years old and probably consume less than 1 beer a week on average, but I've had a long history of drinking since I was 15 years old.
I started drinking heavily when I was 15 years old. Before I was 16, it was not uncommon for me to drink 15-20 beers on a weekend night. By the time I was 17, I was going to bars and drinking on a regular basis on the weekends. The drinking age was 21, but none of the people I knew ever had any troubles getting beer or liquor.
We drank every nearly every weekend. We even got caught several times, by both the cops and our parents. The cops never did more than take away the booze and my parents only grounded me and didn't allow me to go out on the weekends for a few weeks. Which didn't stop me from sneaking out the window after they went to bed.
This wasn't just my group of friends, we would go to parties and find 100's of friends from other schools drinking just as much. Many smoked pot or did other drugs, instead of, or while drinking as well.
If you have a teenage son or daughter, my guess is that there is a 40% chance they are drinking or using drugs on a fairly regular basis.
Having a law that regulates underage drinking, rather the prohibiting it makes perfect sense. Since so many people are doing it anyways, it crazy not to try and regulate and educate, rather the prohibit it.
Although this isn't exactly the same, it's sort of like the schools or churches that preach about abstinence and never teach the kids about condoms or other types protection.
The schools teach that it's illegal and kids shouldn't drink, but they see their parents and older kids/graduates drinking and partying and having a great time. It's just a matter of time until they ignore the laws and experiment with their own friends.
Kids need to be taught the importance of having a designated driver and the dangers alcohol abuse. When growing up, I gave myself sever cases of alcohol poisoning twice before I learned how much was safe to drink. I could have died, because I didn't feel it was safe to talk to my parents about the cause of the illness.
In my case, A law wouldn't made it any more legal to drink, because my parents were strictly against it, but at least I would have had the education and a safe place to consume alcohol, rather than driving around with friends or in other dangerous situations.
This is just one more law we don't need. Why complicate a simple thing?
Funny joke: You are insane, I am eccentric.
Sad comment on humanity: You are irresponsible. I am responsible.
In Virginia, before the 21 age limit everywhere, the deal was beer served in an open container, by a waiter, waitress or bartender, take away beer at 19 or 20, and harder stuff at 21. Then and now - All the liquor stores are state run and establishments serving alcohol have to make at least 50% of their revenue from food.
It worked pretty well, because it allowed colleges and military bases to serve (and control) the drinking of the 18-21 year old crowd.
I know from talking to kids in my home town that high school drinking went up when the age went up, because everyone knew they weren't going to wait until 21, so why not start now? Whereas, we were only waiting to 18, which was senior year for most people. Seniors really dumped on underclassmen for drinking - that was THEIR privilege, not yours.
Troofseeker,
Your views on gender-determined behavior are consistent with someone who's never traveled outside the developed world. Or the midwest, for that matter.
It seems a little unrealistic to expect people to wait untill they're 21 before they start drinking, or to follow such regulations such as a drinking exam. (Not going into how difficult these plans would be to enforce and how they would disadvantage foreign students or people with learning disabilities) Why can't the age just be lowered to 18 like in Britain?
Lauren (and others):
Check your local laws. As another poster has already pointed out, there are laws on the books in the US about parents/guardians being allowed to serve alcohol to minors.
In Illinois, for example, it is legal for me to allow my children to drink alcohol in a private setting (home, house of worship, wedding celebration, etc.) under my supervision.
I forget what the law says about allowing them to drink alcohol at the table if we are out at a restaurant. I know that they are not allowed to sit at a bar directly, but can be at a "bar" establishment if they are at a table with a parent/guardian and there is food service available (whether or not we are ordering food is irrelevant).
I still don't understand how someone can be allowed to vote , serve in the army ( by choice or by force ) at the age of 18, yet to purchase alcohol they must be 21.
Personally, I think that the age should be lowered. People in other countries are far more responsible than those in the US, because there isn't this forced 'underground' concept to drinking. Nor is there a 'dam' of the desire to go out and publicly drink that builds up for years.
However, if the drinking age stays 21, the government should raise the age to vote and join the military to 21 as well.
The notion that someone is responsible enough at 18 to carry a machine gun with their finger on the trigger, but not responsible enough to drink, is fucking moronic.
As a 20 year old college student, naturally I agree the drinking age should be lowered to 18. Not because I want to be able to drink legally, but because it's a huge waste of time. I also live an a college town where every week 10-15 18 to 20 year olds show up on the police blotter as being fined for underage consumption or possession. The friends I have that drink heavily, 21 or otherwise, always have. The law doesn't make an ounce of difference and causes trouble for otherwise good, responsible students who want to go have fun with their 21+ friends. The students I know who are going out, getting way too drunk, and causing trouble have no correlation to a certain age. Some people are just people of excess and poor self-control, whether they're 18 or they're 21.
Additionally, as a legal adult it is my right to make my own decisions in regards to my own body. Drunk driving laws I understand protect other people from drunks, but laws that try to protect of-age citizens from themselves? If I can go to prison, be drafted, star in pornography, vote, and pay taxes like the rest of the adult populous, then I feel I deserve the same rights. It's a ridiculous notion that I am theoretically responsible enough to die for my country, but not responsible enough to consume a beer.
ANTI: "Your views on gender-determined behavior are consistent with someone who's never traveled outside the developed world. Or the midwest, for that matter."
A.) those are not necessarily my views. Just something I read that I find interesting.
B.) true, not much international travel, but I've been shot at, left for dead, beaten, jailed, robbed of everything, washed out to sea, lost in the desert, homeless, I've slept in gutters, parks and alleys, been a corporate president, a pastor, founded rescue missions, a published artist and cartoonist, editor, publisher, surfer, drug dealer, scam artist, hippie, musician, hitchhiker, I've been bitten by an alligator, a lion and a rattlesnake, I'm a good father and a loving husband. Does anything here count as experience? Or has my insignificant life been in a bubble, because I've never been to Paris?
C.) I'm not mid-western.
Even if you took a rocket to the moon, you'd still be launching from a very narrow view of reality. Gender-based behaviors are not so obvious in societies where both women and men do hard physical labor to survive. We had both lady and gentleman Sherpas working as porters in the Himalayas, and it was the ladies who set the gentleman's shoes on fire while he was napping in them.
Anti, if you just can't resist judging the breadth of my view of reality, please factor in that I really am quite a feminist. I never said girls should stick to their dollies- I hate that mindset. I applaud women advancing into male dominated fields, like engineering and politics.
My wife is an example of the women you describe. She'll grab the other end of the couch, or six bags of groceries, and never uses being a girl as an excuse to get out of hard work.
I understand your being defensive, but I'm on your side. I just wonder if women are better equipped to maintain domestic order. It has always been true in my 'narrow band of experience'.
79:
"I'm not going to threadjack any further after this, but suffice it to say that this is demonstrably false. "
Lauren, maybe I'm imagining things or giving the guy too much credit, but I could have sworn that what you're reacting to is this thing that Earth humans call "sarcasm."
Oh, edked, if only you were right...
@Troofseeker
I will place no judgement on your experiences or their breadth at this time but you might do well to be reminded that the entirety of your experience, no matter how broad, does not necessarily reflect the truth of a generalization such as you appear to be making. All of your experience, is not ALL of experience and in this particular case it seems clear that your experiences are not indicative of any truth outside their own limited context. That is, while your position may be reflective of your experiences your generalization of your position does not reflect reality.
Rather than futzing around with a little of this here, a little of that there, can we just standardize everything at a nice round number we can all agree on? It was 21 for centuries, we don't like that any more, 18 seems too young for some people, how about ... TWENTY? Is that simple enough?
Twenty. Congratulations, you can drink, smoke, drive, and fire Howitzers at whoever today's designated enemies are.
Just stop recruiting 18- and 19-year-olds into the military, and most of these "if he can ..." arguments go away. Tell teenagers they can take the bus to and from work, like lots of adults do.
Hello I'm [anonymous in this forum, sorry!] and I'm an alcoholic. A true-blue alcoholic isn't daunted by age restrictions, permits or laws; and the progression into full-blown alcoholism isn't really slowed down by classes, tests or complex drinking restrictions.
Back in the day, I would have wiped my ass with a Student Drinker permit. However, if the curriculum to receive such a license had included some candid discussion of addiction, and even a few attractive role models who had gotten sober, I might have picked up the phone to AA before things went quite so far.
Nevertheless, I have no quarrel with beer wine and liquor. 21 is and always has been an absurdity. At 18 you can be executed; you can die for your country; you can vote. You should be able to drink alcohol, too.
@ #97 - Uh, nope. Read the rest of the thread, maybe pick up one of those sarcasm detectors they had on that one episode of the Simpsons. Or just stop giving the guy too much credit.
Can someone explain to me why when someone is convicted of DUI, we *don't* take away their right to drink as well?
you do when you jail them.
Court mandated rehab. That's one of our biggest local industries.
Anti, Lauren and Lizard guy, I've presented nothing as factual. I just wonder if women are perhaps genetically better disposed to maintaining domestic order, as the core of the family unit. You guys think that's wrong, that there is no difference? That's beautiful! I'm not selling troof; I'm seeking it out. I was just pondering, and hoping someone highly educated, like you, Lizard Man, would enlighten us.
I said "...Or is it our genes versus the social behavior that women impose on us?" Notice how that is a question. "Somewhere on the X leg that our Y's are lacking lie the genes of social behavior, or so I've heard." Notice how I qualified that statement.
In my virual travels via National Geographic, I've seen little girls all over the world holding dollies... wait- maybe it's just selective memory. My mistake. Boys and girls are the same.
i could legaly drink beer at age 16, yes i got drunk, but atleast i was not allowed to drive a car :)
The City of Melbourne could use something like this. The drinking age here is 18 and it hasn't stopped people from acting like idiots. Fortunately for us, handguns are outlawed so the violence is more medieval - beaten to death, stabbed to death...
The Aussie gov't has made a good $$$ off booze - excise taxes are some of the highest in the world. Yet Australians still are the 4th highest per capital drinkers in the world - US, with excise a 1000th as much, are 13th.
@39 Lauren O
"I'm 21, and I'm about to graduate from Stanford, which has an extensive mandatory alcohol education program. When I first came here, I had to attend an hour-long skit thing about drinking/drugs/STDs along with every other incoming freshman in our main campus auditorium"
Here's the first week's events as I remember them at Imperial College London:
Saturday: move in to room. Go to the student union (essentially an on-campus cheap pub) and drink a lot with all the other freshers.
Sunday: A boat party on the River Thames organised by the university. There was a bar, I think I had a token for a free drink.
Tuesday: Department of Computing "Welcome" party. Free party food, and free wine.
Later in the week: various pub crawls, and drinking with the societies I'd joined.
This is, I think, too far the other way. The welcome party was fine, but the rest had a bit too much emphasis on getting drunk. British people don't know how to socialise without getting drunk (and I say that as a Brit). In general, we're more violet and rowdy than other Europeans -- just look at the last day of a British music festival: a trashed festival site, everyone is completely drunk, tents are on fire. I've not seen that anywhere else in Europe.
While the legal age is 18 in the UK, we still have a binge drinking problem...
However what we don't have is anything like a serious attempt to use the law against under age drinkers.
I read of US teens being breathalyzed the morning after a party, undercover teens in clubs to spot under-age drinking and a mother jailed for giving 16 year olds a few beers...
In the UK an occasional shop has its licence revoked for persistently selling to the under age and police sometimes take the cans of beer away.
I have always given my kids a glass of wine at family special occasions since they were 11 or 12 and the odd can of beer etc and the freedom to do that surely helps promote reasonable drinking.
Griff
It's all very well to have arbitary rules in place, but it's only going to get better if the actual attitude to alcohol stops being 'blind drunk is fun and necessary for a night out' and more 'moderation is best and alcohol is NOT A NECESSITY'.
However that would require some responsibility for your own actions and a feeling of shame when you act like an embarassment... things sorely lacking in people nowadays where priviledge to do and feel whatever you like appears to be a way of life.
We need to make special licenses that restrict when and how they may use tobacco (for example, begin with filtered cigarettes before moving onto cigars). This permits a slow introduction to an adult privilege.
We need to make special licenses that restrict when and how they may use pornography (for example, begin with playboy magazines before moving onto videos). This permits a slow introduction to an adult privilege.
We need to make special licenses that restrict when and how they may use sex (for example, begin with masturbation before moving onto intercourse). This permits a slow introduction to an adult privilege.
We need to make special licenses that restrict when and how they may use special licenses. (for example, begin with drivers license before moving onto pilot's license). This permits a slow introduction to an adult privilege.
Now you try one (fill in the blanks):
We need to make special licenses that restrict when and how they may use _____ (for example, begin with _____ before moving onto _____). This permits a slow introduction to an adult privilege.
More restrictions make you safer. And you don't want to feel unsafe, do you?
OK, Troof - I will take you purely on your word as I really don't have much more to say about it in this context except to point out that you should probably take into consideration that in my experience, as well as many others, the phrasing it as a question such as you did is very often (I would throw out a made up statistic of 95% or higher) a disingenuous tactic used by people pushing agendas/views they know are not supported by "real facts". If you say it was simply your intent to raise the question, ok - but the way in which you did so was the way in which some of the worst sexists also choose to promote their agendas.
oh, and I see boys with dollies and girls without every day
I see boys with dollies
It's not a doll!! It's an action figure!
Lizardman - Troof does that a lot. He's what I like to call, inflammatory. Intentionally or not I also can never quite say.
Maybe this is where I lost you: I'm not talking about washing dishes and laundry. I think women, especially mothers, have a propensity to put the needs of others above their own needs. I see it every day, and I suspect it's a 'survival of the species' gene.
A couple receives a $500 tax refund. Mom is thinking that now little Billie can get braces and new shoes. Dad is thinking about a new snow board.
My sister is having a tea party with her dolls. I'm out in the alley where G.I. Joe is fighting dinosaurs until they all catch fire, then King Kong (played by yours truly) attacks and stomps out the fire. Shoes get burned. "Mom, I need new shoes..."
Is it just me?
Adults should definitely have a license to drink, then the government can stop making laws to prevent the 1 out of 100,000 person that f's it up for the rest of us. If you can't drink responsibly then you shouldn't be aloud to drink, no matter how old you are. Drinking is a privileged, not a right.
Drunkenness alone rarely kills anyone, it's combining it with automobiles that really gets you in trouble. Which is why most driver's ed programs have a section on sobriety.
I kind of like the system in place in some European countries, where you can drink wine and beer at a younger age than hard liquor. If you're apt to try binge drinking during youth, it's best to start with something that isn't strong enough to give you acute alcohol poisoning.
Brainy, I quite agree, except that I think the most damage caused is emotional stress and physical damage incurred on loved ones. A visit to a battered womens' shelter makes it painfully obvious.
I remember my father's eyes, bright red, as he swung his fist at my head. I wasn't even late.
@ Troofseeker #119:
Adults who get violent when they drink don't get that way because they don't know the effects of alcohol on their bodies.
Your father sounds like a real bastard, but I doubt that a mandatory drinking class would have made much difference. If you don't learn your lesson after the first time you see a bruise inflicted on a family member during a drunken rage then you're not going to learn it from a textbook either.
You can't license people to do something that is their constitutional RIGHT. that would be light saying that at the age of 18, we'd get a license to vote and only be able to vote at the local level for the first few years, then once we were sure we were doing it right we could be trusted to vote for national offices.
the state can license you to drive because it's a privilege, not a right. i can see why it might be a good thing, but it could do nothing but weaken all the rest of our rights.
Brainspore, my dad was a good man. It was only that one time that he attacked me while drunk. He was an alcoholic, as was Mom, but ours was a peaceful household filled with love. I wish that were true for so many other families that would be but for the drinking.
Classes help, if only because it's humiliating, boring and a major inconvenience. I quit seventeen years ago, on my birthday, puking my guts out, because the punishments were getting too harsh. "That's enough of that." Blah.
Teenagers don't even laugh at this stuff. They couldn't care less. They're not paying attention at all. They don't care much whether you want to kick them and scare them away, or pat them on the head and make them do tricks.
Nobody waits until 21 to start drinking. Either they wait until 21 to start drinking at bars, or they're not interested in drinking at all. Anybody who wants to drink, for any reason, has already been doing so for years.
This is a silly attempt to craft a complicated and pointless "compromise" that doesn't give anybody what they want, and which will neither raise nor lower the age at which anyone starts drinking.
I can tell you if I had to take a class to get into a nightclub when I was 19, instead of simply being barred entirely, I would not have bothered. There are plenty of other places for college kids to party, and the benefit of hanging out in a formerly excluded venue with slightly older people would hardly have been worth the hassle or the patronizing attitude.
102:
Okay, maybe I misread the guy, Lauren, or should I say Captain Overreacty-pants.
Edked- Lauren's quite a gal, huh? I wanna play army with her! Uh... with her on MY side.
Nobody admires strong women more than I. I wish they all had her strength. But they have strengths of their own.
I've seen studies that show what I suggested- that females typically are more domestically inclined than males. But, if in 102 posts not one person agrees, so be it. Hey, I'm a frickin'mutant. Whatta ya 'spect?
In Mexico we had an small glass of cider as part of Xmas celebrations. I must have been 10 or 11 when I got my first taste.
Also drunkenness is not a state to which one is aiming in order "to have fun".
It numbs my senses to hear people in other countries specifically stating that to have fun then need to get as drunk as possible.
Maybe you have to start by changing attitudes about drinking, and the only way to do that is good old fashioned social engineering by a responsible government.