(And, incidentally, why I'm tentatively opposed to drug legalization despite my libertarian leanings.)
Apparently "girls gone wild" is reality in Britain, where almost 30% of young teenaged girls defined themselves as binge drinkers. Considering the level of denial that normally accompanies addiction, I bet the real number is actually a lot higher.
Teenage girls are now more likely than boys to drink, smoke, steal and take drugs, a survey has shown. ...The study of 14 and 15-year-olds was conducted by questionnaire, in schools under exam conditions, and the results compared with a similar one from 1985.
Professor Colin Pritchard, who led the research, said: 'Girls now significantly smoke and binge-drink more than boys. They truant, steal and fight at similar rates, and start under-age sex earlier than boys.'
He said binge-drinking, which was admitted by nearly a third of girls in their early teenage years, drove other anti-social behaviour such as stealing, fighting, taking drugs and engaging in risky sex.
It should be pretty obvious that America's relatively puritannical history has given us a great cultural legacy that protects our society from many of the ills that pervade the rest of the world. I think we'd be wise to avoid Britain's "alcopop" culture.
And Sir John Krebs, principal of Jesus College Oxford, attacked the marketing of alcopops specifically for young people. 'The Government has stood by and let that happen, whereas it wouldn't have accepted the alcopop equivalent of cigarettes targeted at children,' he said.
Additional info:
When your teenage child is showing signs of substance abuse, always keep in mind that there are alcohol and drug detox programs that can help you deal with this problem.
Oh, make no mistake about it.. the scenarios from Britain you mentioned are happening here as well.. and more and more often, in spite of our drinking age being 21 and various drugs being illegal. The problem isn't with the drinking age or the legality or illegality of drugs. The problem is with parenting and the way kids are raised.
Hello Michael,
I tried writing the BFL a week ago about reinstating my blog at BFL (it's always there in the blogroll but I've since had a URL change). But it seems Calblog is no longer in charge. Any idea who I should write about this?
Thanks,
DO
I disagree with you. Our drinking age laws are a big useless hassle. Obviously they get broken a lot, so they are not stopping the people who really want to drink. For those that are not interested in drinking irresponsibly and illegally they prevent them from enjoying alcohol in a sane setting until years after they are allowed to fight and die for their country. Besides, do we really want people's first experiences with alcohol to be before or after they are given a driver's license? There's a lot about the drinking age that makes very little sense.
Samwise, that's not true. The fact that drinking laws get broken means that some people are not stopped from drinking - not that no people are stopped.
And if someone isn't interested in drinking "irresponsibly and illegally", then they will wait to be of age, as drinking earlier is illegal. By definition, the law isn't a hinderance to those people.
For those that are interested in drinking responsibly but illegally, well, those people are the ones the law irritates. And from my observations, they are d*mn few. Most people that are interested in drinking that young aren't bothered by responsibility in the slightest. That may be why they're intested in drinking, perahps?
I think the drinking age is indeed a huge hassle, a lot more trouble than they are worth (although I admit they have some minimal worth: Mike B is right, in that they are not completely useless, only MOSTLY useless, in keeping alcohol away from youngsters who want to drink).
"For those that are interested in drinking responsibly but illegally, well, those people are the ones the law irritates. And from my observations, they are d*mn few."
My observations are quite the opposite. I grew up surrounded by peers who drank illegally and almost always responsibly.
"Most people that are interested in drinking that young aren't bothered by responsibility in the slightest."
Again, I strongly disagree. Young people can be curious about alcohol just like they are about everything else, and this does not imply the lack of respect for responsibility.
Mark is right: If parents talk about alcohol in a reasonable, sincere, non-judgmental way - mentioning that it can be part of a healthy life but that it can be dangerous if experimented with under unsafe conditions - then their kids will probably be able to enjoy alcohol responsibly from an age much younger than 21.
Samwise makes a good point about the driving age. The truth is that people will experiment with alcohol some years before the minimum drinking age. If the driving age is some years before the minimum drinking age - as it is now in the US - you're basically asking for trouble. More enlightened alcohol laws in other countries set the drinking age at 18 (the same as most countries' driving age), knowing that kids will experiment with alcohol starting when they're 14-16 (if the drinking age is 18) so that, by the time they can drive, they are familiar with the effects of alcohol.
I grew up in Brazil. Everyone (well, maybe 90% of us) started drinking when we were 14 or 15.
Most Brazilian parents know that drinking is a part of adolescence, and will not get mad at their kids for alcohol use - which in turn means kids do not hide drinking from their parents, so parents and kids can have honest discussions about the value (if any) of getting plastered vs of having a few drinks. A parent can't deny that a few drinks can enhance the enjoyment of certain kinds of situations - but a parent can say that drinking too much can diminish said enjoyment, and can lead to risks of embarassment, or worse.
Brazilian parents also expect that their kids - particularly boys - will probably become way too drunk for their own good on one or two occasions, an experience which is pretty much impossible to prevent and which will be highly educational. Given that Brazilian high-schoolers can't drive, and that most of the other kids at any one party will not be similarly wasted (that woud be statistically unlikely), the risk from such experience is minimal. And Brazilian kids - particularly girls - know better than to get drunk in situations where they do not have a friend to watch their behinds.
And since none of us could drive (almost all of us were 17 during graduation, with a few 18-year-olds who did get their licenses in the months just prior to graduation), our transportation options (parents, or public transportation) did not become any less dangerous if we got drunk. Those who COULD drive understood, from 4 years of experience, that drinking makes you drunk, so drinking and driving is stupid. Sure, we have drunk-driving accidents, but not like in the US where alcohol is involved in some very high percentage of car crashes.
I'm talking about a bunch of 16-year-olds, who drank responsibly. Is that so hard to imagine? Is that not preferable to the current relationship between alcohol and American youth? None of us drank other than during parties (one of us brought alcohol to school once and was made fun of for this for years), most of us always drank in moderation, we did not steal or fight or do these other things alcohol is said to lead to. We were responsible and not exposed to undue risk because our parents were "real" with us while talking about when to drink, how much to drink, and what to do if you get drunk.
I am a firm believer in the Brazilian approach to underage drinking.
The only occasions (there were 2) when I drank too much for my own good happened during freshman year when I came to the US for college, when many kids seemed to be just discovering alcohol. I thought I'd try exploring the edge of the envelope, so to speak, and I quickly learned how not-fun that is. for some reason, I had the sense not to do this when I was 15 in Brazil, but I did not have it when I was 18 in the US... (It's not "peer pressure", it's "peer acceptance"!)
What I meant to say above was "our transportation options (parents, or public transportation) did not become any more dangerous if we got drunk.", not "less dangerous".
Well, I think Britain as a whole needs to be taken into account here. The country also has a startling teen-pregnancy rate, STD rate, as well as a more overall risky behavior rate. I think that this is all a result of a liberal society where everything is socially acceptable. According to the BBC, Britain and Wales have the highest rate of teen pregnancies in Western Europe. Taking an even closer look, in urban areas, 10% of teen girls become pregnant on average. That's quite a high number. Furthermore, fully 20% of babies born in Britain are aborted. Between 2003-2004, teen STD rates in Britain doubled. Thus, the 30% binge-drinking statistics do not at all surprise me.
Anyways, I think that there is a "Everything is tolerated" attitude in Britain and that's why 30% of teen girls define themselves as binge drinkers.
I think the drinking age is ineffective and that drugs should be legalized.
I guess my point is that the binge-drinking problem is just a symptom of a much larger problem in Britain, and is not directly related to the drinking age premise in your post.
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/mar/04033104.html
Bernado, with all due respect, you underestimate the moral diligence required to sustain a civil society. The characteristic cry for "non-judgmental" approaches to moral behavior amounts to the abandonment of reason and intellectual discourse on topics which *by definition* require judgment.
I'm glad you and your friends were responsible. But responsibility doesn't come naturally to humans. It is modeled and taught. And the law is one of the primary and necessary means by which behavior is circumscribed in a civil and progressive society.
"The law is one of the primary and necessary means by which behavior is circumscribed in a civil and progressive society".
You're absolutely right. The way in which the average Brazilian disrespects laws is a fundamental factor explaining why Brazil does not improve. When a society formulates laws as a model for justice, rights, and values, and when a society's citizens see that following laws means being civilized and fair, and doing what is best for everyone, then this society will be more just (as long as the law-making mechanisms keep reflecting what most people believe to be fair). In addition, a society where the law is respected and enforced means a society where people are liable for doing wrong things - something else Brazil has to work on.
"The characteristic cry for "non-judgmental" approaches to moral behavior amounts to the abandonment of reason and intellectual discourse on topics which *by definition* require judgment".
That makes sense. I'm not trying to promote a non-judgmental approach. I judge laws, and the customs and values of a society, based on what (as far as I can tell) is best for everyone. In my experience, the Brazilian approach to youth alcohol use leads to less trouble than the American one, since I saw much less alcohol abuse (and less dangers to alcohol abusers) in Brazil than in the US. So I judge it superior. When it comes to deciding which society is doing something right - or whether an approach is good or bad - I try to be pragmatic: Is this working? Is this better for most people? Is this solving problems? Is it creating new ones? Are they as severe as the old ones? If one could not be judgmental this way, there would never be progress - you just need to define what "progress" is. We need to be able to think about what is fair, and about what is best for everyone.
"I'm glad you and your friends were responsible. But responsibility doesn't come naturally to humans. It is modeled and taught".
Again, you're right. We are responsible probably because we had good parents and other good role models (or visible examples of what happens when one is not responsible).
I've recently heard that there are some scary statistics on Brazilian youth alcohol abuse. Of course, they depend on how you define "abuse", but I will grant you that maybe my experience (my responsible friends) was not representative of the population. If allowing Brazilian kids easy access to alcohol is causing serious problems, then I am willing to say that the law should be enforced more strongly, or even changed.
I am not saying there is inherent value in breaking the law - over 99% of the time, there is value in NOT breaking the law (and the rest of the time, you must keep in mind that, in breaking the law, you are pursuing values or risks that are thought to be not worthwhile by lawmakers).
What I was saying is, it is possible to raise your kids in such a way that they can be exposed to alcohol early and not suffer for it.
Should a law take away that freedom? In a society where most parents will NOT raise their kids quite that carefully, that freedom could cause more harm than it is worth, in which case sure, legislate some of it away. But for me to support that, I would need to be convinced that the effects of NOT having such a law (or not bothering to enforce it) are detrimental, and that real problems would be solved if alcohol is made just a little harder to get. Because you should not make it SO hard to get that people who can enjoy it responsibly are kept from it. It's a tough balance, one I can't claim to understand perfectly, but that's my vague impression of it.
To illustrate what I mean: Not all parents bother explaining to their kids that the way you solve problems in the real world is very different fromt he way you solve problems in an action movie or violent video game, that death is an extremely serious thing. Does that mean kids should not be free to play violent video games? Any solution (such as saying that stores cannot sell violent video games to kids) is imperfect.
If some people cannot enjoy something responsibly, how much freedom should be taken away from those who CAN? Is it really fair to say I cannot have any alcohol just because there are people out there who drink excessively to the detriment of those around them?
Maybe there should be a "drinking license" that you can test for when you're 16 or 18 or whatever, and that gets taken away from you if someone reports you did something bad while drunk. Or maybe the license could contain a mechanism that keeps you from being sold alcohol at too fast a rate. I'm just making this up (and I bet many privacy nuts will think this suggestion is outrageous), but what I'm saying is, there could be ways to tell the responsible from the irresponsible. Right now in Brazil, we pretty much trust everyone to just be responsible. That's a bad idea, but because of the way most parents are down there, it might lead to less youth alcohol problems than the US sees. Or it might not. I guess that's really the bottom line in the end.
The problem is the fact that the drinking age is 21. Teens are going after the forbidden fruit.. rebelling against authoritys..if the drinking age was 18, as is the voting age, adoption age, marriage age, and beign recognized as a legal adult.. i feel that teens would not feel that they had to rebel and go against what their parents and the law said..they would not sit in their dorm rooms and get wasted before the bars because they would have the right to go to the bar legally and have a few drinks while dancing. Teens these days are all about rebelling and doing what they see as "cool".