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In most of the world, 18 is the legal age. In a few biggies - like Germany and Austria - it's 16.
The USA, along with a short list of other mainly Muslim countries, like Iraq, Egypt, Oman, has an age of 21, while some other more "strict" places (like Saudi Arabia) do not allow drinking at all.
Sure, here (USA) it's about money - but think broader. Most of the planet does not have a problem with drinking. By that I mean, not a problem DOING IT and not a problem tolerating OTHERS doing it.
The real answer is that it depends on the state and the conditions of your probation, and even your probation officer's discretion.
Some states outright prohibit alcohol consumption while on probation. The terms of probation can vary between county, judge, and even between seemingly identical cases. They can also vary based on the results of a drug and alcohol evaluation.
I've been through the DUI system once. Here's what I got in TN. First offense with no property damage.
1) 11m/29d sentence, suspended except for seven days in jail. Yes, seven days in county for a first offense DUI with no injury or property damage.
2) Supervised probation for the remainder of the 11m/29d. Amusingly enough, alcohol was not prohibited under the terms of my probation, but all other drugs, including weed, were. Technically subject to random alcohol/drug testing, but my PO was easygoing, I paid everything off immediately, and don't "look like a problem" when you're dealing with methheads and pill heads all do, so I never was.
I had to report any police contact at all.
3) Judges will typically allow for someone to have a restricted driver's license that requires you to have an interlock after a DUI, but there's no guarantee of that.
Interlock device for a year. I suppose you don't have to get it, but if you ever plan to get a license back, you have to have that interlock in for 365 consecutive days, along with not blowing hot (>.02 BAC) for the last 120 days of the installation, along with not having any other interlock "violations." For me, that was a ~$150/month expense.
I've seen horror stories from interlocks, but I didn't have any problems out of it.
Police here scan license plates religiously. Driving on suspended is another misdemeanor. People go to jail for it all the time in this county. If you're on probation at the time you pick up the driving on suspended, it's also a violation of probation.
4) Dropped by my auto insurance agent of fifteen years. My rate then doubled when I found insurance. It has since come down to what it was before.
5) Substance abuse assessment, which said there was a "92% chance I don't have a substance abuse problem." I've been a heavy drinker for fifteen years. I told them what they wanted to hear.
6) 12 hour DUI school.
7) 24 hours of roadside trash pickup.
DUI law varies significantly between states, and even within the state. Many counties in TN will plea bargain a DUI down to a reckless endangerment misdemeanor, which is usually unsupervised probation, is expungable after five years, and has no impact on your driving record, so no interlock or license suspension. Other states will do a "wet reckless."
If you get arrested for DUI in my county, you're getting that DUI unless the toxicology comes back completely clean. Also, some counties and states will let you serve on weekends, have work release, have some sort of time credit ("two for ones" or similar), house arrest, or some combination of that - here, none of that is possible for a DUI. Most other misdemeanors are eligible for work release or weekenders, but not DUI. Most get some kind of time credit. You do that time for DUI day for day here.
The only regular Uber driver in my town was falsely arrested for DUI the week after I was. He's not had a drink in over twenty years. It took nearly six months for his toxicology to come back. It was clean. The DA continued to prosecute the case. The case was eventually dismissed before trial. He was arrested again for a DUI about six months after that, but the case was thrown out quickly the second time. He's still in arbitration with the city over damages. An attorney he often drove home from the bar took the case on pro bono, because he knows the guy doesn't drink, and that there will be a nice payout after this is all over.
Word got around about what happened to him. That killed the already small Uber business in town. The part-time drivers quit because they didn't want to get falsely arrested for DUI. A brewery and a restaurant/biker bar have both shut down since I got the DUI. Another downtown restaurant that had been in business for decades also closed. I know a couple of bar owners - their business is much worse than it was a few years ago before the police got so aggressive. Even things like DoorDash and Walmart+ delivery services are largely unavailable in this city of ~50,000 because of a lack of drivers.
Many, many people end up with crazy probation requirements. I've seen plenty of horror stories out of Texas and Florida on a DUI Reddit. Daily call-ins to see if you need to take a urinalysis on that day. Random testing for ETG, which is basically a metabolite of alcohol breakdown in the body. Multiple mandated AA meetings weekly. These are often for first, alcohol-only, DUIs that didn't involve property damage or injury, involving people with no prior criminal record who don't have a substance abuse problem.
I was arrested at my home a couple hours after I came back from the bar, and was already asleep. The police repeatedly called my parents' cell phone (who are on my plan, but live a half hour away) asking where I was, and that if I didn't answer they would "kick the door down." My parents then called me. The police never called me. I don't know how the police got their number.
What killed me was that there was probably very little proof of who was actually driving my car - my guess is that I was caught driving poorly on a Ring camera in the condo complex, my license plate was captured, maybe someone knew my car, then someone called the police, but I have no idea. If the police were following me home, I'd think they would have pulled me over.
You really have no idea of the evidence against you unless you commit to taking the case to trial - at least into discovery, with all the associated legal fees. Even if you're innocent, know you're innocent, you're set up to lose by the system. You and your defense attorney are at a disadvantage, and will not know the evidence the state has against you, to make an assessment of whether taking a plea is to your advantage. I still have no idea what the evidence was against me, other than my BAC, and some unflattering police body cam footage, in my house.
My attorney thought the case was an easy win at trial. He made various poor decisions in the process that I didn't approve of - he seemed like the right fit at the time, but was clearly a lousy attorney. I had no confidence that he'd win the case. It was likely going to be dragged out another six months to a year to set a trial. I'd have needed a new attorney and bring that person up to speed. Legal fees alone through trial in circuit court would have been twice what I've paid for the whole case - legal fees in general sessions court, probation/court costs, interlock costs, increased insurance costs, etc. Court costs would have been much higher in circuit court. I would have been out at least another $15,000. If I lost, I probably would have gotten a more severe penalty.
Even though I think I "had a case," and the facts were "legally interesting" and probably quite weak, I couldn't afford to take it to trial. I took the plea to minimize the penalties and move on.
The attorney was disappointed that I didn't take the case to trial after I took the plea in court that day. I told him that the jury pool in this area is comprised of the same people who voted in these hardass prosecutors and DA. You're not going to win a case here - "officer testimony" is basically good enough for this area of hyper conservative police-worshippers to vote to convict. Throw a BAC in there - and you're done. Best I can tell, other than probably some erratic driving of my car, they had no proof that I, personally, was driving that car. If the local politics were different, or this same case happened in another area, I might have taken the case to trial because I do think there was reasonable doubt that I was personally driving that car while intoxicated.
I'll say this - if I didn't have a fairly cushy WFH job, there's no way I could have survived the first six months after the DUI professionally. I had to take a week off for the jail sentence. There was probably the equivalent of two to three business days spent in court and meeting with attorneys. A worker with a standard 8-5 onsite job would likely have been fired, even if they don't drive as part of the job. Oh, and you have to maintain employment as a condition of employment - don't, for any reason, and it's a VOP and likely back to jail.
On the "banning people from alcohol," I know VA has an "interdicted persons" registry. Other states probably have something similar.
Did this experience make me stop drinking? Absolutely not. I no longer drink out unless someone else is driving, or I get an Uber. If I drank more than six beers the night before, I always check my breathalyzer if I need to drive before noon or so. If I need to drive early in the morning, I either don't drink or don't drink more than six light beers the night before. I never drive with anything but a 0.00% BAC now. If anything, the stress of it all made me drink more in private.
It has made me extremely bitter regarding the police. I was never a "thin blue line" guy, but the police here are extremely aggressive and, in many cases, are just looking for any excuse at all to arrest someone.
I live in one of the reddest areas of a deep red state. The way this county operates is the logical endpoint of modern "conservatism" - a police state with their boots on your neck. I see all sorts of wild stories around here regarding police overreach.
I've been a heavy drinker for the better part of fifteen years. I only drink beer - which is probably the reason my blood work is normal - I'd be a mess if I had a taste for liquor. With that said, marijuana/Delta 8 usage, almost always in edible or water soluble form, was the only thing that helped me drink a lot less voluntarily. For awhile, I was using the edibles a couple of days on weeknights, sober a few days, and drinking socially on weekends sometimes. When I couldn't use the edibles or a marijuana seltzer on probation, I actually went back to heavy drinking.
Once I took the plea and got out of jail, life was pretty much normal. The probation officer was a really good guy. The interlock became routine. Lots of people come out of the "post-jail" phase with BS probation requirements that are designed more to trip them up than help them out.
Most people who get a DUI probably aren't alcoholics. My guess is that most people who get a first don't get a second. A first means you made a poor decision, but those who get a second are probably more likely to get third and subsequent DUIs. Those are the people that really need help.
I still don't see what good it does to make a first-time, alcohol-only DUI offender, call in every day for a UA, throw them in jail long enough to cause them to lose their jobs, then violate them for a job loss, not allowing the DUI to ever be sealed/expunged, and burden them so heavily they go from making a poor choice that lead to the DUI, to going into the poorhouse, locked up for BS VOPs, etc.
Let them do weekends or work release so they can keep their livelihood coming in. Take their license for awhile - mandate an interlock for awhile. Beyond that, as long as there was no injury or major property damage, move on. A simple DUI shouldn't be a career ender for people who don't drive for a living, or send them into a cycle of jail, poverty, addiction to harder substances from the additional stress caused by the DUI, etc.
Great post. Your county sounds absolutely awful regarding DWI stigmatization and just from a general culture perspective.
Like you, I've consumed alcohol heavily for around fifteen years. I'm 37, and I probably began my heavy drinking around when I would've completed college had panic disorder and depression not intervened. I have had 2 DWI arrests, both of which were reduced to DWAIs as the legal process played out. In NY state, DWAIs ('driving while ability impaired') are misdemeanors, with a maximum sentence of fifteen days in jail. I got both of mine while attempting the ~25-mile drive home from the Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls, NY. My first one was in October 2008; the second was January 2020. Had the second been within ten years of the first, I probably would've had a worse legal outcome than I ended up having the second time around, from my layman's understanding, anyway.
Now, unlike you, I was honest regarding my level of consumption when I was administered a questionnaire at one of my 'drinking driver program' classes post-first arrest. At the time, I was drinking mostly on weekends, though typically rather heavily on both Friday and Saturday nights. (At present, I drink the equivalent of 8-12 drinks every other night, though my 2nd DWI interfered with that pattern for some time). So, back in the winter of 2009, I reported to the NY State Office of Substance Abuse (the acronym they employ is 'OASAS', so I think I'm missing a word or two from the title) that I drank 15-20 alcoholic drinks weekly. I naively thought that this rather typical (typical according to my experience with family and friends) level of consumption would never get me flagged as a problem user. Wrong I was, and so I was given a list of outpatient services providers in the Buffalo area and told to set up an initial appointment with one. I'd love to know what the threshold for problematic usage is in the eyes of my state....
So in the spring of 2009, I began attending three sessions per week at a clinic not far from the University at Buffalo's suburban campus. Two of these were group sessions; one was individual, one-on-one with a counselor. Combine that regimen with my preexisting weekly sessions with a psychologist and biweekly 10-minute visits with my psychiatrist, and I had a pretty full schedule of meetings with the local mental health establishment. Loaded though my schedule was, and likable as my psychiatrist, psychologist, and substance abuse counselor all were, nothing much was really accomplished. None of these people could truly relate to all the constant pain and suffering I'd been enduring ever since I was afflicted with my first panic attack in April 2005, and though I would expect a necessary empathy gap to exist between two people with very different life experiences, I was constantly beset with doubts about the efficacy of our entire mental health treatment apparatus. Fifteen years on, those doubts have never dissipated, and if anything they've only morphed into more entrenched cynicism/skepticism. I'm at this point fully of the belief that only a favorable change in life circumstance can truly change a suffering person's life for the better in a lasting way, and given that my level of suffering was so acute back in 2009, the changes that needed to be made were off limits for me at that time. I'd often talk of this catch-22 with my ostensibly sympathetic and politically liberal psychologist, only to be given a bootstrapping reply that basically amounted to 'get a job'. I'd protest that I could barely tolerate the 10-minute drive to his office without lapsing into a panic or anxiety attack, and the prevailing message in response was basically to deal with it.
So, so long, Dr Myrow! I could hear such unenlightened calls to do the then-impossible from other people in my life; there was no need to pay even a mere insurance co-pay fee for the privilege. The psychologist was thus eliminated from the mental health treatment equation.
The outpatient substance abuse treatment facility, meanwhile, was mandating that I complete 20 weeks of individual and group sessions without using my 'drug of choice'. 20 weeks? Back then, I could get through anywhere between 4-6 days of sobriety, but inevitably a feeling of extreme boredom would set in, and I'd head out for a night of my mostly solo bar-going. At the time, I was on a mood stabilizer and also Neurontin, which is a failed anti-epilepsy drug that is prescribed off-label for a variety of questionable purposes. As far as I could tell, neither of these drugs had any effect on me (positive or negative), and I eventually quit them both, cold turkey, in the summer of 2009. The ease with which I quit them speaks volumes about the lack of effect they were having. If only quitting alcohol were so easy! My psychiatrist didn't react well to the news of my somewhat rash decision to quit cold turkey, as he claimed that I could've suffered lasting neurological effects in doing so, but for all the issues I've experienced in the fifteen years between then and now, as far as I can tell, none of them are attributable to quitting my psych meds abruptly. I am happy to say that, even having experienced two absolutely hellish major depressive episodes in the intervening years, I've never resorted to going back to psych meds.
And that's because I've self-medicated with alcohol! I knew that argument/reality was not one that my substance abuse counselor, or anyone else affiliated with that facility, would be open to. So eventually, I called the person in charge of the 'drinking driver program' and I told him that my treatment was going absolutely nowhere. I requested a change of venue, and I forget if I outright asked or merely implied that the new facility would need to not have a requirement that sobriety be maintained as a condition of program completion. Whatever the case may have been, he got the message, recommending me a clinical psychologist by the name of Ursula Falk. This grandmotherly, comforting individual immediately made it clear that she herself enjoyed having a drink or two, and so she wouldn't ask me to maintain sobriety during the ten sessions with her that she was asking me to attend. Okay then--here were some conditions with which I could comply! The road to regaining my driver's license was suddenly much shorter and unobstructed. Ten sessions still equates to at least 2.5 months, but given the alternative, there were no complaints from me. I'd estimate that I 'completed the program' around the beginning of 2010, still a long and arduous journey, given an initial arrest date of October 2008.
And yet, this was nothing compared to what occurred after my second DWI, but I'll save that tale for another time
Last edited by Matt Marcinkiewicz; 04-03-2024 at 11:54 AM..
Because alcohol consumption is more deadly. It kills more people in the U.S. than all the other drugs put together. It's a very deadly drug and easily abused. If it were up to me, anyone caught driving drunk would have their license revoked for at least 10 years. A second violation would result in it being revoked for life. Few people get behind the wheel of a car high, but see no problem doing it if they're drunk. Because.....they're drunk.
Per the CDC: Drug overdoses are one of the leading causes of injury death in adults and have risen over the past several decades in the United States (1–3). Overdoses involving synthetic opioids (fentanyl, for example) and stimulants (cocaine and methamphetamine, for example) have also risen in the past few years (1,4). This report presents rates of drug overdose deaths from the National Vital Statistics System over a 20-year period by demographic group and by the type of drugs involved (specifically, opioids and stimulants), with a focus on changes from 2021 to 2022.
It doesn't matter your drug of choice, illegal drugs or alcohol, under the influence is under the influence.
I know it's popular now to want to get stoned on marijuana, and it's legal now in many states to get as wasted as you want, so you have your wish. You get to use your drug of choice.
So who cares if someone has a beer or a glass of wine as long as you can have your doobie?
People with an addictive personality will find ways to get wasted, even if it requires sniffing gasoline or paint.
Doesn't make it right, but at the same time, until they do something to cause pain to me or mine, I don't give a crap how you kill yourself, just don't take some innocent with you.
And in America the public who is aware of the emotional and physical danger to the patients and the staff in these units will be crying bloody murder about Human Rights and citing Medieval abuse.
I can get more graphic about the unavoidable conditions but nobody would believe it. You simply cannot control a person who doesn't want to be controlled. They'll die or kill first. And they do. Locked up or free.
We still haven't got this one figured out.
Thankfully the vast majority of people with mental health issues are not violent and don't pose a threat to anyone.
It's mainly those small minority who are very disturbed or prone to violence, and they often end up in prison or high security hospitals.
There are however a lot of terrible life experiences often related to these individuals back stories .
Last edited by Brave New World; 04-03-2024 at 12:55 PM..
Great post. Your county sounds absolutely awful regarding DWI stigmatization and just from a general culture perspective.
Like you, I've consumed alcohol heavily for around fifteen years. I'm 37, and I probably began my heavy drinking around when I would've completed college had panic disorder and depression not intervened. I have had 2 DWI arrests, both of which were reduced to DWAIs as the legal process played out. In NY state, DWAIs ('driving while ability impaired') are misdemeanors, with a maximum sentence of fifteen days in jail. I got both of mine while attempting the ~25-mile drive home from the Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls, NY. My first one was in October 2008; the second was January 2020. Had the second been within ten years of the first, I probably would've had a worse legal outcome than I ended up having the second time around, from my layman's understanding, anyway.
Now, unlike you, I was honest regarding my level of consumption when I was administered a questionnaire at one of my 'drinking driver program' classes post-first arrest. At the time, I was drinking mostly on weekends, though typically rather heavily on both Friday and Saturday nights. (At present, I drink the equivalent of 8-12 drinks every other night, though my 2nd DWI interfered with that pattern for some time). So, back in the winter of 2009, I reported to the NY State Office of Substance Abuse (the acronym they employ is 'OASAS', so I think I'm missing a word or two from the title) that I drank 15-20 alcoholic drinks weekly. I naively thought that this rather typical (typical according to my experience with family and friends) level of consumption would never get me flagged as a problem user. Wrong I was, and so I was given a list of outpatient services providers in the Buffalo area and told to set up an initial appointment with one. I'd love to know what the threshold for problematic usage is in the eyes of my state....
So in the spring of 2009, I began attending three sessions per week at a clinic not far from the University at Buffalo's suburban campus. Two of these were group sessions; one was individual, one-on-one with a counselor. Combine that regimen with my preexisting weekly sessions with a psychologist and biweekly 10-minute visits with my psychiatrist, and I had a pretty full schedule of meetings with the local mental health establishment. Loaded though my schedule was, and likable as my psychiatrist, psychologist, and substance abuse counselor all were, nothing much was really accomplished. None of these people could truly relate to all the constant pain and suffering I'd been enduring ever since I was afflicted with my first panic attack in April 2005, and though I would expect a necessary empathy gap to exist between two people with very different life experiences, I was constantly beset with doubts about the efficacy of our entire mental health treatment apparatus. Fifteen years on, those doubts have never dissipated, and if anything they've only morphed into more entrenched cynicism/skepticism. I'm at this point fully of the belief that only a favorable change in life circumstance can truly change a suffering person's life for the better in a lasting way, and given that my level of suffering was so acute back in 2009, the changes that needed to be made were off limits for me at that time. I'd often talk of this catch-22 with my ostensibly sympathetic and politically liberal psychologist, only to be given a bootstrapping reply that basically amounted to 'get a job'. I'd protest that I could barely tolerate the 10-minute drive to his office without lapsing into a panic or anxiety attack, and the prevailing message in response was basically to deal with it.
So, so long, Dr Myrow! I could hear such unenlightened calls to do the then-impossible from other people in my life; there was no need to pay even a mere insurance co-pay fee for the privilege. The psychologist was thus eliminated from the mental health treatment equation.
The outpatient substance abuse treatment facility, meanwhile, was mandating that I complete 20 weeks of individual and group sessions without using my 'drug of choice'. 20 weeks? Back then, I could get through anywhere between 4-6 days of sobriety, but inevitably a feeling of extreme boredom would set in, and I'd head out for a night of my mostly solo bar-going. At the time, I was on a mood stabilizer and also Neurontin, which is a failed anti-epilepsy drug that is prescribed off-label for a variety of questionable purposes. As far as I could tell, neither of these drugs had any effect on me (positive or negative), and I eventually quit them both, cold turkey, in the summer of 2009. The ease with which I quit them speaks volumes about the lack of effect they were having. If only quitting alcohol were so easy! My psychiatrist didn't react well to the news of my somewhat rash decision to quit cold turkey, as he claimed that I could've suffered lasting neurological effects in doing so, but for all the issues I've experienced in the fifteen years between then and now, as far as I can tell, none of them are attributable to quitting my psych meds abruptly. I am happy to say that, even having experienced two absolutely hellish major depressive episodes in the intervening years, I've never resorted to going back to psych meds.
And that's because I've self-medicated with alcohol! I knew that argument/reality was not one that my substance abuse counselor, or anyone else affiliated with that facility, would be open to. So eventually, I called the person in charge of the 'drinking driver program' and I told him that my treatment was going absolutely nowhere. I requested a change of venue, and I forget if I outright asked or merely implied that the new facility would need to not have a requirement that sobriety be maintained as a condition of program completion. Whatever the case may have been, he got the message, recommending me a clinical psychologist by the name of Ursula Falk. This grandmotherly, comforting individual immediately made it clear that she herself enjoyed having a drink or two, and so she wouldn't ask me to maintain sobriety during the ten sessions with her that she was asking me to attend. Okay then--here were some conditions with which I could comply! The road to regaining my driver's license was suddenly much shorter and unobstructed. Ten sessions still equates to at least 2.5 months, but given the alternative, there were no complaints from me. I'd estimate that I 'completed the program' around the beginning of 2010, still a long and arduous journey, given an initial arrest date of October 2008.
And yet, this was nothing compared to what occurred after my second DWI, but I'll save that tale for another time
So much of the whole "alcohol crime" thing varies widely based on state and even county.
This county has some kind of DUI grant where they'll aggressively pull people over for anything, even without probable cause. My dad used to work an extended second shift at a pharmaceutical plant here, getting off at 2. He was pulled over numerous times, likely because the police assume that anyone out at that hour is in some sort of criminal activity.
What makes me so bitter is that everything I went through was largely because I live in the wrong place. No one was hurt. Nothing was damaged. Far as I can tell, the best they likely had on me was some camera footage of my car driving poorly, but I'll never know.
Any sort of court-ordered treatment is going to have the one and only goal of complete and total sobriety. There's no concept of "harm reduction." Courts tend to focus on groups like AA, which has a quasi-religious component. As a nonbeliever, I don't find the whole "higher power" logic helpful at all. You never want to be forced into treatment with the force of the law behind it. You're better off to lie your way out of that, then seek treatment privately if you want.
My family has almost exclusively two tracks - teetotalers and alcoholics/addicts. They almost always end up on one side of the fence or the other - my dad is the only person I know in the family that drinks very occasionally, uses weed, but no other drugs. Basically everyone else is either a teetotaler or an alcoholic.
The big issue is that alcohol is basically available everywhere you go. I'm going to eat with my parents in a little bit. The restaurant sells alcohol. I'll pass by several grocery stores, gas stations, and other retail establishments that sell alcohol.
For me personally, a lot of drinking comes out of a somewhat boring life, especially in the colder months of the year. I drink a lot more during the winter and on bad weather days. I work from home and live alone. It's easy to open that beer too early in the afternoon when no one is going to know. My girlfriend lives an hour and a half away - she wants me to move in, but with her two adult kids and her daughter's boyfriend also living there, I'm not moving in until they're out. It's easy to go out to the bar to talk to people when you haven't seen anyone in a couple of days.
Making moonshine will get ya in the pokey in some states
Distributing without license
Consumption in certain public funded places will also be DENIED ( hint: prison, )
So while it seems "common" once over a certain age that it can be consummed ad nauseum , Regulations, production, distribution and even carrying across state lines are covered for judicial ramifications.
Even carrying an open container can get ya fined .
That should be taught in the school systems, probably during Middle School. At this age, young people are mature enough to understand the cause/effect of alcohol. Show them videos of drunks stumbling around homeless camps, the people strapped to their beds in ERs, detox wards and rehabs, the actual bloody carnage on our streets; pull no punches, show them the damned truth along with the stats. Same for drugs and smoking. Make this a segment as part of an overall health, wellness and fitness curriculum -- because the vast majority of them aren't getting any of these facts from their parents.
This was a part of my school curriculum, and also that of my children's. Kids know, they are still convinced they are invincible and in control even if they are under the influence.
I do think the idea of a restricted license for repeat DUI offenders is interesting, and doable if the public were interested. I mean we do have age restricted ID, it's only a step further to add alcohol restrictions due to convictions. The state I live in requires everyone to show ID for alcohol, regardless of age, just expand on that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1
If you are under the legal age, there is absolutely zero allowance to drink under any situation
Not true, it's the buying of alcohol that is restricted. Many states allow minors to drink with a parent's permission, in a family situation. https://alcohol.org/laws/underage-drinking/
My parents allowed small amounts of alcohol at family celebrations after age 16, I did the same with my kids. Figure it's better to teach/ model moderation and responsible consumption than to deny and then let them loose unrestricted once they are old enough to be out on their own.
Even though the distinction between the legal and drinking ages seems arbitrary, there may be less risk if a system was put in place that limited alcohol sales to those with DUI charges or comparable records. One of these actions might be a brief prohibition on buying alcohol following a transgression. However, as seen by the interlock ignition standards, enforcing compliance presents difficulties. However, looking at more stringent laws for repeat offenders may help allay worries about occurrences involving alcohol
Practicality? Are you talking about having a nationwide registry that every merchant would have to consult before even selling someone a beer? That sounds like going to an extreme to me.
I agree that age can be a very arbitrary thing. However, it does offer society a bright clear line for making some determinations. I remember thinking how unfair it was that I had to be sixteen to drive, eighteen to vote, and twenty-one to drink. Yet, like all young people I just had to wait. You get old soon enough.
You don't need any sort of additional registry other than the driving registry that already exists. A DUI offender would simply need their license or ID card confiscated and replaced with an ID that says "Do not serve alcohol until XX date".
Or why not talk about cigarettes and vapes being legal and consumed by people of all ages and dying of cancer or even being injured by exploding vape pens?
People get in cars without being under the influence and still kill people.
Yes, and all those getting free passes today even if they're at fault in an accident. I'm talking about sleep-deprived drivers, well-proven, equal to the danger of drunk drivers.
The black marketeers would love to see alcohol banned, they could resume their profitable operations from the 1920's with speakeasies and cops getting rich from bribes.
Like the tax revenue stream from cigarettes and alcohol, there'll never be any restrictions.
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