TheAgitator.com
Underage Drinking. And MADD-Bashing.
Wednesday, September 15th, 2004Middlebury College President John M. McCardell, Jr., in yesterday’s New York Times
To lawmakers: the 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law. It is astonishing that college students have thus far acquiesced in so egregious an abridgment of the age of majority. Unfortunately, this acquiescence has taken the form of binge drinking. Campuses have become, depending on the enthusiasm of local law enforcement, either arms of the law or havens from the law.Neither state is desirable. State legislators, many of whom will admit the law is bad, are held hostage by the denial of federal highway funds if they reduce the drinking age. Our latter-day prohibitionists have driven drinking behind closed doors and underground. This is the hard lesson of prohibition that each generation must relearn. No college president will say that drinking has become less of a problem in the years since the age was raised. Would we expect a student who has been denied access to oil paint to graduate with an ability to paint a portrait in oil? Colleges should be given the chance to educate students, who in all other respects are adults, in the appropriate use of alcohol, within campus boundaries and out in the open.
And please - hold your fire about drunken driving. I am a charter member of Presidents Against Drunk Driving. This has nothing to do with drunken driving. If it did, we’d raise the driving age to 21. That would surely solve the problem.
If only the damned anti-alcohol fanatics would listen. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story that casts a better light on the absurdity of hte neoprohibitionist position than any of my rants ever could:
When Gregg Anderson told his parents that he planned to celebrate his senior prom at an all-night beer blast, they were alarmed. Gregg and his pals intended to party at Scarborough Beach, a 40-minute drive from this Providence suburb. Worried that the teens would drink and drive, William and Patricia Anderson came up with a compromise — they invited Gregg and his friends to party in their backyard.On the night of the party, Mr. Anderson stationed himself near the raspberry-colored front door of the four-bedroom house where he’d raised three sons. He read a Michael Connelly novel and collected car keys from his young guests. Then he slipped them into a bureau drawer.
Roughly 35 kids showed up. Some performed “keg stands,” variations on handstands that involve holding beer guzzlers upside-down by their feet, so they can suck beer directly from keg taps. Others downed beer from a 16-inch “yard glass,” which holds about 24 ounces…
…A few days after the party Mr. Anderson was arrested for providing liquor to minors. The charges were later dropped, but the story was picked up by newspapers and radio-talk-show hosts, one of whom dubbed Mr. Anderson the “prom dad.”
…Soon the state began sponsoring radio spots urging parents not to host drinking parties for their children. In February 2004, state legislation was introduced to clamp down on parents and others who “knowingly allow” underage drinking. The bill, which went further than laws in many other states, was supported by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the advocacy group, and pushed hard by Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch. It fell victim to a legislative debate over whether it was too broad. The legislation’s sponsors vow to introduce a revamped version of the bill next year…
…Most antidrinking advocates strongly disagree with the Andersons’ strategy for dealing with the problem. “We want parents to understand that underage drinking is not just kids being kids, or a rite of passage. It is a serious — even deadly — problem,” says Wendy Hamilton, president of MADD…
…The Andersons weighed those risks carefully before agreeing to host what became known around their community as a “key party” for Gregg, their youngest son. They knew that teen drinking in West Warwick was common. In a survey taken during the 2001/2002 school year, about 44% of West Warwick High School students said they’d drunk alcohol in the previous 30 days. Local teens regularly drank beer and wine coolers hidden away in a wooded area near a shopping mall, on nearby beaches or in their homes, according to interviews with students…
…Gregg, now 20 years old and an education major at Rhode Island College, was a pretty typical kid. In high school he played baseball, basketball and football and made spending money umpiring Little League games. He also started drinking on the sly in the ninth grade. “When my parents asked me if I was going to a party, I wasn’t going to say I was going to a party,” he says. But by the time he turned 16, he felt he should be more honest with them. “When I was a junior, I said to my mom, ‘Hey, we really don’t have any place to go. Do you mind if we have a few drinks here?’ ” Concluding that the teens were safer in their living room than someplace else, the Andersons occasionally let Gregg invite a few friends over Friday nights for card games and beer…
…Mr. and Mrs. Anderson set strict guidelines for the party the night of the prom. The kids would have to pitch tents in the backyard and spend the night. Mr. Anderson would lock the back gate and guard the front door. Nobody would be allowed to leave. Gregg says he and his friends arranged for an older acquaintance to supply them with two kegs of beer.
On the morning of the party, Mr. Anderson stopped by the local police station and told the officers on duty of the gathering at his home. “I wanted to be sure there weren’t going to be issues,” he says…
…Using Mr. Anderson as an example, MADD and other antidrinking groups ramped up their lobbying efforts to strengthen state alcohol laws. “Certainly, the Anderson case just confirmed for us that we need to continue to educate the public and change adult attitudes that support underage drinking,” says Brenda Amodei, a public-health official for a division of the Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals.
The groups successfully pushed for a new law requiring that buyers of beer kegs register their names at liquor stores.
Seems to me that MADD’s actions here are far more nefarious than its usual statistical tomfoolery, junk science, and lobbying against common criminal protections for DWI defendants. Here, MADD’s zero tolerance bullshit will mean dead teens.
Changing the legal drinking age to 21 hasn’t stopped college or high school aged kids from drinking. Realizing that, the Anderson parents looked at reality: Either the kids drink in the woods or on the beach or in a motel — then drive home — or they drink at their home, with adult supervision, with their keys out of reach. MADD wants the Andersons punished for looking at the situation as it is, not as MADD would like it to be, and doing the one thing they could do to ensure the safety of their kid and his friends.
This is about as cut and dry as it gets. MADD’s position here isn’t anti-drunk driving. It’s entrenched prohibitionist. Given the facts, they’re pushing for a law that will unquestionably mean more drunk kids behind the wheel, and in all likelihood mean more deaths.
It’s unconscionable. And they ought to be called on it.
If it’s not illegal… it’s not a problem. I would venture to throw down a Namath-like guarantee/challenge that if the drinking age were lowered or abolished all together, you’d find much less alcohol related deaths on college campuses. Just like if gun laws were abolished, crime would go down (http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/aus.html).
I find it sad that Mr. Anderson was made an example since the 35 kids were much safer at his house than at the beach. Such is life of a nice guy doing the right thing, I guess.
Who wants to join Drunks Against Madd Mothers with me???
And Radley… how bout the 2-0 Hoosiers baby!!! We beat a Ranked team!!!
I agree totally. My parents also let me have parties with alcohol at home, and honestly, I think it’s one of the reasons that I’ve never driven drunk - it really drove home to me the fact that driving drunk was so bad that my parents were willing to let me do things they didn’t want me to do, _right under their noses_, rather than take the chance that I’d drink and drive.
In my home we had a similar policy. While drinking was never sanctioned, my mom would pick my friends and I up from parties at any hour with no resulting punishment. However, if it was found that I drove home drunk (which I never did), hell hath no fury…
I’m old enough to remember when New Jersey’s drinking age was 21, and New York’s was 18. Kids were dying in droves after driving over to Staten Island to get hammered, then trying to drive back. NJ unsucessfully lobbied NY to raise their drinking age to 21. When that didn’t work, NJ finally lowered their’s to 18.
This was around the same time that most states lowered their drinking age to 18, to coincide with the voting age being lowered to 18; the rationale being if you were old enough to die for your country, you were old enough to vote (and drink).
This makes sense, and anything else is just foolish. We allow 18-year-olds to get married, sign binding legal contracts, enlist in the armed forces, vote, and about a hundred other “grown-up” things, but when it comes to drinking, we still treat them like irresponsible kids, and then are shocked they act like irresponsible kids.
As far as MADD goes, there’s an old saying “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” I think when it started, MADD was a good idea. At the time, drunk driving was not really taken seriously. Repeat offenders lost their license, and maybe, if they killed someone, went to jail for a little while. However, when DUI laws became more commesurate with the offense, and MADD’s mission was accomplished, they turned into just another bureaucratic organization looking for a rice bowl to protect. As usually happens with causes of this type, they went from an organization that protects people’s rights, to one that infringes upon them.
McCardell is no longer the President of Midd, he retired last year and is now just a professor. Would have been nice if he’d come out on this while still the President, but better late than never.
My wife and have had this very same discussion with regard to our 2 girls (ages 4 and 7 now).
We’re going with having them party at home rather than out in the boonies then driving home.
Of course we are going to teach them to drink responsibly by not prohibiting them from drinking in the first place.
Actually the same exact thing happened at my high school prom (not actually my prom, it was my sophomore year)–a friend’s parents decided everyone would be much safer getting drunk at their house; the parents monitored closely who came and who went and collected keys.
But the cops busted up the party and arrested the mother. They also arrested a bunch of students, I think. And the mother actually had to go to court, and I think pay some very hefty fines.
Drunks Agains MADD Mothers…. Too funny.. How about Drunk Drivers against Mothers? That’ll really tweak them.
An excellent site for this issue is http://www.truebeliever.org.
I too have wondered about why an 18 year old can die for the country, but can’t drink legally.
I’ve also wondered about the religious issue. I’ve been told that in the jewish religion once you’re past your barmitzvah or batmizvah (I think I spelled them correctly, they are the ceremonies celebrating the passing of a boy and girl, respectively, into adulthood, which happens at 13), the jewish religion REQUIRES that you partake of wine at certain times - passover, for instance. These laws presume to deny someone their religious freedom. Note: I am not jewish, but have worked with several (once sharing a cubical for 6 months with one), and they are the source of this information. I have not actually researched it myself, but rather took their word for it.
As far as drinking is concerned, if the restriction can be removed for religious reasons, we’d only need to start worshiping Bacchus, the Roman god of Wine, whose services required the consumption of alcohol. THis would provide protection under the first and 14th amendments.
If they aren’t mature enough to drink, how can they be mature enough to kill and die, and vote for President?
It’s an asinine approach.
MADD
I have long been opposed to the 21 year old drinking age. I think it needs to be lowered to 18 at least. 16 would be ok with me as well, but Iââ¬â¢ll take 18. First I am opposed as…
Interesting. Everyone here just assumes that asking the kids to have a little self-control is out of the question.
This doesn’t stop with kids. Last week in Albuquerque, NM, I got into an argument with the stupid young creature behind the counter at the local 7-Eleven. My computer was down and I had gone in to buy a newspaper to catch up. I saw a sale on a wine I liked and I picked up a bottle. I am 63, gray-haired and have had a stroke, so I don’t drive. I couldn’t produce a driver’s license and didn’t have my passport with me, not expecting to need it as ID. She would not allow me to make the purchase. Now, I have been told I am youthful even by my doctors, but really, gray hair, gray beard and some faint wrinkles and I don’t pass for at least 21? These people should ingest alcohol, not acid. I will not willingly deal with 7-Eleven again, and I will vote against any MADD propositions. Not so incidentally, I began drinking alcohol supplied by my parents and my grandfather when I was 4 years old. He was of German and French parentage and would take me with him to the local tavern for a mid-morning beer, as Germans are wont to enjoy. I would sit up on the bar stool and the barkeep would serve me a small glass of beer. Can you imagine what would happen today if that occurred? I would probably be put in a state home and my parents charged with child abuse, just as a man was recently charged with such for putting insufficient sunblock on his child. I was always allowed a small glass of beer or a small glass of wine on special occasions. Neither I nor my five younger siblings have any kind of drinking problem, nor has the next generation of the family, and they started drinking before their teens at family gatherings, where they were taught how to open wine and even champagne bottles and to discern the quality of the wine — and to drink intelligently. And my cardiologist wants me to continue drinking wine daily. I have some suggestions about the use of a corkscrew for the MADD fanatics.
having a party under the auspices of your parents, after fully involving said parents, is exercising self control.
I, for one, am a conservative and a neo-prohibionist, I guess. I am not in favor of a strict ban, though, but I am largely in favor of very restrictive laws on drinking, and am solidly with MADD on this issue. I totally agree with MADD on the party issue, and would support it to the fullest extent. I think it is irresponsible, immoral, and anti-conservative to be in favor of anything else. I have very strong views against drinking and think moral social conservatives should be up in arms about the drinking culture among our youth and the pro-drinking atmosphere in our laws. The problem isn’t the age–21–its the enforcement. Laws aren’t tough enough on drinking and then drinking and driving.
Drinking and driving laws alone are not good enough.
When I got stationed in Florida, they told me I had to wait two months to drink off-base, even after drinking responsibly and legally in other states for the previous 34 months. And the chances of my causing a road accident were close to nil. I hadn’t bothered to get my license yet! This left me with a low opinion of Floridian intelligence which hasn’t lifted much since.
If you think “why can’t 18-year-olds drink here like they can in normal countries?” is an incendiary question, try asking these:
“Why can’t drunks just walk home from the bar or party, or take a bus?”
“Why can’t the states simply turn down the federal highway money, pay for their own roads and set their own drinking age?”
“A 21-year driving age would save more than twice as many lives as the 21-year drinking age, so why is the latter any more defensible than the former?”
Yep, them’re fightin’ words, all right.
It’s the Weekend!
Seems appropriate to quote a recent NY Times editorial by Middlebury College President John M. McCardell, Jr:To lawmakers: the 21-year-old
2-0 Hoosiers? Not for long.
Heh. Remember Lee Corso!
But I’m a Boilermaker, and this amuses me.
I remember reading a few years ago that the woman who started MADD quit the organization because it had taken on the prohibitionist stance it has today. She was simply interested in stopping kids from driving drunk, not stopping drinking altogether.
Joe,
I think most of the commentors here simply don’t believe an 18-20 year old is a “kid.” And that, as an adult, self-control is exactly what should be expected, rather than legislation.
An argument against the legal drinking age
Over at the National Review Online Dave Kopel presents some arguments against the legal drinking age of 21. He does a good job
explaining his position about the legal drinking age. I actually tend to agree with him, and think he makes some good poin…
Drunks Against Mad Mothers, conceived by drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs.
MPH, in Judaism excessive drinking in frowned on severely. But, wine is part of the world, and is one of G-d’s blessings for us. On certain occasions, wine-drinking [if it won't harm one's health] is mandatory. For example, Shabbat and Holiday dinners, Purim, and Passover. But the amounts served at Shabbat dinners are small enough that no one would be seriously affected.
In any case, you aren’t supposed to drive on Shabbat.
If I ever have children, and they are asked to sign a non-drinking pledge, I will write in an exception for bona fide religious observences. If the school rejects that, I will talk with the ACLU.
What about Catholics and Communion?
Let me say that, as a college administrator and a libertarian, I am *totally* in favor of lowering the drinking age to 18 or less. I also think parental role-modelling of responsible drinking behavior is crucial. My kids (12 and
are always free to taste wine when my wife and I drink it. (And yes, as a Jew, my son will be drinking wine when he becomes Bar Mitzvah in Nov - but all of the drinking laws allow exceptions for religious practice.) There is plenty of research to show that this sort of role-modelling discourages high-risk drinking behavior later. An 18 drinking age would eliminate most of the problems college campuses face with alcohol in addition to reducing the need for in loco parentis behavior by administrators.
Which leads me to my main point - the father in question here DOES deserve blame for one aspect of this event: the high-risk drinking games those kids were playing. Those are dangerous *in and of themselves* quite aside from the drinking and driving issue. Too many of my students come to college very smart about not drinking and driving, but not so smart at all about the effects of binge drinking, which can be far more dangerous.
If Prom Dad were *really* being responsible, he would have made sure that the beer was in bottles and that there were no drinking games being played. I have no problem with 18 year olds drinking and getting a good buzz, but to look the other way when they are engaging in more dangerous behavior, while under your supervision and given the current law, is irresponsible. Don’t blame him for letting 18 year olds drink, do blame him for not pointing out the danger of high-risk drinking.
Why Not Criminalize Sleepy Driving?
If the concern is that driving drunk raises risks, then why not further raise the DUI punishment? Better yet, why not create a similiar punishment for those who are driving while close to sleeping? Don’t those individuals create similiar risks?
I am an American, but went to High School in Europe; my dad’s job moved us. The drinking age was 16, driving 18. When you start drinking at 16, there are no big parties with kegs and hiding in the woods. You go out, have to have a parent pick you up, and by the time you get your license, you have already learnt to drink responsibly. I am not saying move the license age, but if you allow legal drinking at a younger age, people will start drinking responsibly at a younger age.
Well, for us Orthodox Christian, we partake of the Holy Communion in the form of bread and wine mixed in a chalice. The priest dispenses communion with a small spoon. Everyone who has been baptized into the Orthodox Faith (which includes infants) is encouraged to take Communion. There’s absolutely no way one would get drunk on a miniscule amount of bread and wine.
I remember being horrified to discover during a gap year visit to California when I was 18 to discover that the drinking age was 21. From my experiences there, I became convinced that such a policy actually exacerbated drinking problems (excessive rather than social) and the uptake of drugs (as weed was easier to buy than beer!).
Lola,
Sadly the fanatics don’t care. Some poor Orthodox AA member was expelled from AA because his sponsor wouldn’t accept a valid religious excuse. (Now to be fair I know AA groups that were horrified at that).
I let my kids drink with meals and if Dad has a beer, they can have some. I was raised that way and unlike the Baptist kids I knew in college, I never did the drunk silliness stuff. Beer and wine were foods…
I am always shocked when I think you can legally sign contracts, have babies or abortions, own long guns, drive, vote and serve in the miltary at 18 but have to wait 3 years for a beer. Stupid.
Re: Catholics. I was an altar boy between the ages of 10-15, and I got wine every sunday I served. Matter of fact, I’d been having a sip of wine every week since my first holy communion. Used to have a (small) glass of wine on special occasions and nice dinners. Used to love it. Never paid the drinking laws any mind when I went to college, got loaded when I felt the need, and never did anything any serious damage. Kept my scholarship, too.
Changing the laws will call for some changes in behavior. Kids who never touch the stuff often don’t know what they’re getting into, and kids who’re indulged and unsupervised in their high school years start thinking they’re immortal. There has to be a way to educate and not demonize.
How about starting a chapter of MADDR, Mothers Against Dangerous Drinking Regulations?
Drunks Against Mad Mothers
A good discussion is under way at The Agitator about the 21 year old drinking age law. I’m totally in…
Just to provide a new perspective here…I exhibited symptoms of alcoholism* when I was 19 and 20. Among my group of friends, alcohol consumption was mandatory, and I enjoyed it immensely. However, once I turned 21, my drinking dropped drastically. I now enojy an occasional beer but that’s it. Were my teen activities legal, I firmly believe that they would not have been nearly as enjoyable. I’m just being real, here. The thrill of doing something illegal, especially something that my libertarian soul tells me shouldn’t be the government’s business, was more fun to me than the getting drunk. Remove the rebellion aspect, and you remove a lot of the problem, in my opinion.
* I drank at least 1 liter of 100 proof absolut or 80 proof tanqueray in some combination every day except Sunday. I went to hilarious lengths to get said booze. It’s kind of sad, now, but at the time it was terrific fun.
I think a substantiative argument could be made that a stone cold sober 16 year old behind the wheel is more dangerous than a 20 year old that has had a couple of drinks. Driving is all about judgment - 16 year olds don’t have the experience to make good judgments. I bet you could lower the drinking age to 16, raise the driving age to 18, and we’d see a reduction in youth driving deaths in this country.
I am saying increase the driving age. The vast majority of car accidents involving younger folks come from lack of experience and lack of good judgment. I’d raise the driving age to 18 and lower the drinking to 18. We’d all be better off.
BTW - Oregon had 7 turnovers and IU barely hung on to win. A win is a win and its always nice - but I wouldn’t be making Rose Bowl plans yet if I hailed from Bloomington.
Us Boilermakers on the other hand…
From what I’ve read of the SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE… the drinking age should be TWENTY-FOUR.
You stupid, young alcoholics are causing yourselves PERMANENT BRAIN DAMAGE… and I consider Americans stupid enough as it is…
“Colonel Sheridan said later. ‘What he was saying about George Bush not telling the truth on Iraq - I just don’t believe that. George Bush did tell us the truth[.]‘”
After Anderson went to the police before the party ‘to be sure there weren’t going to be issues’, he was arrested. In my book he deserves court costs and punitive damages.
Maybe the authorities acted after a MADD parent complained. MADD and its ilk use the political process to criminalize behavior they disapprove of.
Anderson’s actions reduced the risk to the community from teens who would have drunk anyway. Vietnam being back in the news, maybe MADD should issue a statement that ‘it is necessary to endanger our children in order to protect them’.
Ossian,
What you ran into at 7-11 is yet another instance of the way this law is becoming scary.
What happened at the 7-11 wasn’t the person not believing you’re over 21 or even a “zero-tolerance” policy. Big national chains like 7-11 have a system where they enter in the person’s DL# when they purchase alcohol as a fail safe against charges levied against them for selling to minors. They can then verify every alcohol sale with a vaild ID thereby eliminating their liability.
The reason why 7-11 cares is that many municipalities have chosen to use underage drinking laws as a source of revenue. The cops go out of their way looking for underage drinkers. The kids rat out the local 7-11 (as opposed to their older sibling or friend who actually bought it) and the municiplaity then levies an absurd fine.
Furthermore, in the tragic cases of an underaged drunk driver causing a traffic fatality. An accusation that the alcohol was purchased by the minor at a local store has usually been enough to make that store liable for a certain percentage of damages (which in such cases is usually astronomical).
In short, this law has of course, like most laws based on “morality”, become a nest of abuses. To sidestep abuses, 7-11 has decided to act to cover their own asses and as such, without ID, don’t expect to buy alcohol at 7-11 regardless of age.
At a certain age, one is no longer eligible for service in the armed forces, i.e. to old to die for one’s country. Going on the conclusion that if one is old enough to die for one’s country, one is old enough to dring, we’ll have to conclude that if one is too old to die for one’s country then one is too old to drink. On the issue of mature, responsible 18 year-olds not being permitted to drink, y’all make a very persuasive case. Not permitted to drink, they do the responsible, mature thing and drink irresponsibly.
Having just graduated from college in July, I can say that not even the draconian state of liquor laws in Oregon can stop “binging.” Having never played drinking games, I can say that they are not needed for completely insane levels of alcohol consumption.
We’ve all done it, it’s fun. And that’s what these neo-prohibitionists want to stop: Fun. Am I past the days of drinking an entire fifth of Canadian whiskey, throwing up over the railing of a friend’s porch, and passing out on his couch at four in the morning? Yeah, but that was a hell of a party. I learned my limits by testing them (IE trying to keep up with a friend who had 100 lbs on me, not a good idea), and I’m pretty sure that every other undergraduate I know did the same thing.
I’m glad I didn’t drink in high school, but that sort of restrictive environment probably only led to going a little more off the edge when I got to college. I know being constantly chided about the dangers of alcohol by University staff and policy only pissed me off while causing no meaningful change in my behavior.
Further, what’s the problem with being drunk? Just because I’ve had two pitchers of beer doesn’t mean I can’t take the bus home (or walk) and still get my stats homework done by 10am. And, even if it does, why is that MADD’s problem? It isn’t. They’ve declared jihad on good times because they either can’t remember what being in college was like or were prudish wimps during their undergraduate years.
We should not give them the time of day, much less allow their doting condescention to influence the law. I know what my parents did when they were in college, and it’s no better or worse than my behavior. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s pretty much the norm. Maybe if the neo-prohibitionists hadn’t been such uptight, judgemental prudes when they were younger they’d be less apt to try and ruin everyone else’s good times today. Not driving drunk is easy enough, I don’t see the problem with being drunk.
Underage Drinking. And MADD-Bashing (the agitator)
Underage Drinking. And MADD-Bashing (the agitator)
When I grew up, the legal drinking age was 18. We started drinking at parties and such at about 16. The drinking age was raised to 21 a while back. My nephew informs me that kids start drinking at parties and such at about 16.
As others have said, when will we learn that prohibition doesn’t work?
I dont understand how we can have a debate about this without mentioning the drug war. The consequences of going after non-violent drug offenders are much more severe than the issues caused by the drinking age laws.
Just because my drug of choice is marijuana and not alcohol, I shouldn’t be subject to societal brush off and police state rules. And thats what we’re arguing about anyway isn’t it?
stupid laws
I believe that making 21 the legal drinking age has caused a lot more problems that it ever solved. First…
Why Prohibition Is Bad…
Radley Balko talks about the legal drinking age, and why it’s so absurd that it’s 21 instead of 18, and…
Hell fire, I kin down a jug of white mule an still oprate my John Deere good as the next feller! Them mothers oughter have a good hit an fergit bout it.
While I agree with lowering the drinking age, that in itself is not a panacea. We are still to some degree a puritanical society, so there would still be plenty of binge drinking and drunk driving. But the point has been made that laws have largely caught up, and could be reinforced, and appropriate education about drinking responsibly continued.
They had tents set up back there? These parents were nothing like mine.
I would like to further expand on Lola’s comment. I am also an Orthodox Christian, a tonsured Reader and I serve in the Altar. Part of my duties before each Liturgy are to prepare the blessed bread and wine that is consumed after each person recieves the eucharist (communion.) One of the reasons this practice takes place is to help wash down the eucharist. The wine used is a sweet red variety that is diluted to 1/2 strenght by the addition of hot water. In our parish, we pour out the wine/water mixture into small plastic 2 oz. cups. So the most wine anyone gets is 1 oz. (Assuming that the mix is actually 1:1, since we eyeball it, it sometimes is a bit stronger or weaker.) Everyone partakes of this wine. It’s not a big deal. That said, this is the local practice, of Russian origin, in our parish in Central Indiana. Other pratices may vary. In one exceptional instance that I know of, in Kodiak, Alaska, grape juice was substituted for wine, out of concern for the genetic predisposition of Aleuts and other indigenous Orthodox towards alcoholism, but this is an exception and not the norm. I think the MADDers are just a bit loopy in their overzealousness.
A Ridiculous and Dangerous Law
Glenn Reynolds links to this great Radley Balko post on underage drinking. I’m with Glenn and Radley on this - the 21-year-old drinking age is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous and dangerous first and foremost for all the reasons that Radley mentions. But …
The point regarding universities is a really good one. My school is definitely on the safe haven side, and they are continually getting bitched at by alums for letting us break the law. These people just don’t realize that acting as an enforcer will simply push the drinking further underground and result in MORE alcohol-related deaths and injuries than occur now.
Ossian — my first generation German-American grandfather did a ten o’clock red wine break every morning. All us kids had a splash in a glass of ginger ale by about the time we could walk. We might have a glass of wine at table by twelve or thirteen, or a beer on a hot day painting the house. We learned to drink responsibly, around responsible adults looking out for us, and there isn’t a single alcoholic in the family.
As for “Zero Tolerance”, it actually means zero thought. It is specifically training generations of individuals to not reason to moral conclusions on their own authority. I’ve said it before, but the point bears emphasis: we’re talking about the kind of people who once herded others into boxcars at gunpoint without listening to the sounds of their own consciences.
I’d also like to say, once again, that when they raised the drinkning age to 21 in New York, they just murdered a swingin’ music culture that had been thriving in the bars. Lots of hard working and worthwhile people went out of business, and it was a generally terrible thing to see.
Billy, when was that drinking age raised?
Your comment about killing music is intriguing, because “rave” (pulse-pounding, adrenaline-laced, industrial “Blade” soundtrack type stuff) and hip-hop — both from “underground” or “gangbang” cultures — are the forms with the most new releases.
As with jazz in the speakeasy days, to find good live music now, you have to be going places where everyone is breaking the law.
– or to Rio.
Underage Drinking. And MADD-Bashing
TheAgitator.com: Underage Drinking. And MADD-Bashing.: CommentsMiddlebury College President John M. McCardell, Jr., in yesterday’s New York Times To lawmakers: the 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law. It is astonishing that c…
Mike-
I am support the author of this article,and most of the commentators. You were pretty much the only dissenter. Since the opposing point of view didn’t get much attention, I am interested in what the other side has to say. You said that you support MADD, but you didn’t give any reasons why, other than that you believe they are right.
You also said that enforcement is the problem, not the age. But if the laws are not enforced in the first place, then what good will adding more laws do?
I’d be very interested in hearing your reasons, since you didn’t provide any in the first place.
I have to disagree with most of you on this topic. The issue is a lack of punishment for underage drinking and poor parenting that excuses their children’s unlawful activities.
Parents that pass along the idea of “that just a dumb law” are asking for trouble. Also, if parents pick and choose which laws they agree with with…and therefore abide by…that poor example will be carried on by their children. After all, if you subjectively follow the laws of the land how do your children know what’s right and wrong.
America is mired in a moral crisis. There is no such thing as “teaching children to drink responsibly.” All that does is teach your kid that they can break the laws they believe are unreasonable. Period.
Josh,
Yes, you’re absolutely right. Drinking age should be raised to 24 or older. This will make us all demonstrably smarter, like people who express opinions about the intelligence of a whole country without a qualm.
Seriously… Oh — grow up. Studies suggest that the brain doesn’t stop developing till 24 or later, true. But studies also show that brain cells damaged by alcohol regenerate. If they’re not constantly hammered by alcohol, of course. Actually drinking in moderation seems to kill the “slower” brain cells and regenerate them “faster.”
Which might explain why say, Shakespeare, was no dumb bunny despite drinking probably from infancy (though admittedly weak stuff — see MODERATE drinking comment.)
So, stop trying to tell Americans when to drink. And stop judging Americans by what you see in biased foreign press reports. And grow up. Really. Already.
On zero-tolerance policies: I went with a vendor for a couple of drinks last night to a bar in Novi, Michigan. The bartender asked to see my ID prior to serving me a beer. Now, I’m 34 and I hadn’t been asked for proof of age for over 10 years. When I asked the bartender the reason for asking for my ID, he said that the bar was cited twice by the Novi Police Department in the previous week for serving people without an ID. Note: not for being underage, but simply not possessing identification.
Apparently, in the City of Novi and the State of Michigan you need an ID to consume alcohol. The State’s law MCL 436.1701 calls this “diligent inquiry”. Get this: not making diligent inquiry by someone other than a retailer (like a relative or friend) is a felony punishable by not more than 10 years and a fine of not more than USD5,000. For a retailer, it is a civil misdemeanor with increasing costs and jail terms.
On the minimum drinking age: I work in the US but I live in Ontario, Canada. The drinking age in Ontario is 19, and like most of the rest of the US, the drinking age in Michigan is 21. So, what you get in border towns like Windsor, Ontario is an onslaught of young Americans coming over, getting ridiculously drunk in Windsor, and then attempting to cross the Border to the US.
Where, after going through US border control, they are observed by Detroit City Police, Wayne County Sherriffs, and Michigan State Patrol Troopers departing the US border control booths. Apparently, the US border control booths have a signal to the assembled gendarmes that the driver exiting the checkpoint is (1) under-21; and (2) has a smell of alcohol on him.
Let’s face it, suppose you are the reasonable one and you are with 4 friends that were drinking all night long and are whooping it up in the car, the entire car smells like booze.
Sadly, if you are that under-21 entering Michigan that has legally consumed booze in Ontario you will loose your licence under Michigan’s “Zero Tolerance” law intended to prohibit the consumption of alcohol by anyone under the minimum drinking age.
In all, it is lucky for American lawmakers that the 18-21 group is not generally politically active; I would hate to think what a single-issue constituency of this size would do. According to the Census data I looked at, there are around 16 million residents between the ages of 18 and 21, inclusive. If you take the view that people 28 years or younger have an interest in reducing the drinking age to 18 you would have a constituency of about 48 million voting-age residents. That, dear friends, is a large voting block waiting to happen.
MADD Now Apparently Targeting Underage Swingers
Radley Balko - still the sixth thing that comes up when you Google “dan atkinson oregon”, incidentally - has a nice bouquet of anti-MADD zingers. (Link via Instapundit. Keep an eye out for former OC editors in comment section.) One…
My mother was a German war bride from WWII, we also were allowed to drink in the house with supervision. This began at about 13 years old. Their friends would bring me a six-pack as a joke. I could only drink one or two, not because of the drunkness, but anyone who first try’s beer experience the bloating. Takes years to train yourself to drink mass qty’s. Anyway to the point I hit all the laws just right and could drink at eighteen years old. However what was a very special occasion for everyone else my age by going to the bar on their eighteen birthday, did’t hold true for me. Since i was allowed early to drink the specialness of the occasion was taken away and there was no need to get horrifically drunk. For this i thank my mom and dad dearly.
I’d just like to let out a healthy chuckle at the ‘America is mired in a moral crisis’ commentary above.
A little light relief is always nice.
Brains cells are overrated, we have billions of them.
We’re all going to die someday, so enjoy the ride. You’re not going to stop human beings from doing things to themselves that are “bad.” It is part of the human tragedy/comedy called life.
Social conservatism makes my skin crawl. I have one set of parents, I don’t need another googleplex of parents in the form of “concerned citizens” or “government officials.”
I would way rather learn things “the hard way.” It’s my prerogative.
Freedom is free folks. We’re born with it. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.
I recall that when visiting customers in the dry counties of Arkansas, the prevailing attitude toward drinking was one of total abandon. You could buy alcohol only in certain restricted venues, such as private clubs - and when people drank, they threw the cap away. Because alcohol was so demonized, nobody ever learned to drink responsibly.
Funny… I always thought the key word in the MADD acronym was *driving*. “Drunk” is simply an adjective. I guess MADD will be changing their name soon to just MAD?
An opposing opinion:
I am 22 years old. I attended a school that is considered one of the top party schools in the nation. My hall was across the parking lot from one bar, and less than a mile away from ten others.
My opinion: Alcohol should be illegal, all ages, all situations. Prohibition was a great idea, and remains one to this day.
Now, my defense of this decidedly unpopular viewpoint:
1. Alcohol is a poison. The ethyl version is only slightly less lethal than the methyl or isopropyl versions, which. Some of the effects of this on our society are:
-alcohol poisoning
-alcohol related heart disease
-drunken driving
-Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (pregnant women drinking)
-alcohol abuse
-alcohol addiction
-liver damage/failure
-removal/killing of brain cells
-general detrimetal health effects
2. Radley, you asked: what is so wrong with being drunk? It’s a valid question, but one whose answer is painfully obvious: drunk individuals are no longer in control. They do things and say things which they would ordinarily would adamantly refuse to do, and often can’t remember doing them.
3. I had a grandmother. She was addicted to alcohol. It destroyed marriage after marriage, and eventually killed her. I never knew her.
4. I have an aunt. She is 30, and has the intelligence level of a 9-year-old. She always will. Her mother (the grandmother I never knew) drank while pregnant with her. She has now made several stupid decisions of her own, which now affect her own daughter. The repercussions of this will continue.
5. I have a father. He continually had to drag his mother (said grandmother) into the house and lay her down on the couch, so that she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit. She died when he was 18. He is an excellent father, despite these horrible happenings during his teenage years. However, he still bears the memories and consequences of these events.
6. I am a Christian. Regardless of what you believe about God, know this: Biblical Christians are called to be good examples to their fellow man. They must govern themselves, and live a life that will display their love of Christ to others. This is a Christian’s command, and commitment.
To drink alcohol, in whatever quantity, is to lose a bit of control over one’s actions. To get drunk is to lose any governance over your behavior, which defines how you appear to others. This is unacceptable. I will not ingest poison into my body, do and say things that I may regret for the rest of my life, and fail to remember ever doing it.
The last few reasons are personal to me, but I hope that you will still take them to heart, along with all the other reasons, and see them as examples of a greater problem. This is why I would wish the removal of alcohol from our society, for the benefit of America. We can discuss the applications to the drug war, and enforcement, in a later post. Thanks for your time.
Quick follow-up comment:
How do I defend my previous statement from those who would say that I am simply intruding on freedom, and the consequences therof?
Here’s how: simply consider smoking. It’s legal, at a certain age, to buy and smoke. Despite nicotine’s minimal effects on judgement and cognition, it’s still banned in most public places. Why? Because it does damage to others. Secondhand smoke, etc. We’ve all heard this justification.
Why then is cocaine completely illegal? Because, under its influence, a man is not in control, and is a great danger to others, not only to himself. This danger is sufficient to justify its prohibition in this country.
Alcohol is justifiably similar, in my opinion. Its prevalence and consumption lead to a slew of health risks, mentioned above. More importantly, though, it shatters lives. Lives of the children, spouses, the other drivers on the road, you name it. It is infinitely more destructive than secondhand smoke will ever be.
Thanks again for reading/scrolling.
Well, in Europe the traffic fatality rate is three times per capita the U.S. rate.
Sort of supports all of those here who favor having European style drinking and driving.
There is a huge spike in alcohol related driving deaths in the 18-21 year old range. Some people consider that evidence that kids in that range can’t be trusted not to drink and drive.
People here consider that proof that we should just let the deaths roll on.
A form of human sacrafice to the god of beer.
After all, in Europe they all learn to drink and drive responsibly, don’t they.
And they have so many fewer deaths than we do, per capita.
Oh, they don’t? Well, keep skretching just like Dan Rather if the facts don’t agree with you. So what if people die for your break with reality and your self righteous abandon.
From an outside-the-USA viewpoint this whole debate is bizzare. I grew up in the UK, and have lived in NZ and Australia since 1973. As kids of 11 up we would be given beer or cider (its alcoholic in the UK) with dinner at weekends, and by the time you could actually go into pubs and buy your own it was really no big deal.
When my girlfriend and I got to NZ in 1973, the voting and drinking age were both 20. This was unfortunate for her, as she was a 19 year old with 12 months experience as a barmaid at the time. By the way, the driving age in NZ was (and remains) 15. When they dropped the voting age to 18, the drinking age and a few other “age of majority” type things followed. Strangely logical, the Kiwis.
The comment about binge drinking is right though, and has been an issue here in Australia. Don’t know what you can do about that, but raising the legal drinking age will just make it worse.