<p>kassos, I believe you already know what I think so I will TRY to keep my soapbox brief.</p>
<p>First, I think you might benefit by having these discussions with your own parents or other adults who are more important to your life. Although I hope you listen carefully to the advice and knowledge shared by some of the parents here (such as JHS), cyberspace parenting can only go so far...
You present a very "interesting" concept: Safe intoxication. My response? This is an oxymoron. By definition, there is no such thing as "safe" intoxication. Having a drink or two in someone's basement may be safe. But that is not intoxication. Safe drinking is responsible drinking which means stopping before you are intoxicated. Intoxication is ALWAYS potentially dangerous, either to yourself or to those around you. Intoxication means that you no longer have the control (or usually the desire) to stop yourself. But you're a smart kid, you already know this.</p>
<p>You also question my concerns about defining "fun" as drinking solely to get drunk. ("What if you believe that intoxicating yourself, if done safely and administered properly, can be called legitimate fun?"). Since I disagree with your qualifying premise that this can be done safely, I am not sure that this can or needs to be answered? I will say this: I agree that people drink because they find it enjoyable. If drinking was not fun, there wouldn't be so many people doing it. However, there are different kinds of fun, and different degrees of fun. Some activities are safe and others are dangerous. Because of the potential harm that can result from engaging in dangerous activities, our society has attempted to control such activities through various means including laws that regulate, control, limit and sometimes prohibit these activities regardless of whether certain members consider them to be fun or not. We do this in order to protect all members of society from the consequences of dangerous activities. Yes, our world view and our laws are based on generally accepted moral values. However, most of choose to accept most of the laws that shape this world view. We believe that there needs to be controls and limits on certain activities such as drinking and drug use given their potential harm to the rest of society - even if this means sometimes restricting individual rights. For without social codes to guide us, I expect we would end up with a much more chaotic and lawless - a much worse - world. One that certainly would not function or survive if all its members were overly concerned with experiencing individual states of altered consciousness through substance abuse. But most of the time, given our democratic form of government, this system of controlling behavior for the good of society tends to work pretty well, since we have enough checks and balances to change it when it needs to be changed. And when/if sufficient research, facts and proof come forth to contradict the prevailing views, those views will change. Nothing is static.</p>
<p>So, the real issue that you bring up has more to do with the philosophical issue of whether or when an individual has the right to choose to engage in dangerous activities that have been deemed illegal by society (as in not legitimate fun), in particular when that activity is perceived as presenting no harm to others (such as isolated drinking in your basement away from others). I'm not really interested in debating theoretical philosophical discussions on alternate world views here. But the bottom line is that you should not have that right unless or until you are mature enough to make responsible choices. I am really more concerned about what the reality is right NOW and what the implications of that reality are for our future as a result. Your scenario ignores the reality of the drinking behavior and attitudes of MOST teens or college students who drink excessively. If young teens were to restrict their drinking to only safe home environments, under the careful supervision of their parents so as not to reach an intoxicated level we wouldn't have the problems we do. But the reality is that this would NOT be fun. Responsible but not fun. And so yes, how "fun" is being defined is a large part of the problem. Most teens/young adults drink to have fun, but it is not fun unless it is in excess - which makes it a potentially dangerous activity, and even more so as we see those excesses increasing. There is just no getting around that. Even if you were to drink in a supposedly safe isolated environment (which, btw, seems to be an effective way to "disengage" yourself from the world around you--and could also be an indication of possible mental health issues/depression), if you are drinking to get drunk, then once you become intoxicated, drinking is no longer a safe activity, and you can no longer control whether the activity will remain isolated, or whether there will be harm to yourself. Please believe us when we say you are NOT invincible.</p>
<p>kassos, as you said earlier, we do need to THINK. College students in particular. But not just about themselves. The ability to look beyond themselves is part of growing up, part of becoming mature responsible adults, individuals who can contribute something to their society. In exchange, adults are given "adult" privileges. The drinking behavior of college age students often does not reflect adult maturity and in fact, seems to be getting more out of control, and thus resulting in more actual and potential immediate harm as well as increasing risks for long-term harm. Is it no surprise that much of the older members of society might not respond so eagerly to the idea of adopting more permissive laws to control this behavior and even be leaning more the other way? </p>
<p>btw, here are some examples of college students having "fun":</p>
<p><a href="http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2005/05/alcohol_deaths_.html%5B/url%5D">http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2005/05/alcohol_deaths_.html</a></p>