Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

In the US at least, the 21 yo drinking age is mostly a wholly pragmatic law [EDIT: laws. It's state by state but there was a big federal stick attached to highway funding.] to reduce teenage drunk driving (which affects more than the individual). Tobacco sales is mostly 18 in the US (although a few states are 21). Casinos also vary although the drinking age restricts <21 yo in a lot of casinos.

It's hard to make an intellectual case for disparities between things like voting age, military service (which is why the US voting age was reduced to 18 in the first place), drinking/gambling/smoking, age of consent, etc. but pragmatism still sometimes wins out.

View on HN

I would argue that it actually ends up having the opposite effect. The culture towards drinking that the US has, means that young people either have to hide really hard that they are in fact drinking, or that they never learn control before much later in life, because they go all in when they are 21. This, funnily enough is after they have had their drivers license for some years, and those two mix bad together (lack of experience drinking, and a drivers license).

I contrast this to my own country, Denmark, where we are much more lax about drinking. You can buy alcohol lower than 16% at age 16, and you can get your drivers license at 18. Parents accept that people will probably slowly start out drinking before this though, and are therefore more involved with this aspect of young people’s lives. This means they also has a chance to supervisor, guide and help their children manage this new experience of being drunk, and educate them on how it works.

At least that’s my armchair take on it :)

I'd like to agree but the evidence suggests differently, e.g. [1] Arguably, there was an increased awareness in the US of drunk driving as a problem during that period but the effect still seems to be real even correcting for that.

Of course, if we assume a completely different culture around alcohol, the results might well be different.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20497803

Ah, I should maybe have been more clear. My point was that it would have better effects to change the culture around drinking, rather than increasing the age limit of when you can drink.

I’m not suggesting that it’s an easy thing to do though.

Another approach is to change technology.

Volvo has keys with a built-in breathalyzer: https://accessories.volvocars.com/en-us/C30/Accessories/Docu...

And of course, autonomous vehicles could make drinking a non-issue for getting around, just like trains and buses do today.

If this were a universal thing, I could see it helping, but unfortunately I'd be surprised if only people who opt in having this feature makes a significant dent in the issue.

Well people do exercise this option if they are obliged to by a court ruling, or if it gets them a lower insurance premium.

Fair enough!

Most US states do allow some measure of underage drinking with parental permission, IIRC. But it's true that that's not really a strong/common part of the culture.

As a practical if not legal matter, people can do more or less as they please in their own homes. But I'm personally glad I went to college at a time when drinking alcohol was pretty much all above board. (At least at the time, the fact that the drinking age was legally 18 meant that drinking as a college student was pretty much OK even if you weren't actually 18 yet. The local bar we frequented was fine with just a college ID; they didn't otherwise check age.)

Well yes, your own home is certainly one thing. But I'm pretty sure in the UK you can totally order alcohol for your own kid at a restaurant and it's not illegal as long as the parent gives permission. In some other places it's illegal for someone to sell alcohol knowing that it will be consumed by a minor - so that scenario couldn't happen.

In the UK 16+ year olds can have alcohol with a meal in a pub / restaurant etc. providing it's bought by someone over 18

https://www.gov.uk/alcohol-young-people-law

The drunk driving argument extends to Japan extremely poorly due to cultural and infrastructure differences.

Public transportation in Japan is great. In urban areas it's also quite easy, accessible, and affordable to rent a capsule hotel "room" or net cafe seat. This is true no matter what your age or credit history, they won't ask for your drivers license, you can pay cash. It's honestly strange that I have to state some of these things, but I live in the U.S., and this country is all kinds of screwed up.

Also, the enforcement and norms for drunk driving (setting aside age entirely) are totally different. From my experience it's not common to have _a_ drink and drive, and the limit is "detectable".

For a driver in the U.S., the legal and cultural expectations are that you assess your own inebriation and decide when it's okay and when you need to get a cab. That standard doesn't really exist in Japan.

While I might not agree, I can understand people's hesitation about putting the U.S. standard on people aged 18 and 19. But Japan's standard? Pure nanny state.

The reason why they don’t ask you is you are (most likely) a westerner. In my experience if you are an underage looking japanese buying alcohol alone, they most likely will ask your age.

And drunk driving in japan? It’s much more common than you would think.

When I was on exchange in Japan my underage friends from joined me multiple times for bars and not a single time was their ID's checked. I've only had my ID checked during some special event like Halloween in very central areas in Tokyo.

In stores they will not even check ID's or ask your age verbally but you just tap a button that says you are old enough to buy alchohol.

That’s why i said if they are alone. No one ever get asked if they are with a western person.

Can't you just buy alcohol from a vending machine?

(Source: Bought a lot of alcohol from vending machines while I was in Japan. Never got asked for ID.)

I only saw a handful of alcohol vending machines when I was in Japan (2018). I heard a rumor they are being phased out.

EDIT: Found a source "In May 1995, to prevent underage drinking, the All Japan Liquor Merchants Association decided to eliminate outdoor alcohol vending machines, so it is now rare to encounter these machines outside." https://www.nippon.com/en/features/h00258/vending-machines-i...

Oh, this was in 2012 so they may have disappeared. Shame. :(

There are still some in the countryside, and small alleyways in the cities. I think there’s only one in my city.

In my experience, the vending machines near and in hotels, etc, did not require any form of ID. However, the random ones I found out on the street required you to have obtained an ID/Authorization card beforehand.

oh sorry, I wasn't clear. I was talking about hotels asking for your ID. It is also true that Japan checks ID for alcohol less often (it would be hard to check more often than the U.S.), but that might just mean they're more comfortable going by looks / gut, and that carrying identification (when walking) doesn't have the same norms or laws either.

In Japan you get fined even for being a passenger in a car where the driver is drunk.

It's mega strict.

> In the US at least, the 21 yo drinking age is mostly a wholly pragmatic law [EDIT: laws. It's state by state but there was a big federal stick attached to highway funding.] to reduce teenage drunk driving (which affects more than the individual).

To add another voice of dissent to the Danish poster's point of view, in Australia, you can drink at any age with parental consent (though child abuse laws would come into play if you do anything ridiculous) and you start to get your license at around 16 depending on the state.

Also, getting a full license in my state is a much involved process. It takes around 5 years if you aim to get it as young as possible: 1 year of supervised driving with a fully licensed passenger (there must be 120 hours of driving until you move to the next stage), then 1 year of a limited probationary license ("red P's") and finally 3 years of a less limited probationary license ("green P's").

Throughout this entire process, you cannot have _any_ alcohol in your blood while driving.

I think this, plus public awareness of drunk driving, is much better than just restricting drinking until you're 21. It means that usually, before you even get behind the wheel, you've had years to experience the effects of alcohol and get the thrill of it out of your system. Then once you're driving, you get used to the idea that you can't even have "just a little bit".

I really like how Germany solved the drinking age problem: you can drink beer and wine at 16 and hard liquor at 18. This gives you a safety net to experiment with alcohol. You won't drink yourself into a coma with beer and you aren't allowed to drive till you are 18.

"You won't drink yourself into a coma with beer" - it only takes more time. 1st google result on oktoberfest passed out: https://coed.com/2015/09/16/oktoberfest-best-drunk-photos-oc...

You can certainly drink yourself into coma with beer. Teens drinking 6-10 beers is not an uncommon thing at parties at that age.

That said practically the 16/18 distinction also isn't that important. If you are 16, you typically hang out also with some people that are >= 18, and which will then buy the other things. People might not necessarily start drinking with hard liquor, but the time to it is typically not 2 years.

Source: I'm german, and had been 16 and 18 a long time ago.

Personally I think the legal drinking age should be 18. I started drinking when I was 18, but didn't learn to do so responsibly until I was doing it in public. A bartender can refuse to serve, or call you a cab. Not that they always will, but I think it is advantageous to have at least one adult around keeping an eye on things. Sure there are plenty of irresponsible bartenders, but my experience says it's better than nothing.

In the US at least, the 21 yo drinking age is mostly a wholly pragmatic law to reduce teenage drunk driving (which affects more than the individual).

Because making the legal drinking age 21 has stopped people between 18-21 from getting alcohol.

See also the “War on Drugs”

You can reduce something without stopping it. I'm not advocating for the policy change that was made. But the evidence suggests it was at least somewhat effective in the goal of reducing teenage accidents in which elevated blood alcohol levels were involved. People can differ on whether that justified the policy change or not.

Can you imagine one case where an 18-21 year old was at a party where people were drinking and they said “I can’t have that beer because I’m underage”.

Yes.

I'm against having the drinking age being above the "adulthood" age, and I KNOW lots of kids violate these laws, but it is absurd to say that every single person violates them given the chance.

Yes.

Me.

Plus various other, similar situations.

(I am in complete honesty unsure whether to regret it.)

Do you also never go over the speed limit?

My sense of “honesty” isn’t dictated by the government.

Now whether I obey the law is determined strictly by a risk/rewards calculation

But those are still entirely different.

> My sense of “honesty” isn’t dictated by the government.

> Now whether I obey the law is determined strictly by a risk/rewards calculation

That's the most intellectually dishonest answer I've seen to "I followed the law in a specific scenario".

It’s not intellectually dishonest. Speeding is against the law. Do you speed?

Have you ever downloaded a movie off of bit torrent?

Do you think that Black people should have moved to the back of the bus in the 60s because it was the law?

There were laws on the books in many southern states until recently making homosexual sex a sin. Should that law have been followed?

There were laws against interracial marriage until the 60s and Utah is just now debating whether a law against premarital sex should be taken off the books.

Sorry, the phrase risk/rewards was a trigger. I know acquaintances that drive in the carpool lane because they can afford to pay the fine if caught, and brag about it. You seemed to fall in that camp (vs thinking about higher level, heavily debated laws like the ones about homosexuality), but clearly that wasn't the case!

You never answered the question - do you ever go over the speed limit?

Would you speed if the penalty was $1000 a mile over?

What’s the moral difference?

And in either case there shouldn’t be anymore of “a debate” about how two grown people decide to have sex and who they should marry than whether a grown person should be allowed to drink.

That 18 year old college student who the government doesn’t deem to be mature enough to drink is mature enough to vote, fight in the military, sign for a student loan that can potentially put them in 10s of thousands worth of debt, etc.

No, I never ever go over the speed limit (except for the minor single digit breaches that happen when I'm not in cruise mode, etc.). But that's kind of a stupid question to ask, it's a super straightforward decision (at least for me) to follow the law when driving.

Currently, I don't drive, so I have no empirical answer.

Some people who know me have joked that I would hate learning to drive (here in the US) because of the issue where most drivers break the speed limit most of the time and expect others to do the same. I think I could get used to it or find a way to deal with it, but it's possible it would stress me out for a while at the beginning.

As I sorta-mentioned, I'm not sure my original level of tendency to follow the rules is actually adaptive here. The point was more the existence proof. And between cultures it may vary even more widely than this.

If you or your parents grew up as anything other than a straight White Christian in the southern US, you would understand why I don't necessarily hold an unquestioned respect for the law or the justice system....

Please don't do this.

You've gone from “implying that an attitude is out of the acceptable/plausible range” to “implying that the visible counterexample doesn't understand why anyone else might hold a different one” in the span of three posts.

I can imagine several reasons why this might be a hot-button topic for you, especially given what you've just said, but I am not putting my nature up for attack here. If you expect me to have a generalized disregard for or incomprehension of people who don't share my tendencies, I don't think it's true, though I don't expect you to believe me. If you feel like my attitude or existence is a shock or an affront, I'm sorry. If you resent feeling stuck with the institutions that surround you because they're not serving you well, I'm sorry. I would ask that you not extrapolate my personal attitudes about alcohol and speed limits to assuming that I follow social institutions “unquestioningly”, if that's what you were doing, and especially that you not extrapolate it to much wider and deeper issues.

This will be my last comment on this topic.

Two sub threads going on at once here.

That was more aimed at the statement (that you didn’t make)

That's the most intellectually dishonest answer I've seen to "I followed the law in a specific scenario".

My apologies. I attributed that statement to you.

But did you refuse the drink specifically because you where underage or because you didn't want to drink? If that same party had been in country where you where legally allowed to drink would you have drunk then?

It was primarily the former. Had I been in a jurisdiction where it was legal, it seems very possible I would have tried some of the alcoholic drinks—of course I don't know this for sure, because that's not what happened. I didn't have a strong desire for it at the time, so it's not an ideal test case, but neither is it an isolated case; other situations with age-restricted materials or activities went very similarly.

(I'm eliding and slightly distorting a lot of surrounding details both because my memory of the time is often fuzzy and because I don't feel inclined to detail too much of my ancient personal life here. The central points, however, I'm clear on.)

It might be worth adding, to circle back toward the original topic, that while I notice that this isn't “normal” in much of the US (where I live), people around me have wondered whether I got this tendency from somewhere else. (In fact, I had one (non-Japanese) Asian immigrant parent, and while that one was quite chaotic about following the local laws, it's possible that more indirect connections had strong subtle influences.) Some societies are much more regimented and/or conformist, and Japan is frequently described as both (not that I would know what bearing it has on these specific questions). The “natural pattern of rule breaks” is not universal, neither in cultures where it's nearly-expected, nor between cultures.

There's a beer row in some vending machines on public streets in Japan. It seemed that the only enforcement on age limits was a sign that said not to buy beer if you were underage. I took it as an example of the enormous cultural differences between America and Japan.

Yes, I have seen people refuse because they were underage. But on the other hand those were people who I could not ever imagine driving drunk.

Ha ha you framed the question quite stringently. Even I (haven't been to an american-style party) have been in situations where someone refused alcohol because they were <21.

Totally happens yes. In my Japanese university club, the rule at drinking party was: minors can drink if they want but others should not incite them to drink if they don’t want to.

Yeah it's dumb, but to be fair this is something where we get to have our cake and eat it too. The moralizers / religious / people fairly concerned about drunk driving get to feel good and maybe have a positive effect, and everyone that is 18-21 still gets ready access to alcohol at school where the need to drive is substantially reduced. Whenever I wanted to get alcohol at school, I could easily get it and the situation was the same with all of the friends I knew at other universities. If you don't go to school you get access through work friends.

Is there any statistic that shows a 21 drinking age reduces per capital teenage drunk driving deaths as compared to Quebec or Alberta, where it is 18?

Yes

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140318140757.h...

The driver's age IMO relates to a time when more people were rural, and someone in the household HAD to drive. It is useful to have a young driver.

Regarding alcohol, it seems to be a tragedy of the West, whatever the age of consent. The long-term effects of daily alcohol were under-rated, in an age were many adults did hard physical labor many days, and life expectancy was lower.

joke: in Scotland, they swore that the Irish were the worst drunks; in Germany they swore that the Russians were the worst drunks; in Denmark, they swore that the Norwegians were the worst drunks; and you know what, they were all terrible drunks.

Some people said that the Italians and the Portugese give children wine at a feast, mixed with juice. This seems tragic in modern light.

I always find it baffling that the problem is drunk _driving_. Where I'm from (Northern Europe), the young people drank way too much at home parties but certainly did not drive under influence.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com