Column re: underage drinking

[Gold Hoya]

Not what one might typically expect from George Will.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/18/AR2007041802279.html

when assessing government actions, one should be receptive to counterintuitive ideas. One such is John McCardell's theory that a way to lower the incidence of illness, mayhem and death from alcohol abuse by young people is to lower the drinking age.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

Underage drinking is very very bad - yo I got a fake ID though ...

[tgo]

George will is right on the money here. The drinking age is ridiculous. Voting, buying guns, serving in the military all at 18 yet you cant have a drink? It also breeds a mindset where disregard for the law is the norm. not everyone will go out and rob a bank as a result but in an age group where distrust and disregard for authority is already going to be elevated we should not have public policy that is so laughable that 18 year olds feel they are right in disobeying the law.
the law also encourages dangerous drinking habits. instead of learning to enjoy alcohol with adults and learning what you and your body can handle without losing control you experiment with other people who have no idea what they are doing.
the laws are all part of the temperance movement that is gaining power all the time. we wont go back to official prohibition but they will get it in de-facto ways. the way things are going on this front i firmly believe we will see a time in the next 10 to 15 years when all states go to zero tolerance driving laws where a drop of alcohol in your system will equal a DUI.

[Deleted]

tgo said:

the way things are going on this front i firmly believe we will see a time in the next 10 to 15 years when all states go to zero tolerance driving laws where a drop of alcohol in your system will equal a DUI.

I don't know if that would necessarily be a bad thing. I don't care how drunk you get - ever - if you're not driving, but if you're going to get behind the wheel of a car, you immediately put others at risk. While I think the current standards are okay, different people react differently to the same BAC - meaning that there's no real way to standardize "too drunk to drive". Better to err on the side of keeping people off the roads. Most European countries have zero tolerance (with HARSH penalties), and have far fewer alcohol-related accidents. On the flip side: more of them use public transit, so that skews things.

As for the drinking age: it's ridiculous and always has been. Should be 18, and 16 if you're accompanied by a parent or guardian.

[JimmyHoya]

I really feel that young people don't learn "how" to drink untill the drink with people older than them (and not as in soph's and freshman, but seniors/alums/older family members and friends, etc.) or go to a bar where it is pertinenet that making an a$$ of one's self, puking, etc. doesn't happen and is look very unkindly upon. If a freshman could go to a bar and was forced early on to control themselves in the face of strangers they'd be much better off and learn some accountability. It's like if you go to a restaurant you know how to behave, so going to a bar, while more festive, you keep some of those past values in check while having a good time. Obviously the first time people make mistakes, but I think the general pattern of people's drinking habits would be much better off.

.....and 6, 10, 18, 21, or 45, no matter the drinking age, people still think the same way about drunk driving. Some people, young or old will always think they are on top of the world and drive untill a judge kicks their butt or they hurt someone, unfortunately.

[JimmyHoya]

To further add: Europeans go to bars for the social atmosphere (otherwise known as "essentially the whole reason for the bars' existence"), most college kids initially go to, pardon my french, "get Editeded up." Why? Because they couldn't before.