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RagnarokAngel posted:I don't even drink sheeple I'm not sure anyone drinks sheeple.
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May 24, 2014 21:12
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Imapanda posted:I hope you are not or never become a parent. Shockingly enough, if you raise your kid to not be an idiot about alcohol, they end up not being an idiot about alcohol when they're out on their own!! I don't necessarily think it should be lowered, but I think punishing the kids for it is incredibly wrongheaded. Just don't let them buy it and penalize the store owners if they're caught, problem solved, we don't need to be throwing more people in jail for stupid poo poo. e: in the interest of full disclosure, I'm about a year and two months shy of 21. I don't really have all that much skin in the game, though, because there are poo poo-tons of ways I could get alcohol if I really wanted it; pretty much the only thing it outright bars me from is stuff like SXSW free shows, which does suck but it's not something I can't wait for.
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May 24, 2014 21:23
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If we had a sane criminal justice system and the legal limit was only enforced when people were serving underage kids or when under age drinkers got out of line I don't think this would be as big of an issue. Instead you have college town cops who get their entertainment by going out of their way to bust as many drinking college kids as possible. Personally I think it should be lowered to 18 because it's silly to say that you're an adult in every single way at 18 with the exception of alcohol. To me it seems like an extension of our country (and much of the world's) utterly insane view of drug use. MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 21:45 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 21:41
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Cowabanga posted:The OP is not 21 yet and is making this thread to get goon sympathy.
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May 24, 2014 21:54
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edit: I forgot this was D&D and not GBS 
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May 24, 2014 22:09
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Ogmius815 posted:No I mean the drinking age sucks when you go to college in an urban area with great public transport so no one has a car because no one needs one but there isn't any reason for you personally to be disallowed from drinking because there is almost no chance you will end up in a car. The only scenarios seriously impacted by drinking laws are bars, and considering the entire point is to stop young bad drivers from getting hammered and then driving home, that's probably perfect.
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May 24, 2014 22:38
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Puritanism on alcohol is bullshit and much like puritanism on sex and drugs it creates the problems it tries to solve.
America Inc. fucked around with this message at 01:20 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 01:17
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I worked with college kids for four years as an adviser of sorts. I definitely think the drinking age should be lowered simply because far too many young adults come to college and treat alcohol as some sort of milestone of independence and adulthood, and tend to over do it when they finally start drinking (which is almost never at 21) causing problems not just for themselves, but for others around them. Letting them legally drink at an early age, preferably when they are still at home with their parents, would be safer overall for society, and would start to chink away at the toxic drinking culture that is present at so many colleges.
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May 25, 2014 01:41
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:I worked with college kids for four years as an adviser of sorts. I definitely think the drinking age should be lowered simply because far too many young adults come to college and treat alcohol as some sort of milestone of independence and adulthood, and tend to over do it when they finally start drinking (which is almost never at 21) causing problems not just for themselves, but for others around them. Letting them legally drink at an early age, preferably when they are still at home with their parents, would be safer overall for society, and would start to chink away at the toxic drinking culture that is present at so many colleges. Basically this, like I said. I was allowed to drink in moderation starting towards the end of high school, and when I got to college I didn't act like an idiot with it. Meanwhile, everyone else around me who was just discovering alcohol acted like a total dumbass.
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May 25, 2014 01:44
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SALT CURES HAM posted:Basically this, like I said. I was allowed to drink in moderation starting towards the end of high school, and when I got to college I didn't act like an idiot with it. Meanwhile, everyone else around me who was just discovering alcohol acted like a total dumbass. Didn't they do experiments once where when people were fed spiked punch, but told it wasn't spiked, they 'acted' sober (if increasingly impaired), but when fed unspiked punch and told it was spiked, got Wild and Crazy?
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May 25, 2014 01:49
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Yeah, there's a crazy powerful social component to it. I used to know this girl, very conservative Christian, who had convinced herself that any amount of alcohol could get her drunk. We were at a friend's house and they always had a shot glass full of champagne before dinner. She couldn't refuse because she felt an obligation as a guest, and she got completely stupid off that shot glass of champagne.
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May 25, 2014 01:55
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OneEightHundred posted:If you go to college in an urban area, then you can probably ignore the drinking age anyway. Not necessarily true, I went to two colleges in an urban area and at both locations the cops treated busting private parties with college kids drinking as a top priority. It was basically a miracle that I avoided getting underage drinking charges somehow.
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May 25, 2014 05:00
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Sure, why not? In Brisbane, Australia where the drinking age is 18 I was stepping over wasted 18 year olds passed out in the middle of the road. In New Orleans I'm stepping over wasted 18 year olds passed out in the middle of the road. Doesn't seem like a drinking age of 21 makes much of a difference. Now, how about adding thiamine to malt liquor and bum wine? That seems like something worth doing. Rhandhali fucked around with this message at 05:43 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 05:02
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New York is kind of weird. There are parts of it that are notorious for never carding ever even if someone looks 14, but there are also places where you will always get carded if you look under 30. My school had a lot of bars around it and all of them served underage people knowingly under a lot of circumstances. One of them was eventually shut down because they were repeatedly caught serving very young teenagers. It's stupid for New York to have a drinking age at all because no one ever drives except for tourists and snooty rich people who are too good for the subway. However, if the U.S. changed policies generally people would die; the 18 drinking age has probably saved a lot of lives and the only people who give a poo poo about this are 18-21 year olds (and maybe like, bar owners). For flavor, New York also has some goddamn weird distributor laws. You can buy beer for off-premise literally any time. However, beer cannot be sold in liquor stores and wine can only be sold at places licensed to sell hard liquor. This results in terrible "wine product" being sold at gas stations and such that tastes like vaguely alcoholic grape juice and this is somehow legal. gently caress blue laws. Ogmius815 fucked around with this message at 05:46 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 05:39
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BYOB restaurants are an odd part of the culture here in Hawaii. Come to think of it, I wonder how that affects the restaurants' liability for minors drinking there?
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May 25, 2014 06:07
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Ogmius815 posted:However, if the U.S. changed policies generally people would die; the 18 drinking age has probably saved a lot of lives and the only people who give a poo poo about this are 18-21 year olds (and maybe like, bar owners). America Inc. fucked around with this message at 07:13 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 07:05
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Almost every American I meet under the age of 21 in Europe has some seriously stupid attitudes to alcohol. Suddenly they're released from it being restricted and an object of ritual to being just an everyday commonplace purchase and it just kind of fucks with their minds. They get wrecked out of their skulls and do a lot of stupid poo poo. It seems trivial to mention that drunk driving accidents will decrease for the 18-21 bracket if alcohol is more difficult to obtain. What's more interesting to me is that by leaving what many find an integral part of general association as taboo for so long, it doesn't permanently gently caress with many Americans' attitudes to drinking. Having it as difficult to obtain elevates it to something especially desirable. But on the flipside, treating alcohol as no big deal, like Europe tends to, might be too far in the other direction, as for example the UK has very high rates of binge drinking. Though to be fair, there are a lot of other factors at play in the UK - traditional pub culture and weather for starters. Yet in a country with almost the highest alcohol consumption per capita, and the most relaxed attitude to drinking essentially anywhere, France does not share these problems. Negative Entropy posted:It would be a bad idea to change the laws without first changing the drinking culture. Minors can drink at home and if I remember correctly can also drink at restaurants if a parent is around. The key thing is to remove alcohol of its forbidden quality so risk-takers don't go overboard with it and more closely associate alcohol with positive familial bonding so alcoholics don't associate alcohol with negative feelings. US alcohol culture in its current state just contributes to a high number of accidents, alcoholics, alcohol poisonings, and bad judgments while hammered. This is quite close to what I feel about it. It staggers Americans when I talk about it, but I genuinely believe it is a net benefit for children as young as 12-13 to be introduced to alcohol in moderation and in a controlled environment, rather than only ever have it on special occasions - then suddenly be given free reign to have as much as you like whenever you want.
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May 25, 2014 12:05
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I believe it should so when I go there I can drink much like I've been able to drink for the last 20 years
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May 25, 2014 12:44
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Jeza posted:But on the flipside, treating alcohol as no big deal, like Europe tends to, might be too far in the other direction, as for example the UK has very high rates of binge drinking. Though to be fair, there are a lot of other factors at play in the UK - traditional pub culture and weather for starters. Yet in a country with almost the highest alcohol consumption per capita, and the most relaxed attitude to drinking essentially anywhere, France does not share these problems. France also has terrible smoking levels so maybe they just have another cultural addiction.
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May 25, 2014 14:13
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Many states let under 21s drink if their parents buy them the alcohol and a few states even let them be served alcohol in bars and restaurants if their parents are with them. Here are the states where your dad can take you to a bar if you want to get drunk and are under 21: Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming. And here are the states where under 21s can drink in private places (homes, offices, etc) with parental consent and prescence: Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming
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May 25, 2014 23:26
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I don't think drinking at 18 is a really good idea, but America's kind of caught in a catch-22. It would be less scary to have 18-year-olds drinking if they were brought up with better cultural awareness about alcohol, knowing that a little here and there is okay, how to be responsible with it, and not having it idealized as this special forbidden thing that becomes a rite of passage. But even if that's a long way away, to keep the legal age at 21 just seems to encourage the rite-of-passage attitude and create more trouble. Anyone 18-20 who's going to uni is going to have easy enough access to alcohol anyway, this just forces them to be a bit sneakier about it. Speaking of uni though, it's funny how American culture acknowledges the immaturity of 18-year-olds enough to forbid them to drink, but then assumes that those same 18-year-olds must be capable of long-term rational planning for their future, doing in-depth market research and forecasting to pick the best degree to make them most employable.
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May 25, 2014 23:59
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Bifauxnen posted:Speaking of uni though, it's funny how American culture acknowledges the immaturity of 18-year-olds enough to forbid them to drink, but then assumes that those same 18-year-olds must be capable of long-term rational planning for their future, doing in-depth market research and forecasting to pick the best degree to make them most employable. edit: right now I'm trying to think of the serious decisions that I had to make when I was 18 that were actually completely mine, and drawing a blank. I guess I chose not to run off and get married? Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 00:17 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 00:12
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Samurai Sanders posted:You can choose a major well into your third year though if you need to so I don't think that argument means so much, for already college-bound kids anyway. As for the choice between college and something else, I'm not sure how often that's the kid's decision anyway. And really it's not like the average 22 year old would have any more insight except "I wish I hadn't done that/had done that differently".
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May 26, 2014 00:14
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For what it's worth, the time we got all the states to change to 21 for drinking was a time when states had just recently lowered to usually 18 or 19 for drinking after spending most of the time since Prohibition ended at higher rates: http://minus.com/i/buQ9ytiswa9jC
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May 26, 2014 00:20
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Sorry for the derail, I was thinking more of after the fact bootstraps rationalization, you know? Whenever welfare or unemployment comes up there's always comments on how it's all the poor's fault for bad life decisions. If they pick a degree like art or philosophy, they deserve everything they get cause who expects to be employed with that? But even if you pick something like engineering or science or something with serious skills that you'd think would be a lot more employable, you're blamed for not picking the right one that was still employable by the time the degree's finished. Any unexpected downturns in the market? Well, you should've seen it coming and planned ahead.
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May 26, 2014 00:23
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No
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May 26, 2014 00:40
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Yes, unless we're going to start offering 18-20 year olds reduced sentences in criminal convictions in exchange for not giving them equal rights. Seriously though, the high drinking age is the dumbest remnant of prohibition left in the United States. There's no point to it, countries that have a lower drinking age (aka all of them, including Canada) don't have any higher of a drunk-driving rate than the United States does. But hooray for fining and prosecuting people over nothing. edit: I'm 25, I don't care. But it's still retarded. Sucrose fucked around with this message at 02:31 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 02:27
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Sucrose posted:Yes, unless we're going to start offering 18-20 year olds reduced sentences in criminal convictions in exchange for not giving them equal rights. In most states kids can drink well under age 21, they just have to have parental permission. That's the law.
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May 26, 2014 02:38
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pentyne posted:Rather then use an anecdote just use raw numbers. The problem with raw numbers is that there is an absolute shitton of misrepresented or outright skewed statistics out there regarding drinking and drinking-related tragedy rates. For example, your quote claims that the drop in drunk driving fatality rates in the 16-20 demographic from 1982 to 2008 is in large part due to the drinking age increase in 1984...despite the fact that drunk driving fatalities also dropped in every other demographic and are now half of what they were in 1982. While the drop is somewhat higher among the 16-20 demographic than among others, it still comes in much closer to the trend line than the article implies, and it's quite clear that the increase in the legal drinking age is not a primary factor in the drop. Likewise, did you know that the demon drink kills more 16-20 year olds than cancer and AIDS combined? Look at how scary these totally true numbers whose significance I'm quietly.misleading you about are!
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May 26, 2014 04:12
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Install Windows posted:In most states kids can drink well under age 21, they just have to have parental permission. That's the law. What? No, I'm pretty sure you're wrong, that's not the case in most states. Anyway, that only applies to "minors" drinking with their parents, it doesn't do a college student drinking in their dorm room any good.
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May 26, 2014 05:28
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Install Windows posted:In most states kids can drink well under age 21, they just have to have parental permission. That's the law. As can people under the age of 18/19 in Canada (some provinces set the liquor and tobacco purchasing age as 19, others at 18, and they are sometimes but not always the same). It really has very little to do with this discussion, because there are various exemptions all over the world, and 21 is still an abnormally high drinking age. I don't think I'd have a problem with restricting hard liquor to 21+, since that's where people usually get into serious trouble from a lack of judgement and experience. You can gently caress yourself up pretty bad from beer and wine, yes, but it's just a little bit more difficult to reach the stage where you're a danger to yourself and others. Furthermore, "drinking games" should be called out for the dangerous, irresponsible poo poo they are. They promote the use of alcohol as a drug that gets you hosed up, rather than a tasty pleasure which should be enjoyed in moderation over a longer period (generally with food, no less). It's easily one of the most dangerous and pernicious parts of North American drinking culture, especially among young people.
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May 26, 2014 05:31
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Sucrose posted:What? No, I'm pretty sure you're wrong, that's not the case in most states. Anyway, that only applies to "minors" drinking with their parents, it doesn't do a college student drinking in their dorm room any good. Here are states where parental supervision allows under 21s to drink: Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming That's 29 states, that's a majority of states. And just for fun, here are states where it's legal for under 21s to drink without parental consent on private property that does not sell alcoho: Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina And the 10 states where your dad can take you to a bar and you can be served alcohol while under 21: Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming
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May 26, 2014 05:32
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Install Windows posted:Here are states where parental supervision allows under 21s to drink: Well, ok, you're right, but why should a 20-year-old, a person who theoretically should be working full time, at college, or both, have to have his or her parents present to have a drink, when they no longer live under their roof and are not considered a child by any part of US law other than the drinking age?
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May 26, 2014 05:39
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Sucrose posted:Well, ok, you're right, but why should a 20-year-old, a person who theoretically should be working full time, at college, or both, have to have his or her parents present to have a drink, when they no longer live under their roof and are not considered a child by any part of US law other than the drinking age? But you can't even rent a car alone without paying ridiculous extra fees until you're 25. I mean, there's a lot of things in US law that you can't do until 21 or older. Japan simplifies things a lot though, by pushing just about everything up or down to age 20. Voting, smoking, drinking, the list goes on and on.
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May 26, 2014 05:44
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Also, I'm not widely travelled in the US, but I never once got ID'd or refused a drink, even in the States where it was illegal, if I was ordering wine with dinner with my parents/relatives. Even in places where I'd basically just been carded for cigarettes or gambling (some states let you gamble at 18). It's a very bad chicken-or-egg problem. US spring break is a headache for everyone in a town/city near the border in Canada (and probably Mexico, too, but I don't know), simply because you have a bunch of idiot Yankees spilling across the border to drink their faces off. Never mind that Canadians of the same age could drink, and didn't cause half the problems... I don't know if lowering the drinking age would help that problem at all, but the US needs to do something to come to grips with its problematic relationship with alcohol. It's strange, because I'd say Americans are less accepting than Canadians or Europeans of alcohol use, on average, but at the same time they seem more prone to abuse it and cause problems, particularly at young ages.
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May 26, 2014 05:45
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Install Windows posted:But you can't even rent a car alone without paying ridiculous extra fees until you're 25. I mean, there's a lot of things in US law that you can't do until 21 or older. That has nothing to do with a law, though; it's about insurance and common policy. If bars typically restricted themselves to 21+ without being legally obliged to do so, I doubt we'd be having this discussion (or it would be very different in character).
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May 26, 2014 05:47
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It's worth pointing out that the US has had a really toxic drinking culture for over 100 years. When Prohibition was passed there were 3 times the number of drinking establishments there are now serving a population less than 1/3 as large and alcohol abuse was a real social menace. People who point to Prohibition as the problem may not realize that Prohibition was a response to a real problem rather than a moral issue.
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May 26, 2014 08:02
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I'm an American who went to college to Madrid, Spain. The drinking culture was so different there. At night all the young folks would be out drinking in the streets until dawn, (this is called botellón) but you never saw anyone puking or passed out. They would start at 2am and continue until 6. The American visiting students would start at 12 and have passed out or gone home sick by 2. By volume they probably all ingested the same amount of alcohol but the Spaniards were way better at pacing themselves. The Spaniards of all ages also drank all day. Lunch? Have a beer! Snack time? Beer time. Dinner? Wine, naturally. This was everybody, old and young. Somehow in America drinking needs to lose its mystique.
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May 26, 2014 14:43
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Nintendo Kid posted:Many states let under 21s drink if their parents buy them the alcohol and a few states even let them be served alcohol in bars and restaurants if their parents are with them. Parents dead. Can't drink away the pain. 'MURICA!
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May 26, 2014 14:57
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Xibanya posted:I'm an American who went to college to Madrid, Spain. The drinking culture was so different there. At night all the young folks would be out drinking in the streets until dawn, (this is called botellón) but you never saw anyone puking or passed out. They would start at 2am and continue until 6. The American visiting students would start at 12 and have passed out or gone home sick by 2. By volume they probably all ingested the same amount of alcohol but the Spaniards were way better at pacing themselves. It's because they slept half the day away.
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May 26, 2014 15:06
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