<p>Drinking was far more public 25 years ago. Because a very large percentage of high school students were 18, it was much easier for 14-15 year olds to access alcohol, and at many of the "senior" events, drinking could be legal if confined to those over 18. There was far, far more drinking and driving, and DUI laws were more poorly enforced than they are now (which is hard to believe!)</p>
<p>However, after dipping to lows in the mid-90s, high school drinking has leveled off, though in my state it continues to decline slowly.</p>
<p>Fowora, you forget - we parents were all teenagers too. We are not ignorant of what the social lives of teens are like, nor of college students. If you are so convinced that gaining experience with alcohol will save lives, I will find the link to a CC'r who was a student at Cornell who prided himself on only drinking with experienced drinkers so that he would stay "safe." He died of alcohol poisoning after a St Patrick's day party at UVA (I think this happened 2 years ago?).</p>
<p>I agree that parents must have a dialogue with their kids, and a degree of trust (although trust must be EARNED, it is not a right). Parents who never let their kids go anywhere will usually end up with kids who rebel. But this thread was started to discuss how far to safely let kids go, and how to allow them to have a social life without giving them complete free rein. </p>
<p>There is a reason it is never been legal in the US (at least not in the last 75 years) for people under 18 to drink.</p>
<p>Maybe it's a socioeconomic thing - I didn't attend an affluent school, and never heard of keg parties out in the middle of nowhere way back when.</p>
<p>I've had to educate my kid that people can have a drink without getting blind drunk. She seems to have absorbed the concept (from where?) that it's either/or.</p>
<p>BTW, the best think I ever learned was to take a full glass and let it sit there on the table, or walk around with it. This approach allows social acceptability without taking so much as a sip, if so desired.</p>
<p>Lafalum I know you were once teenagers, as in the same logic I will one day be a parent, I'm not saying let kids drink now so they can learn to handle alcohol appropriately, I'm saying barring them and being over protective is just as worse as letting them go wild. And a word to anyone who is quick to judge the youth of today. A quote by Haim Ginott goes like this "Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have anything to do with it" If so many adults believe children these days are becoming "monsters" then word to the wise, "us children" did not raise ourselves</p>
<p>It is illegal for kids to drink these days. Adults are foolish to permit this in their homes. Most states permit wine for dinner or toasting even for underagers, but to allow alcohol to be consumed when there are other people's kids in your home is foolish.</p>
<p>At my high school people smoke during lunch and come back to class high all the time. It's more of a rarity to not have a few drunk/high kids in class then to have them.</p>
<p>Fowora, you have a point. Somewhere between being your child's "friend" and being completely authoritarian lies a happy medium.</p>
<p>I would actually consider some sort of graduated drinking law - no alcohol under 18; 18 - 21 could purchase beer or wine only for consumption on the premises (at a bar or restaurant, but not at a liquor store) and would not be allowed to transport alcohol under any circumstances, then 21 would be fully legal. Bars and restaurants already have a responsibility not to serve people who are drunk, so that wouldn't change. And if 18 year olds couldn't buy alcohol for take-out, they couldn't buy it to provide it to minors. Hopefully this would encourage college-age kids to learn to drink responsibly. But I don't know....</p>
<p>In colleges the drinking age is really such a fantasy that the above would have little effect besides perhaps making it more out in the open (it would be nice to buy alcohol myself at a bar instead of asking my senior friend to do it?). Quite a few bars operate on the principle that if you have the money, they have the drinks, as is.</p>
<p>Honestly I think people need to give up on fully preventing underage drinking, as you're simply not going to succeed. You can repeat how it's illegal, how it mustn't be tolerated, etc., but you might as well bang your head against the wall. If your teenager wants to drink, he/she will find a way. The drinking age being raised to 21 reduces the supply of people who are willing to buy alcohol for teens but it certainly doesn't eliminate it.</p>
<p>Are there teens who don't drink? Certainly. At least in my school though, the majority did. And setting a curfew at 11PM or not letting your kid go to a party where you don't know the parents won't change anything. We can drink at 8PM just as easily and say we're going to see a movie with friends.</p>
<p>I wouldnt say give up it on it fully. Do we give up on punishing crimes simply on the premise that people still commit them? No way, there needs to be some standard of morality even if it isn't fullproof. A man once said he had six theories on how to raise children, then he had 6 children and zero theories. It's all guess and check sometimes.</p>
<p>But statistically, the laws have worked! Far fewer high school youth drink today than did 25 years ago, and there are far fewer drinking and driving accidents among teenagers. </p>
<p>Laws against murder don't succeed in deterring all murderers. It doesn't mean you stop punishing people for it. I think the fact that people chafe about underage drinking laws is proof of their effectiveness, not their lack thereof.</p>
<p>"Far fewer high school youth drink today than did 25 years ago, and there are far fewer drinking and driving accidents among teenagers."</p>
<p>Yes, but as was mentioned, this is due to the raising of the drinking age from 18 to 21. It fell sharply in the 90s and is now levelling off, i.e. it has already fallen as far as it is going to.</p>
<p>Of course blatant abuses should be punished (if you have 50 people over and you can hear the party a block away, you deserve to be raided!) and drunk driving/binge drinking should not be tolerated. But trying to completely end it will do more to alienate teens than actually stop it completely. If you let your teen go to parties, trust me, there's going to be alcohol at some of them whether you call the parents or not. If you don't, all I can say is guess what's going to happen in college.</p>
<p>I didn't really mind the underage drinking laws actually--enforcement is slim to nonexistent if you don't do anything stupid.</p>
<p>Edit: Underage drinking and murder? Come on. With the exception of drunk driving, underage drinking only harms the people doing it. The idea shouldn't be to punish, it should be to prevent it from getting out of hand (you can argue that it happening at all is it getting out of hand because it is illegal, but face it, it's not a realistic goal to end it completely). Trying to completely stamp it out won't get you any farther than abstinence-only education.</p>
I wouldnt say give up it on it fully. Do we give up on punishing crimes simply on the premise that people still commit them? No way, there needs to be some standard of morality even if it isn't fullproof. A man once said he had six theories on how to raise children, then he had 6 children and zero theories. It's all guess and check sometimes.
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Laws against murder don't succeed in deterring all murderers. It doesn't mean you stop punishing people for it. I think the fact that people chafe about underage drinking laws is proof of their effectiveness, not their lack thereof.
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<p>We don't give up on punishing crimes because most crimes are illegal because the consequences of allowing them would be unequivocally worse than not allowing them, and moreover because most crimes infringe on others' rights.</p>
<p>Drinking age laws are an interesting case where not only is it not necessarily clear that the benefits have outweighed the costs, but also the "crime" infringes on no one's rights other than the drinker's.</p>
<p>Personally, we could argue the statistics and other things forever; at the end of the day I think the drinking age should be set at the age of legal majority. Don't think 18 year olds should be able to drink? Raise the age of majority. The contradiction currently enshrined in law is stupid and untenable.</p>
<p>"We don't give up on punishing crimes because most crimes are illegal because the consequences of allowing them would be unequivocally worse than not allowing them, and moreover because most crimes infringe on others' rights."</p>
<p>Society came to a political decision (as it does in all matters of this kind) that 1) the consequences of allowing them would be unequivocally worse (in deaths - well-documented, future costs to society in alcoholism, and alcohol problems), and, the links between early alcohol use and later societal problems being clearly demonstrated, infringes dramatically on the rights of others.</p>
<p>The supply of alcohol available to teens has been pretty constant over the past few years (went down after 18 year olds were no longer allowed to buy it, that took effect 20 years ago). Your goals should be to try to prevent people from drinking themselves to death or driving into trees while drunk rather than to expect to be able to stamp it out completely</p>
<p>My focus as a parent has always been on preventing future substance abuse problems, particularly since my family has a history of substance abuse. All the statistics indicate that the younger an individual is when he/she starts drinking, the higher the odds are that he/she will have an alcohol abuse problem down the road. (Ditto for other substances.) We pointed out and commented on the frequent news articles about star athletes and actors who "had it all", but completely screwed up their lives due to substance abuse. We have also focused on the school's zero tolerance suspension policy for EC participation, and how if you're dedicated to your EC, you do not want to take the chance of forfeiting participation in it. So far this focus seems to have worked with our kids, at least with regard to hs.</p>
<p>"Your goals should be to try to prevent people from drinking themselves to death or driving into trees while drunk rather than to expect to be able to stamp it out completely."</p>
<p>Again, neither I nor anyone else expects to stamp out murder completely. Enforcing the drinking age has proven effectiveness in preventing people from drinking themselves to death or driving into trees while drunk.</p>
<p>At the same time, the enforcement you speak of has been far from uniform in application. Drinking deaths have been reduced, but it's the result of everything combined (reudcing supply of alcohol, reduced cultural acceptance of drunk driving, offering to drive people home with no questions asked) rather than only the drinking age (though that is a large component). The drinking age serves to reduce the supply of alcohol available. Nonetheless, on any given weekend, teens can find a place to drink if they so desire.</p>
<p>The clampdowns have very little deterrence effect. At my school, plenty of people involved in ECs drank or did pot (one year both captains of the lacrosse team were kicked off for having pot in their cars by school. Most of the people weren't caught, though). The parties you hear about being raided are usually ones that any sane person would expect to be busted. For every freshman inviting 50 kids to his house while his parents are out of town and then getting raided, there are 10 or 20 "parties" with 10 or 15 kids quietly drinking in a basement.</p>
<p>I'm not saying it should be tolerated in the open, but I think at least allowing no-questions-asked rides home is greatly preferable to the alternative. Binge drinking I don't claim to know how to deal with--too much variation with kids/parents/etc.</p>