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Subject: Re: drinking ages
From: aging bacchus
Posted: Mon Aug 4. 2003, 15:32 UTC
Followup to: "Re: UK view - or what i did?"  by -JAM-  (Mon Aug 4. 2003, 01:36 UTC)
I'll make a few comments without attempting to weave a coherent monologue:

1. The drinking ages in the US were lowered in response to the Vietnam Wars - 
the rationale was, "old enough to fight and die, old enough to drink."

2. Where I grew up, the state allowed "home rule" - i.e., each CITY made their 
own drinking rules. Therefore, a college town might be 18 for beer and wine, 
and the surrounding quiet suburbs might be 21. There is still a legacy of this 
in Illinois and it is absolute hell as a bartender - the drinking age is now 
universally 21, but if you walk across the street all the other silly rules 
might change. (The toughest ones now are in court - it is rough when you 
require servers to be 21 when all the cities around you only need to be 
17-18.) Moreover, where I grew up it was 19 for beer and wine, 21 for the hard 
stuff; but, across the border in Wisconsin, it was 18 for everything. 
Therefore, as an older high school senior, I could legally drink in Wisconsin. 
As a result, there were dozens of bars on the border with carry-out liquor 
licenses. (all shut down or restricted in the 1980s. There was even a time 
where they wouldn't serve anyone out of state because of an agreement with 
MADD) I remember going to a place with quarter beers and sneaking a few of my 
16 year old buddies in. We thought we were completely cool - the place was 
hot, full of girls, and you could get a nice buzz and some pretzels for less 
than $5. Then we found out the girls we were putting the moves on were 14.

3. Beer and bad wine was easy to get in my high school. The drivers ID in the 
1970s had no picture; many fakes were floating around. For one, I would take 
orders Friday nights for liquor, drive over the border, and deliver the beer 
Monday morning in the parking lot. If you wanted something for the immediate 
weekend, you either had to pay a premium or drink whatever I had leftover in 
my trunk. Had to admit, it was odd shopping for booze in Wisconsin with a high 
school letter jacket on.

4. Because there was always alcohol around, drugs never caught on with most of 
my crowd. Most of the parents were pleased by this, believing that a few beers 
on the weekends were better than the evils of pot. When I visited my old 
friends in Missouri, where beer was rare - pot was very easy to find. Vices 
will always be around.

5. I did a lot of stupid things in high school involving liquor. If I did the 
same things today, I would be in jail for DUI, transporting liquor, underaged 
drinking, and many things involving young women. Even then, transporting 
minors across state lines and getting them drunk could be a problem. I drove 
trashed, urinated in public, drank during high school lunch hours, and slept 
through classes. I was really not "mature" enough to handle this stuff.

In the end, 25 years later, I am still torn by the issue. By the time I 
reached college, I already had 3-4 years of drinking experience and as a 
result, had far fewer problems with booze than a lot of other people did. But 
the most important issue to remember is -- ALL the laws are different. To the 
younger fellow who posted this, it is hard to keep this in context. When I 
grew up and the cops pulled you over for drinking IN THE CAR, they just 
laughed at you, took the beer away and followed you home. Today, depending on 
the state, you would go to jail. 25 years ago, you ONLY got a DUI if you 
angered the cops. 

The only way it would even be possible to lower the drinking age would be when 
all the laws were changed, and that is impossible today - even if all the 
people from 18-21 got around to voting for it.


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