Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6947224.stm

Seriously, raising the drinking age just means more young people drink outdoors in large groups.

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

The solution to all problems: make it more expensive, preferably in such a way that the net price increase ends up in your pockets: tax it!

P.S.
This seems like a sensible man.

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

Taxing it more is as bad, the whole issue is that young people enjoy getting drunk (or feel peer pressured into it I guess). Increasing the tax on alcohol just means they'll buy stronger shit so they can get wasted for less. It also pushes young people out of pubs, where prices are higher than off-licenses.

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Isn't the drinking age in the US 22 or something for anything stronger then milk?
And they clearly got teen drinking under control :up:

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And why would that be? Because they are depressed perhaps? Because they are not motivated to do something with their lives?
Perhaps the government can make legislation for compulsory happy thoughts or something?

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21.

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They can't? :confused:

If all these children are unhappy then perhaps there is some underlying reason and it may in fact, be better to create a society in which young people don't feel the desire to drink themselves into oblivion?

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

Cultural thing.

Honestly, I don't know what the massive problem with youths drinking underage is. We all did it; and most of us turned out ok.

The main problem-children seem to be ones who don't drink at all responsibly, or who go out of control. I don't see how that'd be stopped by them turning 18. It just means they can do it inside legal establishments.

This also seems to be a class thing - I've always been brought up to be a social drinker so don't get physically aggressive or abusive when drunk. I'm not sure how you could change these kids and encourage them to do that :(


Incidentally, raising the age to 18 will just make us like America, where teenagers still get trolleyed, they just do it at house parties instead of nightclubs.

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

Should the legal drinking age be raised to 21?
Yes
54.57%
No
42.38%
Not sure
3.05%
12839 Votes Cast

:(

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

People are idiots.

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What?

Seeing my little brother I think the underlying problem is that people don't feel early enough in their lives that they can make a difference for themselves. And thus they sort of "accept their fate" and are pushed in a depressing way of life without any motivation to get out of it.

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thats just natural selection...

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while when you're younger you want to be able to get into clubs.. when you're older the clubs that are 21+ are way more fun than those that are 18+

but i don't think raising the age is going to change much..except increase the wages of fake id makers.

there's always going to be people willing to buy booze for the underage and i don't think changing the age is going to stop parents from giving their kids alcohol either.

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

As soon as you hit 21 you should really be phasing out the shit club era of your life anyway really

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Parents giving their kids alcohol is a healthy way to start out.

It's new, you lose your inhibitions easier and there are gurlz there.

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the 21+ clubs aren't shit though (well some are but i don't go there)

also a night of going out dancing with your friends is more fun then sitting around someone's house drinking :\

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Maybe if you went to decent clubs you wouldn't think this.

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Here's a woman who hasn't played strip-pin-the-tail-on-the-parcel.

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It worked for me, i'm a responsible adult (well i like to think so). I didn't turn out too bad, got a nice house, good job and a good social life, but on the down side i drink far too much.

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Or maybe because they find it fun? Not everything you choose not do can't merely be dismissed as escapism in others. Hey - why do people play computer games? Must be because they're afraid of real life, and their parents didn't love them and they're not going anywhere fast...well, maybe that's true for some but in others - they game because it's fun.

And guess what - even highly motivated people - people who are "doing things with their lives" like to get drunk sometimes. It's fun - or can be.

The idea that truly psychologically healthy go-getting individuals should abstain from all pleasures (wanking? drinking? heroin?) seems a bizzarre idea, probably a remnant of Christian/Protestant ethics.

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Our 2 1/2 yr old cries and screams if she doesn't get her watered down wine with a meal if we're having some.

I'm a proud Dad.

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You are just trying to justify your own behaviour, you do realise that don't you?

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He justified it fairly well actually. Perhaps you'd care to go and self-flagellate behind the bushes over there.

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For the record, though alcohol is banned for under 21s in America, my brother said they just smuggle it in the dorms etc. It's just more undercover.

I think it's partly a sort of social expectation - a lot of people go out and expect to get shitfaced. I don't think that they purposefully go out with the expectation of getting really sick and throwing up everywhere, but sometimes things don't go quite as planned and it ends up happening (especially mixing drinks).

Social drinking :up:
Drinking a bit for confidence when trying to pull :up:
Drinking because you always drink and getting really drunk :down:

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The Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) is one of the most well-studied behavior-control policies in the US. Prior to the 1970s, states set their own MLDA and while most states set it at 21, several states had a lower MLDA (usually 18 or 19). When the federal voting age was lowered to 18 in 1972, a number of states began lowering the MLDA to 18 as well. Thereafter, a number of states that had lowered the MLDA began to raise it back up due to problems (or at least the perception of problems)--primarily, increased traffic accidents and fatalities caused by drunk teenage drivers. In 1984 the Federal government entered the picture by making certain Federal highway funding contingent on states raising their MLDA to 21. By 1988, all states had a MLDA of 21 (where it remains today).

The existing variation in MLDA coupled with the lowering and subsequent raising of MLDA created a large number of natural experiments on the effects of different MLDAs and teenage drinking. Dozens of studies have been produced and, at least among the higher-quality studies, concensus seems to have emerged on two points:

1. MLDA is inversely related to alcohol consumption (lower MLDA => more alcohol consumed), and
2. MLDA is inversely related to traffic accidents (lower MLDA => more traffic accidents).

Based on this, I would have to conclude that a lower MLDA fosters a less responsible use of alcohol (at least in terms of not moderating consumption nor refraining from driving when drinking).

Nonetheless, I'm not convinced that a higher MLDA is justified. First, because I don't support a nanny state. Second, any benefits that can be attributed to raising the MLDA can be extended virtually up to any age until you end up with prohibition (which I don't support either).

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There's no hope of any anti-drinking laws being properly enforced due to the fact that people slip through the net / people supplying underagers (including in some cases, parents) / some retailers can get away with it because they have huge financial backing so don't really have to care too much. So I can't see a raising of the limit to be of much benefit. What I do think however, is that the people behind the counter need to be more responsible and should be 21 at the very least.

The problem is clearly cultural and all I can say is that it must be far better for the young to be introduced to alcohol by their parents instead of their peers, so that really alcohol becomes no big deal and they learn how to drink it. That's not to say the kids won't get drunk at any stage of their lives (nearly everyone does), but at least when they do, they might be less of a problem.

Even so, I can't say a lot of parents are responsible drinkers either. There are plenty of parents who came through my off licence who were easily polishing off large quantities of booze in a short space of time. I am not saying they aren't enjoying alcohol, merely questioning whether people are crossing the line between plain enjoyment and alcohol misuse/dependency. While this may come across as a simple 'blame the parents' post, the only way I can see the underage alcohol problem decreasing is by the young being able to learn for themselves, while being supervised by people who actually set a reasonably good (not perfect) example.

The problem we obviously have is that age really doesn't matter; it's level of responsibility. There are people in their 20's, 30's, 40's and beyond who are just as much of a public problem in their drinking as the kid in the park with a bottle of white lightning/lambrini/smirnoff ice. And there are younger people who are on the absolute flipside, who just drink, have a good time and don't really pose a huge problem to themselves or society. For example, a mate of mine has a brother who is 16, occasionally we take him to the football. I have no doubt that under supervision and limited to a pint, he would be absolutely no problem whatsoever. Obviously as it's against the law, he isn't allowed near any alcohol, not that he ever asks anyway. So even then, I can't really say that age limits made up with reasonably arbitrary numbers help.

Another problem is obviously stress in general - it drives people (particularly as people get older) to drink. Clearly that's part of a wider lifestyle and work/life balance problem, but I'm not sure if that's particularly ontopic.

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If the problem is perception then the way it's handled in the USA is to making public drinking illegal. Drinking must be done in a home, bar, restaurant, or club. All achoholic containers must be in paper bags.

You see alot of people walking down the street drinking out of paper bags in some big cities. Easy solution. The paper covers up the booze so people cannot see what is being consumed so that "Drinking in Public" is gone.

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

But everyone knows that something being drunk that is wrapped in a paper bag is alcohol, so it isn't "gone," not even in the mind. Unless it's someone really stupid.

Oh wait..

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The alcohol in a paper bag trick is one that really impresses me. I don't know why. Perhaps it's the obvious, yet irrestistable nature of the act.

OR at least it used to be. :(

Does the UK have a similar law or do the terror laws essentially remove the right to have things in bags?

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I don't know, to be honest. Seems to me that a lot of people playing online games aren't that happy with their lot. I know that I once found it fun, but now I just play them because I can't be arsed to do anything else.
As for drinking, it's just silly to claim that everyone drinks to excess because it's fun. 1) It isn't always. 2) There are obvious cultural pressures/influences upon young people to drink.

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

He didn't say "to excess" though. Few things (none?) to excess are fun.

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It depends how you define 'excess'. If you define it as 'enough to make you feel bad' then it's a trusim and kind of pointless.

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Just recruit Euro Police and dispatch them in the streets.

Problem solved.

On a serious note:

In Greece you are allowed to buy alcohol or smoke at any age. Also pubs / clubs stay open till the last customer leaves (you can also enter clubs even if young, no one will ID you). We don't have any problem with youth crime or alcohol related violence (brutal police also helps). Then again officially the worst type of tourists who visit our islands during summer are people from UK (behaving like retards due to excessive drinking). So i guess it is a culture issue, not sure if any measures will solve your problem.

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Incidently Whenever i'm happy i feel the need to get piss drunk and whenever i am feeling down i want suger and sleep (oh how my body loves bad combinations) and basically anything but alcohol

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

Of course, but that wasn't really my point. Lots of behaviours might be a response to depression - some people might drink too much, others might have frequent sexual encounters with one-night stands, while some lay in bed doing nothing. (This last one is probably way more common)

My point was that it's a mistake to look at someone elses behaviour and assume that you know the real motivation underlying it all (without further examination) especially if you're suggesting that it's because secretly they are depressed or feel generally worthless.

As I say, this mistake is particularly common when people are doing something very disimilar from ourselves.

So for instance, I have no ****ing idea why people choose to get crazy and sometimes horrific piercings in their genitalia. It just doesn't make sense to me that anyone would want to do that to themselves, as that's so far from my personal goal list. But can I automatically assume all of those people are secretly depressed or looking for attention? Maybe some are - hell, maybe most are, I've no idea and that's the point.

I am not defending excessive drinking on a personal level. It's not for me (at present) and I increasingly dislike the effects of alcohol. As I often say, the last thing I need is a drug which makes me more cruel, lazy and stupid.

I just find it troubling that any deviation from perceived norms is labelled as some kind of mental illness. It's an almost totalitarian attitude. The person who get's a tattoo is doing it because they're depressed and acting out. The person who parties all night is really responding to feeling worthless. The person who never parties is a bitter lonely weirdo. The person who married someone outside their own ethnic group is responding to some traumatic family history. And so on - step right up folkw - any social divergance can be condemned!

As geeks of one form or another I would have thought there might be some personal insight here. I'm sure there are great times we've all had doing something like reading a book in one sitting, or completing a particular game, or sitting up all night coding or problem solving. These behaviours (i.e. sitting by yourself, perhaps for hours at a time) are probably thought of by some in the same terms as used for drinkers - a serious sign of problems, a reaction to depression, etc. But for myself, some of the most enjoyable times I've had have consisted of those types of activities. Doing the "healthy" active stuff like attending certain types of social events have been some of the most miserable times.

Of course, and I hope I didn't imply that it was. I was suggesting that successful people drink to excess as well as those of us in the loser category. Of course it's not all great times - more than one of my relatives drinks not because it's fun but essentially because they have to. On a less serious level most people I've met seem to have turned to binge drinking at uni partially out of boredom. But there's diversity of motivations for the same behaviours and no prescribed path to having a good life.

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I think that has to do with the fact that most young people are getting mixed messages.
"It is good to beat each other up playing a sport"
"Our country can attack anyone because we're powerful"
"It's okay to cheer people on in movies fighting, but dont YOU do it"

Alcohol loosens up your inhibitions and makes people who are socially encouraged to be violent, outwardly so. That is my take on it anyway.

Perhaps if people were raised responsibly drinking under a parents supervision at about 13 - 15, and taught to think independantly the problems might not exist?

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When we used to go out at 17 or so, fights would occur almost every single time. We weren't troublemakers, it's just drink+group mentality+teen frustration would encounter some trivial misunderstanding and things would get stupid.

My suggestion would be better youth club culture/regime. Allow people to go to them and buy their own (weak perhaps) booze from the age of 14 (or even 12). Micromanage security so when someone get's a little too merry, they're removed and sent home immediately. Kids are going to drink, better somewhere where there's trained staff on hand than outside the chip shop where they've got nothing to do but scare the shit out of old people.

I've been down with(/on) the kids and gone drinking at night in the park after various club-nights and it's an environment which encourages binge drinking - simply to deal with the cold/boredom/etc. It also encourages drinking shit drinks - I refuse to believe anyone chooses to drink white lightning when their choice isn't constrained by poverty or distance to nearest bar.

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If people continuely get caught drinking round Luton they get a night in a cell (taking up Police time). Surely an idea to counter drinking would be to only sell it on some form of credit card?

Or let the Police use tazers on drunk people.

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

Although the two are not directly comparable, the UK's debt problem isn't much better than it's drinking problem. I'm not sure that encouraging we all grow to depend on expensive unsecure forms of credit is that brilliant an idea.

And of the 30-40% of the UK population who don't have credit cards, at least half would probably find it hard to get one at all. Or would only find cards which charged an extortionate amount of interest.

Either way, I'm not sure how it would really help. Ok, young children might find it harder (although they'd just borrow someone's card) to buy alcohol themselves, but among the rest of the population you might simply encourage people to buy insane amounts of booze because of the added hassle/transaction-costs everytime they went to the bar/shop.

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pay as you go!


(edit: although the whole premise is obviously utter nonsense)

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True, but then I don't see how it'd be of any use at all since you can buy those effectively anonymously (I think, I've not tried to buy one) and transfer (i.e. simply hand it to them) them to whomever you like without fear of (much) consequences. I suppose you could analyse alcohol expenditure a lot more easily if you had everyone forced to pay a certain (centrally monitored) method but all you'd find out is that lots of people buy alcohol on Friday and Saturday night. A lot of people seem to buy a lot of shitty cheap drink in one go. And a lot of people who said drink are doing so in the same off-licence they bought their pre-pay credit card four seconds before.

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What about all medical studies showing that while in puberty and adolescence alcohol damages the brain while it is still growing.

In other words, you shouldn't get shitfaced when you are still an adolescent or younger.

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What about them? Free choice, innit?

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Seatbelts in cars shouldn't be olbigatory either?

There is a fine line which dances around in a big gray area which borders where individual responsibility starts and goverment responsibility ends. When individual responsiblity isn't taken it could be for the best intrest of society that the goverment takes the responsibility, not because they want to, but because they have to.

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I know you were using it as a rhetorical example, but no, I have no problem with removing legislation that makes wearing seatbelts mandatory. If you need someone else to protect you from dying, what on earth is your life worth?

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Taking something bad for you is bad for you? What a shock!

Seriously though, you can't summarise a medical study (let alone 'all' of them) in a single sentance without making it completely worthless.* It's quite particular in this case as alcohol damages your body when it's stopped growing as well.

Then there is the difference between alcohol use and alcohol abuse and whether the damage is a long-term or a temporary effect. This is without considering whether the actual damage is significant enough to have any form of impact on you in future life.


On the issue of seatbelts, I think they should be mandatory, but only if you will endanger someone elses life or if you are under a certain age. I don't (for example) support laws forcing people to wear a helmet whilst riding a bicycle as the only person who will be injured is yourself.

*unless it's something stupid like 'chopping off your head causing fatalities in 95% of all case studies'**

**Margin of error +-5%

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I think this sort of logic reflects the irrationally materialistic view of humans that modern society has. Yeah, alcohol/drugs at a young age might 'damage' children in some sense, but raising them in a Christian household or sending them to a state-school will almost certainly have far more negative effects in the long run. The only reason why theres such moral outcry about the former is that the damage is more tangible (ie material), regardless of it being comparatively minor. Id rather my kid took coke/alcohol for a couple of years at 15 or whatever than be forced to attend state-school or convert to Catholicism.

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PARSONS, O.A., AND LEBER, W.R. The relationship between cognitive dysfunction and brain damage in alcoholics: Causal, interactive, or epiphenomenal? Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 5(2):326-343, 1981.
RACHAL, J.V.; MAISTRO, S.AL; GUESS, L.L.; AND HUBBARD, R.L. Alcohol use among youth. In: Alcohol and Health Monograph No. 1: Alcohol Consumption and Related Problems. Rockville, MD: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 1982. pp. 112-164.
SARGENT, J. Drug and alcohol abuse. In: Schwartz, M.W.; Charney, E.B.; Curry, T.A.; and Ludwig, S., eds. Primary Pediatric Care. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1990. pp. 768-775.
SARIN, S.K.; CHARI, S.; SUNDARAM, K.R.; AHUJA, R.K.; ANAND, B.S.; AND BROOR, S.L. Young versus adult cirrhotics: A prospective, comparative analysis of the clinical profile, natural course, and survival. Gut 29(1):101-107, 1988.
SAUNDERS, J.B., AND CONIGRAVE, K.M. Early identification of alcohol problems. Canadian Medical Association Journal 143:1060-1069, 1990.
SAUNDERS, J.B., AND WILLIAMS, R. The genetics of alcoholism: Is there an inherited susceptibility to alcohol-related problems? Alcohol and Alcoholism 18(3):189-217, 1983.
SCHONBERG, S.K., AND COUPEY, S.M. Drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse. In: Hoekelman, R.A.; Blatman, S.; Friedman, S.B.; and Nelson, N.M., eds. Primary Pediatric Care. St. Louis: C.V. Mosby Co., 1987. pp. 821-828

Basically if you read them and you summarize them quickly (there are also newer articles on this) you would get this: 'Getting shitfaced in your youth has lasting effects in your later life, it can decrease your academical performance'

I wish I could give you a figure on how much but it is big.

Re: Stupid police officers and the nonsensical comments they make
 

Oh and ross:

what kind of flawed logic are you trying to use?

You are denying facts/trying to question them...
You are shifting the attention to your own personal agenda
You are trying to talk down the problems, stating other problems are far more worse but due to circumstances, noone listens to them; i.e. you are trying to make things 'more' relative

This all doesn't change these problems though, adressing alcohol problems does not exclude adressing 'brainwashing methods of nurturing'

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mmmm...

Here in Spain we have quite a phenomenon, of which I am sure you have heard. "Botellon".
If you do that you say, you will have british kids starting to drink in parks or other places, instead of pubs or whatever.