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Comment by internet2000 | Hacker News Reader

internet2000

Just let the teens drink.

Most folks don't want to share the roads with drunken teenage drivers.

Don't get me wrong -- some teens are probably more than responsible enough to be trusted with controlling their own drinking. However, it's those that aren't that're the concern.

Parents generally don't want to have to worry about bars being allowed to serve their kids, either. Maybe not all parents feel that way, though I'd guess that those who'd be against their kids drinking would tend to have stronger feelings on the topic than those who'd be okay with it.

Reference: https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/minimum-legal-drinki...

Doesn't seem to be a major problem in europe, where many countries have a legal drinking age of 18 or even 16 for beer. Besides, the law doesn't stop teens who want to drink from drinking, only from going to bars and makes them jump through more hoops to get their alcohol.

It's a problem in the US even with laws making it difficult for teens to get alcohol.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving#age-5056

>NHTSA estimates that minimum-drinking-age laws have saved 31,959 lives from 1975 to 2017.

I wonder how many assaults and deaths have happened due to underage drinkers being too worried about going to the police or hospital due to their illegal consumption.

And how many didn't need police-assistance or hospitalization because they were sober?

If there's a perfect solution to ensuring that teens suffer no harm from alcohol, that'd be a neat thing! However broadly repealing prohibitions against teen-drinking wouldn't seem to be such a solution.

And yet, for all intents and purposes, it works fine in Europe to have the drinking age at 16/18. Perhaps even better than in the US! And with fewer drunk driving deaths as a percentage of fatal crashes [0].

Maybe because the driving age is slightly higher, training to become a driver is usually more rigorous, and max BAC levels are around 0.05%.

Another aspect might be cultural — in my experience alcohol is much more taboo and simultaneously more likely to be abused by youth in the US than in Europe. This is probably because many grandmothers will give their grandkids a small glass of wine with dinner or a schnapps for New Years or other stuff like that. This de-stigmatizes the drug, thereby making it less edgy and cool to drink.

I remember being 14 at a wedding in Germany and everyone very jovially encouraging me to have a small schnapps shot, and getting very drunk on absinthe at maybe 16/17 in France. No one really cared, and the lesson of the hangover was plenty to whip me into shape.

[0]: https://www.statista.com/chart/5504/the-worst-countries-in-t...

Might require some investigation and modeling to figure out a good cause. For example, the stats based on drunk-driving incidents compared to total might be misleading as the totals might vary significantly.. we'd probably want something more like [drunk-driving-incidents]-per-[driving-hour] for a starting point. Then probably explore stuff how frequently police catch people and typical consequences, how much folks in an area drink, how people drink (late nights at bars, or earlier at dinner?), if people in an area tend to car-pool, how the roadways might play in (safety features and well lit?; twisty backroads?), etc..

Really seems like there should be research on this sorta thing already, but not immediately seeing one on Google, which is odd..

But, yeah, dunno why folks'd do it in the first place. Seems like simple self-destructive behavior.

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[This study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3823314/) seems to use a multi-linear-regression (rather than a causative model), but still looks neat.

Overall, looks like they found that stricter regulations and beer-taxes significantly reduced drunk-driving incidents, while drivers-under-24, higher speed-limits, and unemployment had the opposite effect.

I can endorse what you have written about Germany. I think that the vast majority of people in my country consider it a good strategy for preventing alcohol abuse by their children in teaching them to handle it in a cultivated manner themselves. Not in theory, but in practice. And this needs to be done before they start to drink in secret with their friends.

The difference is that the US has basically no public transport and the suburbs are designed so you're forced to drive.

Drunk driving is a lot easier to avoid if you can get anywhere easily without driving at all.

Here in the NL, it costs multiple thousands of EUR to get a drivers license. My friends won’t get behind the wheel after even one drink, just because it’s so clear how much driving is a privilege. In the states, it cost me less than $30. I knew people in the states who got a DUI, and their license (restricted) back after just a couple of weeks.

Here in the US you need to be 17 to enlist in the armed forces. If a 17 year-old is mature enough to go to war, to potentially kill and be killed, then they're old enough to drink.

Old enough to be drafted isn't old enough to drink. If that's not completely fucked, I don't know what is.

Old enough for the draft, old enough for a draught!

The last time anyone was drafted in the US the drinking laws in most states allowed 18 year olds to drink. So what is your point? I guess the government agrees with you: no one under 21 is allowed to drink and no one under 21 is being drafted.

The counterargument to this is that there is evidence young people are neurologically not full adults at 18 years of age, and alcohol impedes neurological development.

I have no doubt war also has neurological effects, but they don't seem to be age specific.

It is challenging, if not impossible, to otherwise defend it. If someone has the possibility to choose (or be forced) to harm themselves and shorten their life in war, then why shouldn't a choice apply to alcohol?

But the prohibition doesn’t stop teens from drinking, just makes it a crime.

The argument in response is that it is legitimate for the government to legislate to promote the health of its citizens, as we are seeing with lockdown laws in COVID-19. That people break lockdown laws is not a reason not to have lockdown laws. So the argument involves a bit more analysis than simply accepting that 'prohibition doesn’t stop teens from drinking'.

So, this just invites the same perennial arguments frequently made in relation to drug decriminilisation.

On my part, had the drinking age been 21 where I live, I wouldn't have started drinking until I was 21.

> had the drinking age been 21 where I live, I wouldn't have started drinking until I was 21.

You really don't know then. As someone who lives where it is 21, I'm qualified to tell you that you're very likely wrong.

Before the "Source? Study?" parrots show up, you're darn right this is anecdotal. The "real data" is going to be from kids who aren't telling the truth.

Tell that to the 73.6%[0] of Americans who are overweight or obese, but that the government doesn't care too much about it, in fact they subsidize it[1] via the farm bill & friends. Being overweight or obese will shorten your life [2]. Also the US gov doesn't care, as it's own dietary reccomendations differ from accepted nutritional guidelines e.g. Harvard nutrition plate[3].

IMO the government should not be in the business of policing one's health, or advocating for the people's health, as the USDA and associated agencies are demonstrably corrupted.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm [1] https://www.usda.gov/farmbill [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12513041/#:~:text=Conclusion.... [3] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-...

Most of this isn't accurate despite the links, which is kinda odd to see. To tick off some stuff:

1. The government does care about overweight/obesity; it comes up a lot in discussing issues with the healthcare system (https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html). A lack of regulation isn't the same thing as not caring -- for example, there's no regulation requiring Americans to get vaccinated, either.

2. Farm subsidies seem unlikely to be a problem.. it's not like access to food makes people obese -- in fact, the opposite seems to be true (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5781054/). Usually affordable-food helps folks eat better rather than more.

3. The US government's dietary recommendations not being a copy/paste of another set of recommendations isn't a meaningful observation... why would you think otherwise? For example, are you under the impression that someone following the US's nutritional guidelines would be worse off for it? (In case you're not American: the problem isn't the guidelines, but rather that most Americans don't follow them.)

4. The US government's call to regulate teen-drinking was based on a historical uptick in drunk-driving accidents when the drinking-ages were relaxed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._history_of_alcohol_minimu...). This is, the argument wasn't based on a teen's personal health but rather people were crashing cars on public roads, which is definitely a reasonable concern for a government to have.

17 yo can’t be deployed to a warzone:

> The US has signed an international agreement barring child soldiers. What that means in practicality is only that you are non-deployable until you turn 18. (you must be 18 to actually fight).

> If you graduate High school early yes, you can join at 17 with parental consent, you can ship, train, you can join a unit and be active duty, you are just FLAGGED as non-deployable until your 18th birthday, when the flag is lifted.

https://www.quora.com/What-happens-when-you-join-the-US-mili...

Good catch. The point still stands, sadly.

I believe 18 year olds are allowed to drink on Army bases.

Only as long as said base isn't in the US.

And the installation commander can keep it at 21. It’s not an inalienable right of younger than 21 service members.

And in the US, 14 year-olds can be tried as adults. I wonder whether that is ever applied to charges of underage drinking?

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