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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

> You can allmost call it youth culture, most kids go through, before becoming adults

Yes, exactly, this is "kids being kids", we all go through a period of our life where we do stupid shit, related to drugs or other "extreme" things where risks of hurting ourselves is probably higher than the reward, but it's fun so why not?

But then we grow up and change in "proper" adults.

I think when we talk about "binge drinking" it's important to understand the context. While talking about stupid teenagers is fun sometimes, when it comes to if a country has a problem with binge drinking or not, we should probably restrict the conversation to binge drinking with adults, not teenagers who do stuff they most likely won't do when they are adults. As you said, most people eventually do grow up and adjust accordingly.

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First of, I don't think criminalisation helps, but rather complicates the problem further.

And kids doing crazy stuff is one thing ... but another one is to have a culture around it, that endorses it. Because like I said, I know too many who got a regular drinking habit, out of those stupid blackout drinking sessions back then. I very much do believe that germany has a drinking problem, too, to where the roots are the youth. With 14, a buddy of mine won a full bottle of wine at a winefestival, they just handed over to us. Which was the first time I puked from it. Amazing. Technical illegal to give to minors even back then, but common practice in some areas. Because they all celebrate the drinking.

You're trivializing alcohol and drug consumption in a dangerous way.

Binge drinking and other drugs consumption are very serious youth problems leading to lifelong health issues or even death.

I'm also pretty sure there is a correlation between youth and adult consumption.

Finally, Germany has a higher alcohol consumption per year per person than the USA

They're not saying teenage binge drinking is never problematic – they actually used the words "risks of hurting ourselves is probably higher than the reward".

The point is that youths do risky things; it's a normal part of growing up, and is how you learn about risk and responsibility. Youth binge drinking shouldn't be seen as separate from youths just doing risky things because that's what youths do, else you'll come up with "solutions" that don't address the real issue and fail to solve anything at all.

It's fair enough to say that someone who parties a lot in their early twenties, but doesn't hurt anyone else or themselves too seriously, then grows out of it and lives an upstanding life is not a major problem, whereas someone who continues to drink excessively and destructively when they're older and needing to be responsible is a problem.

And sure, they're somewhat related, but not so much so that they should be considered one and the same, when the underlying causes are usually very different.

> The point is that youths do risky things; it's a normal part of growing up, and is how you learn about risk and responsibility. Youth binge drinking shouldn't be seen as separate from youths just doing risky things because that's what youths do, else you'll come up with "solutions" that don't address the real issue and fail to solve anything at all.

Like banning flavored vapes! This was my argument, kids being kids, talk and explain to them why what they’re doing is damaging. Nobody accepted it for that argument, why are people accepting it for this one?

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