> Hopefully my experiences give an idea of what I'm looking for. Trends
> in alcohol debut age, alcohol availability, "outdoor" vs. "indoor"
> drinking, and maybe even some insights in why people where you live
> drink as they do. My focus is the alcohol use/abuse in the younger
> (underage) population.
> I hope this wont be too much trouble.
>
> Hoping to hear from you,
>
> Mike.
Mike-
I am a 19 year old college student in New Jersey, USA; thus, I am underage.
With all due to respect to the grayer, wiser heads here (who might be able to
offer an idea of what life was like in the golden days when the drinking age
was 18), I've probably got the best handle on what's going on right now from
the underage perspective.
For those who are under-21, alcohol offers a paradox:
1) It is incredibly easy to procure
2) It is incredibly hard to buy
You will almost certainly get carded if you look under 25. In New Jersey, the
fine for selling to a minor is $1000 and the possible loss of your liquor
license. No $15 case of beer is worth that to any businessman. On the other
hand, if you have a decent looking fake driver's license, you should be able
to buy.
In my town, most of my friends started drinking in their junior year of high
school, or around 16 or 17 years old. This is more because the driving age in
NJ is 17 (now 18 for kids born after '84), so you really oculdn't go to any
parties (and spend the night) until you could drive, because it's not cool to
pull up to a party with Mom. As long as one person has a decent fake ID, there
will be booze at the party. Those who have older friends start drinking
earlier because they're exposed to it more.
Drinking is always done indoors (or at venues like concerts where nobody
cares) because many cops are assholes and it's not worth the hassle.
Generally, public drunkenness citations run between $100 and $500.
People in my town drink the way they do because we live in suburbia and
there's nothing to do. There are no clubs, no centers for youth. So, when
someone's folks are out of town, we congregate there and drink. Welcome to
America.
As for college, I think Princeton is very different from most schools. Almost
every university is cracking down on drinking after some well-publicized
deaths, including six at a school in Virginia in the last two years and one at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a few years back at a fraternity
party. However, because princeton's social scene revolves around the 'eating
clubs' (sort of a combination of a co-ed fraternity and an English gentleman's
club) which are on private property and technically unaffiliated with the
university, Princeton is having a hard time cracking down drinking. They did
make the penalties for procuring and public possession of alcohol stiffer,
but it's still legal to have stuff in your room as long as you're not serving
anyone under 21. Thus, I have a fine bar and a collection of good beers in my
room.
While other schools have gone as far as to punish people for empty
containers, you can't get hassled at the eating clubs. Drunkenness is not
against the rules, and if you're taken to the university infirmary for being
drunk, you don't get in trouble. This is important because otherwise people
might refuse treatment and die because they didn't want to get in trouble.
While the University's Alcohol Initiative has been making a lot of noise
about toning down hte eating clubs and providing non-alcoholic events, these
have been failures thus far. In one well-publicized incident, a heavily
advertised university-sponsored dance on a particular saturday night known for
big parties garnered a healthy fifteen or twenty people (out of a student body
of 4,500). Moreover, if we didn't have the eating clubs, which are within 10
minutes walk of any point on campus, people would drink hard liquor in dorm
rooms or drive to bars; this would cause an increase in serious alcohol
poisonings and drunk driving. Smart kids don't necessarily make smart
decisions. Also, it's a lot harder to kill yourself with beer than it is with
hard liquor. The beer served at the clubs is generally of ahigher caliber than
that served at fraternities at other schools (which also serve abysmal and
dangerous punches that are responsible for most of these alcohol poisoning
cases). It's not uncommon to have Killian's Red on tap, and hard cider is
plentiful, not to mention delicious. One club usually has Yuengling Black &
Tan on tap and last year another club had a 'Pub Night' with kegs of Guinness
Stout, Bass, and Guinness Black & Tan.
Well, that's all I can think of. Hope it's been useful. I'll leave the
historical background to the old timers (sorry, guys).
meer