The solution? Repeal the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 and let states set their own drinking ages as they did before. States that lower the age to 18 should vigorously enforce laws against drunk driving, public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, etc, of people of all ages. College kids can have a pitcher of beer at the campus taverns instead of guzzling bottles of FireBall in their dorm rooms.
Someone committing a crime like rape, robbery, assault, etc. against you is always wrong.
But people (regardless of gender, regardless of whether they are college students) should realize that drinking themselves drunk or passed out makes them easier victims for whatever criminal who happens by. Just like leaving stuff unlocked and easily accessible makes it easier for thieves to steal the stuff.
Would lowering the drinking age really help, though? As I noted upthread, it’s good to remember that the move to increase the drinking age was a (possibly wrongheaded, but still sincere) attempt to reign in irresponsible drinking behavior among teenagers.
It’s not like when drinking ages were 18 and 19 college students who drank made it a regular practice to have an occasional wine cooler at the local pub and then heading off to play tiddlywinks with their friends before retiring for the evening.
“the drinking culture of the US itself is a contributing factor.”
Certainly. Alcohol is legal in the vast majority of countries, but we don’t all have equal problems with alcohol abuse. Russia is the most dangerous place in the world from this point of view.
@Marian
*Fraternities
Happy?
@dfbdfb When the drinking age was 18 in my state the preferred drink at college was beer, not liquor. That changes a lot. And kids drinking in bars drank less than at house or frat parties since you had to pay, and there was supervision to prevent bad behavior. If we are really concerned about drunk driving then adopt Scandinavian style laws that put you in prison for a few months if you’re over .02%. Scandinavians drink a lot but they don’t drive drunk.
Thank you for making the correction @WorryHurry411. I wasn’t sure whether you were concerned about fraternity parties being an unsafe environment or whether you were saying that it was unsafe for women to join sororities.
@WorryHurry411 - if that’s true then the next step might be to end athletics and fraternities on campus.
…except those guys would still find a way to party together and reinforce the behavior that rises from the belief that if a girl is drunk she put herself in their way and deserves what she gets. With some support from statements like yours.
“Would lowering the drinking age really help, though?”
Maybe we should run the experiment and find out.
Once again, alcohol is NOT the problem. Why don’t you guys focus on teaching boys not to rape? Plus the girl is an adult. She can drink if she wants to.
“Why don’t you guys focus on teaching boys not to rape?”
Nice sound bite. Very politically correct. But you got any ideas on how this would be done? Any data on the efficacy of your suggested approach?
The data tells us that the most effective means are getting a handle on the drinking, training the girls, and training bystanders. That stuff will make my daughters safer. Your sound bite – not so much.
“Nice sound bite. Very politically correct. But you got any ideas on how this would be done? Any data on the efficacy of your suggested approach?”
Maybe by not objectifying women in the media where are males are exposed to it from the time they are born? Maybe by having stricter sexual assault penalties than 6 months for raping someone passed out? Maybe by ensuring equal opportunity for women in the form of equal wages, etc. which would show that women aren’t second class citizens in this country? All would at least be a good start.
When I was in college, the drinking age was 18. There was lots of pot around, and other stuff too. This was after the pill and Roe v. Wade, but before HIV.
There was plenty of drinking, but I never once knew of a person who had to be hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. Hangovers, yes. No pre-gaming.
People smoked a lot of pot. Pot smokers are not violent or hyperactive, and can’t smoke themselves into unconsciousness.
Lots of people had sex. The females I knew seemed to be in control of their choices in that regard. I can certainly say that I don’t know of anyone who was raped, although given the reality of acquaintance rape it is possible that it happened to someone I knew.
@northwesty “have any ideas on how this could be done?”
SELF CONTROL. Every one has it. I’m sure there were numerous drunk guys at that party who did NOT rape a girl. Stop acting like it’s hard not to rape.
It is not hard not to rape or commit other crimes like robbery, assault, battery, theft, etc…
But, no matter how much we tell people that doing such crimes is wrong, some people will do these kinds of crimes anyway. Hence, we also tell people how to avoid being easy victims of criminals.
@snarlton, and when the drinking age was 18 in my state, the preferred drink among 14 year olds was also beer. Lowering the drinking age just pushes this problem into the high schools.
And do any of you honestly not realize that fake IDs are readily available to college students who wish to drink illegally in bars? According to one fairly straight-laced student at our state flagship “Everyone has a fake ID.”
It used to be that heavy advertising by the cigarette makers convinced many young people that smoking was cool. I think there has been some success in reversing this thinking and most young people realize that smoking is not cool but dangerous. I think we need a significant campaign to convince young people that drinking to excess is also not cool but dangerous.
@ucbalumnus, obviously that makes sense.
But we have to be careful here because the particular crime we’re talking about – having sex with a person who is passed out from drinking too much alcohol – was not always regarded as the serious crime it is considered to be today.
In contrast, theft has always been considered a crime.
Somehow, there’s a different feeling about advising a college woman not to get dead drunk to avoid being raped than there is about telling her not to leave her electronic devices unattended to avoid having them stolen.
It’s also true that adults set an example by serving alcohol at parties. I don’t know what sort of parties the rest of you attend. I don’t see adults drinking to the point of vomiting, passing out or falling down, or even just getting really drunk at the events I attend. The idea that it’s normal or desirable to drink to that extent seems to be far more prevalent in the college crowd.
True, but I think the teaching that rape is wrong isn’t as definitive as teaching it’s wrong to murder, etc.
Stanford rapists’ dad clearly thinks it wasn’t that wrong, he got into trouble for drinking too much and not having good judgement when doing so. This was the thinking of his model growing up, one assumes.
What constitutes murder isn’t always clear either, actually.