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>I saw a BBC doc yesterday about drinking in the UK. They have stores selling 3-liter bottles of 7.5% cider for four dollars. That is ridiculous. 3-liter bottles of dirt-cheap alcohol, cheaper than coke, are not bought by happy social drinkers. Any store selling those knows what it is doing.

Speak for yourself! The Strongbow 2-litre (sadly now £3-00 but was definitely closer to £2-00 back in 2000's) was the staple of many the happy teenager.

You can get 2L Strongbow for 3 pounds in the the UK? Awesome!

Probably about £4 for 3 litre bottle.

There’s a drinking game called Edward ciderhands where you tape a bottle to each hand and try to drink them both before going to the toilet.

The same game is played in the United States, traditionally with high ABV beer, where it has a different name, "Edward Fortyhands".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malt_liquor#Forty-ounce

I’ve always seen 5 to 5.5 used for Edward Fourtyhands, can you give me insight into why you mention “high ABV”?

In Canada at least, the beer you could get in 40oz bottles was generally pretty strong. For example, Colt 45 is 8%.

The hardest part of Edward Fourtyhands is that you’ve got to consume 80oz of strong malt liquor without peeing. Or... figuring out some way to unzip your pants...

Yeah lots of malts are up there, I suppose the game came about before the craft beer movement- many of these new craft beers are 9 to 13 and would never be sold in 40-form I suppose, so those are high ABV for a 32/40 I’m sure.

Happy teen yes, but we set drinking ages for a reason. Teenage alcoholism is an evil that we rightly should fight against. When a kid is trying to decide what they want to buy, Strongbow should not be the cheaper option than diet coke.

FWIW, drinking age in the UK is 18. There will be plenty of teenagers buying those legally.

I think it is worth noting that in most non-theocratic countries 18 is the age of legal consumption of alcoholic beverages...

Worth noting that France has no legal alcohol consumption age, and Germany has it set to 14 if a guardian is present.

Alcohol is deeply embedded in French and German culture (and surely other nations) - I have seen a 3 year old sipping some beer in Munich in a beer house. Amusingly, neither of the countries really has binge drinking culture as the UK or US has so

>but we set drinking ages for a reason

is not really true...

People are constantly arrested at sports events and music festivals for being too drunk. I’m not saying it’s a happy experience like an old TV show or movie.

I know at least 30 friends, family, fraternity brothers, and classmates who were arrested for being drunk in college or minor possession of alcohol for doing something stupid and being too young.

I also know people who had drug habits when they were 18/19 and were arrested for drugs. Some quit college immediately because they knew their job prospects would be limited.

Last time I went to a baseball game someone got arrested for having a thc vape. It’s a felony in my state.

Unfortunately, at least in the US, the societal "cure" for drugs is most often far worse than damage from the actual drug.

> People are constantly arrested at sports events and music festivals for being too drunk. I’m not saying it’s a happy experience like an old TV show or movie.

Context and witnesses matter as well. There's a big difference between the police being called to handle drunks at a sports event and a passer by calling 911 to report someone intoxicated on the street. There's no context for the latter.

Music festivals, baseball games and college? Not everyone can afford baseball games and music festivals. That isn't the typical drunk arrest. Those are the polite cops. Back when I did this stuff I dealt with clients attested under bridges, while at work, on their porches, even in their own bedrooms. Permission to 'lock up drunks' is an open door for every police corruption and bias.

So you’re saying we shouldn’t charge people for drug possession or drug use? There’s going to be drug use in the streets and the nasty secondary stuff like needles or human waste.

Or have certain areas where police don’t arrest people like the wire? I think we will have homeless camps we can’t get rid of.

If you’re going to decriminalize something you need to provide services or incentives to get people to stop using drugs.

If you’re shooting up on your porch, outside, at work in your car, someone where in public it should be a crime. The drug shouldn’t be illegal but the act should be illegal in public.

No, I said nothing about not arresting anyone. I am saying that we cannot pretend that cops will quietly and politely lock up drunk people for the night while they sober up. Arrest and detention is not as portrayed in countless sitcoms.

But I would say that cops should not be arresting people simply for being drunk in their own homes, or in the very businesses that intoxicated them. Arrest people who are violent, not simply anyone who is drunk.

If folks are breaking the law put them in jail. If the law is unjust, fix it. If they are being mistreated there, fix that problem too. Avoiding the cause, symptoms, and solutions are not how problems are solved.

> businesses that get people drunk and let them loose on the streets share the responsibility.

I would argue that nobody is responsible for your bad decisions but you. Additionally, your logic leads to some absurd conclusions.

Should we also go after the farmers and distillers that make the alcohol because their product might be misused? Where does the chain of accountability end?

If we accept your premise that individuals are not wholly responsible for themselves, then you can arbitrarily blame anyone for anything if you try hard enough. Maybe you should get fined for shopping at the same liquor store that got that person drunk. You supported the business even though you knew what it was doing. Maybe the UPS driver that makes deliveries there should be fined. He knew what he was doing.

For another example, I think most people would agree that the author of an open source library should not be liable for damages if someone uses their code to write a virus. Why should physical goods be different?

> If a bar is going to serve someone to the point of arrest-worthy intoxication they must contribute to the cost of keeping that person safe.

Alcohol is heavily taxed in most jurisdictions - usually more so when served for consumption on the premises.

Most cities of scale, certainly Seattle and Portland, have drunk tanks and vans that are on call to scoop up non criminal drunks to dry out. In Seattle it’s called “SUV” and in Portland it’s contracted to a group called “Chiers” (hah).

Went to Deep Ellum with some neighbors and friends in 05; not everyone made it back. We had designated drivers too, but some got snatched up at closing time as we were making our way back to the cars.

TABC was out of control back then though.

Don't believe anyone is arguing for "out of control" enforcement.

> cops will be responsible

Hahahahaha! <knee slap> Good one!

Police can shoot unarmed people in the back with impunity.

What gives you the idea they give a fuck about drunk / drugged people in their “care”.

Edit to add: I’m not being hyperbolic here, they don’t care, particularly if you’re an Aboriginal Australian:

A 2018 investigation found that over half of the Indigenous people who died in custody since 2008 had not been found guilty.[2] In Australia, all deaths in custody trigger an inquest. In general, there has been a lack of action on recommendations arising from inquests, including the recommendations made as part of the 1987 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.[3]

As if being guilty excuses a death in custody. How absurd!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_deaths_in_custody

>The drunks cops arrest are loud and aggressive.

I love (/s/hate/) these kinds of generalizations that are broad to the point of inaccuracy.

Let's try some more.

Cops arrest mothers.

Cops arrest loved ones.

Cops arrest wives and husbands

Cops arrest innocent people.

Cops kill all of the above.

These statements aren't false, but they paint an inaccurate portrayal of the world. I hope you know that statements like that create genuine animosity towards both sides of the coin, cop or criminal.

In the UK alcohol is cheap. But only in retail outlets and not in public houses. It needs to be the other way around. As you mention 'happy social drinkers' and that is not the same thing as sitting at home alone with a drink. There is a lot of low level alcoholism going on which is fine but I would prefer that to be 'happy social drinkers', even if alone in a pub.

Before Thatcher alcohol was widely available - in pubs. There were not corner stores and supermarkets selling the stuff everywhere. If you wanted take out beer to drink at home you bought it from the 'off license' bit of a pub. If you wanted wine you went to a specialist wine shop that would not be open all hours.

Now the thing that is going on in the USA is a lot of drug taking at quite an unusual level compared to what goes on in Europe.

Drugs in the UK exist but not in an epidemic. Teenagers and students smoke weed and then move on. In America the view of weed is that it is kids stuff, drugs start with white powders and things people stick into their veins. It is at a whole different level and quite terrifying.

It is a winner takes all capitalist society in America. That is where the drug problem comes from. Socialist republics (not that there any) don't have this problem.

> Drugs in the UK exist but not in an epidemic. Teenagers and students smoke weed and then move on

this is not at all true from my understanding of MDMA usage in the UK

> As you mention 'happy social drinkers' and that is not the same thing as sitting at home alone with a drink

Why? Most of my drinking has been done at home _in groups_ with retail bought alcohol. I don't see this is a problem. If anything, might not the opposite be true? You're encouraging people who want a drink to go out, increasing the risk of them being a nuisance to other people, and increasing the risk of them drink-driving.