<p>Post 12 Cardinal Fang’s note sums it up for me. </p>
<p>Seems she was drinking that night, and any alcohol on the breath or in the blood underage is too much. She would have never passed a test if she had been drinking earlier that night (which she admits to) or at the location where she received the citation. And yes, in our state just being there is against the law. Seems like she is lucky she was not given the test, if you really want to know. Having a positive breathalyzer is worse than having no breathalyzer. </p>
<p>Any why does attending a prominent ivy league school matter. Smart kids still make stupid choices.</p>
<p>i agree that an attorney should be consulted. I’ve heard of cops busting up college parties and requiring all present to blow into a breathalyzer. My question, what if they refuse to blow? Isn’t that something they’d have to have a warrant for? How can they make a kid at a party prove their own guilt? Driver’s who refuse suffer immediate loss of D.L., but a kid suspected of underage drinking? Any experiences? </p>
<p>When my niece was in school in PA, a sorority sister’s dad (an attorney) advised her to always refuse a breathalyzer unless she was driving. Don’t think she was ever faced with the decision, but she was prepared to refuse. Varies by state, I’m sure. Good luck to the OP. I say we should lower the drinking age to 18!</p>
<p>My daughter does not go to prominent Ivies. Local police only come when there are too many kids at a frat party, but they only shut it down, no one gets a citation.</p>
<p>An equivalent to prominent ivies school out in the west coast doesn’t even allow police on their private campus. They have their own security. My daughter was invited to an Italian night dinner with wine at a dorm when she was visiting.</p>
<p>Most college kids will drink while they are in college. It is surprising to me the local police would “bust” a college student part at a college town - it is a sure way of upsetting your biggest employer in town.</p>
<p>Hire a lawyer. If she didn’t have a breathalyzer and was not standing there holding a drink, a lawyer may be able to get it dismissed. Similiar thing happened to S’s roommate. Case was dismissed.</p>
<p>Is this the normal response to underage drinking at colleges? Would OP divulge the name of this school so that we can warn kids who we know who are attending there?</p>
<p>what LMNOP said. I’d like to know which school allows the police on campus to break up a party</p>
<p>I guess I would try to fight it just because it goes on her record (I would have a long sit down with her first to make sure she did not gloss over anything incriminating and to talk to her about unintended consequences) In fact I think I’ll go have that liitle talk with my S now</p>
<p>The neighbor “complained about noise”. You can pretty much assume it was a loud, wild, orgiastic kind of scene rather than the boombox being turned up too high. (It also was likely a repeat performance, and the “house” had been warned before, which is how police usually handle things.)</p>
<p>It wasn’t a “response to underage drinking”.</p>
<p>^^thats probably a true assessment of the situation! However, with all of us having at least anecdotal knowledge of legal issues involved with underage drinking – isnt it time to unite to change this ridiculous law? US has already lived through one prohibition that we now think was ludicrous, this one is another. I bet that the majority of the parents on cc had drinking age as 18. Saying oooh bad girl underage drinking… is rather insane given that we were all within legal limits drinking at 18. The rationale for raising the age are the drink/drive incidents. Statistically these incidents now have gone up a demographic range to the 21/23 age group. Its not the underage drinking/driving that causes most accidents – its the first three years of driving once drinking is legal. The government should either revert the age, or raise the legal age for voting/army to 21.</p>
<p>I am for it. I would say majority of people would be for it, but it’s not a very PC thing to say for a long time. It would make more sense to raise the driving age, but it would a hardship to many families if teenagers couldn’t drive. We all know our kids drink in college, but with the law we could all pretend it’s not happening, and couldn’t even properly address issues of binge drinking or alcoholism because technically kids under 21 are not drinking.</p>
<p>I don’t want to raise the driving age either. I want to spend the most time I can with a new driver under my roof and my rules. I would also like to have the new drinker under my roof and rules, but I can’t because the age is 21 after they have left home.</p>
<p>We teach them how to manage money, time, education, love lives, but we can’t teach them to drink responsibly, because an adult is not allowed to drink. Seems strange to me.</p>
<p>Many states have exceptions to the underage drinking laws that allow some underage drinking, ie, if it is in the parent’s home/with parental consent; so in theory mom and dad CAN teach them to drink responsibly if they really wanted to. I think many of us treat drinking as taboo/forbidden fruit because of the underage laws - perhaps because it is just easier? - even though we know they probably will drink anyway, and well before they go off to college and not in our presence; it’s sort of like the issue of sex, we may have the talk with them but how many of us provide our hs teens with birth control?</p>
<p>I think 21 for drinking has created more problems than it solved. I feel for the parents who have lost a child due to drunk driving, but this is not the solution. Instead, because of it there is more unsurpervised drinking and partying and more likely serious assualt injuries.</p>
<p>I think the 21 drinking age is one of the most effective public health interventions of the 20th Century, which has directly saved thousands of lives, and indirectly saved thousands of others from serious alcohol problems later in life, and I’d hate to be in a situation where 18-year-old high school students were dispensing alcohol to their younger drinking-and-driving friends.</p>
<p>Do I think it’s perfect? Nope. But I am old enough, and professionally knowledgeable enough, to know where we were before.</p>
<p>And, by the way, we DO have data about those who get into serious trouble with drinking between the ages of 18-21, and, as a rule, it is not those who hadn’t taken it up before.</p>
<p>maybe we should change the age our sons and daughters can graduate school, serve in the military or leave home. Let’s not call them adults until they truly are - the brain supposedly is still froming those ever so essential places that govern impulse and common sense - until 25. </p>
<p>Being facetious of course - not sure I want to live my son until he is twenty five.</p>
<p>I am actually for lowing it for all the reasons that have been given here. I am also against raising the driving age for all of the reasons given here.</p>
<p>My DH became a judge last year and we have teenagers so a new event in our household is the Sunday morning phone call from neighborhood parents who had their teenager picked up the night before by the police. Needless to say we have pounded into our kids about the repercussions for underage drinking.</p>
<p>Since dad is a judge, he has educated our kids on the laws affecting them, many which surprised us. In our state as well as many others, a penalty for underage drinking or being present where alcohol is served to minors affects one’s license. So if my son was at a beach bonfire and was drinking, his license would be suspended eventhough no driving is involved. The courts have found that attaching a penalty to one’s license seems to be a better deterrent to underage drinking. I would first do some research on what the law is in the state of the offense since it varies state by state. Is it her presence or the alleged drinking by her that is the infraction. </p>
<p>Second, the license points system is more strict for minors that is why NJ would be hitting her so hard on the cosequences. If she truly is innocent then contact a local lawyer to assist her in the fight. Is the charge a misdeamanor or a felony? The cosequences and your actions would depend on how it is charged. Another point would be if she is a first time offender, in our state the point of punishment of a minor is to rehabbilitate so there is a junvenile diversion program, e.g. if found guilty, she pays a fine, attends an alcohol awareness program and does community service. If she is successful in completing it, then her record and the charge is removed from her record and no reporting to NJ. As long as she is respectful before the judge, the judge should show some sympathy in his punishment. </p>
<p>One thing to note is that if you fight it and she is found guilty, the punishment received could be more severe than the original offer from the prosecuting attorney for a guilty or nolo contendere plea at the beginning. Also see if the prosecuting attorney will reduce the charge at the onset to a non-alcohol offense.</p>
<p>Good luck, based on the phone calls we get, I’m amazed at the number of kids getting into trouble these days. It has sort of made me glad when my high schooler decides to stay home on a friday night these days.</p>
<p>Perhaps we can agree that the whole “when should kids/adults be allowed to drink” falls into the category of Some Things in Life are Ambiguous and Arbitrary — Learn to Live With It. My D is currently PO’d because she arrived at a college party four minutes before the police arrived. The police wrote “party with underaged drinking” tickets to the fifteen kids closest to the door, my D included. It turned out there was one underaged person at the party, not a student at the college, an invitee whose sponsor didn’t come to the party. (I know it sounds like I’m making this up, but I’m not.) Fortunately these sorts of incidents are handled by a Student Affairs Court, thereby saving us the expense of an attorney. D was “convicted” but her punishment was reasonable. She’s still PO’d. I tell her “get over it.”</p>