Thats 'prohibition' not 'proabition'. The root word is prohibit.

And not everyone will agree with your assumption of "The U.S. as you know has long history of proabition and that has caused more harm than good."

If he's talking about Prohibition prohibition I don't think anyone can disagree it did more harm than good. After all, organized crime made a lot of money from rum running and such. That would never have been possible if liquor wasn't on the black market prices.

>>And not everyone will agree with your assumption of "The U.S. as you know has long history of proabition and that has caused more harm than good."

I think most enlightened people will agree that prohibition has done more harm than good.

Prohibition was VERY good....for Canada. Because American's didn't stop drinking, they just went underground, the prices shot way up, and since Canadians were still legally able to brew vast amounts of spirits the Canadian Distillers/Brewers sent it across the border (illegally) and made big. Hmmm, sounds like some other war on something, doesn't it?

As for me, the Legal Age doesn't affect me. I'm over 21, and I will be raising MY children to learn to drink responsibly and in a social setting by letting them drink a little wine with dinner occasionally. This was the way I and my siblings were raised, and we are all responsible, moderate drinkers.

There's also a difference between "are" and "our." You also shouldn't say "and etc" since "etc." stands for "et cetera" which is Latin for "and the rest. If you say "and" you are saying "and" twice.

LOL Invictus. My goal wasn't to correct his grammar, but to let him know that the proper noun Prohibition (which I don't think he was trying to talk about in the first place - weird choice of words to use) wasn't a made up word, but was derived from a word that meant 'to forbid'.

In general it is a huge problem here in Europe, especially amongst young people, but - especially in Mediterranean countries (Italy, Spain, France, Former Yugoslavia...) there is little if no perception of the extension and severity of the phenomenon.

In Italy, depending from the family, alcohol is drank in small amounts by kids as little as 8 years old. Last week there has been the "alcohol prevention day" and new statistics came out: 2 out of 3 young people aged 14 or BELOW (not ABOVE) drinks on a regular basis. In the age 14-20 about 65% drinks to level considered dangerous to very dangerous. Binge drinking is on the rise country-wise.

I remember some years ago I saw an ad in TV (broadcasted only once... as TV gets lots of money to advertise alcohol drinks) about alcohol-related death... it was from the government and it stated that each year, because of alcohol (car accidents, hepatitis, overdose from drinking...) in Italy there are 46.000 dead people (over about 60some million of inhabitants).

National institutes of statistics of each EU state should have fresh data about it, you can also try the website of EUROSTAT, the European Bureau of Statistics...

I thought so, but "are" was just so ridiculous.

While I was living in Edinburgh a few years ago I remember there were problems because Great Britain was experiencing a huge increase in binge drinking among older teenagers (particularly females).

Warsprite,
Before this topic digresses, are you questioning the wisdom of age limits for alcoholic consumption? Or Prohibition (with a capital P), when alcohol consumption was banned in the US from 1920-1933. Your original post is not clear. I'm not sure that the term 'prohibition' can be applied to age limits. While an 19 year old is 'prohibited' from drinking, I'm not sure using the word 'prohibition' is convoying the meaning you are wishing.

LOL. That should be conveying... convoying is a Diplomacy term.

My personal angle on this is: education is the key. If people would have an understanding that alcohol is - under every aspect - a drug, then they would begin to think twice on how much and when to drink. If they would know of how many people dies of it, then they would go a bit further. If they were given numbers of how many people (disrupted families, people killed in car accidents) pay for someone abusing... and so on.

Before somebody "dare me"... The fact alcohol is a drug (like cocaine or ecstasy) is not a personal opinion of mines. But science. A good starting point is this article from "the Lancet" (the most prominent British peer-reviewed medical magazine).

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607604644/fulltext

Here you may discover (maybe with some surprise) that alcohol is considered the 5th more dangerous drug (marijuana is 11th, just to give a comparison...).

I would disagree about alcohol being more dangerous than marijuana. I've seen more lives destroyed by pot than booze. Marijuana might not have as many deaths (which is probably how the danger level is calculated) but it does decrease people's will to succeed at life. It decreases their drive to better themselves, and makes them complacent with the crap lives they have. That seems more dangerous to me.

As long as no one dies or gets pregnant, alcohol is fine. A joke people, a joke.

warsprite, are you aware that Europe is in bed at this time? I should be in bed now - it is 3 in the morning and I'm still at work! I am about to leave (I need to be back in at 8 am tomorrow...), but I wanted to take the opportunity to be the first European in Europe to answer.

It depends on where you are. I used to live in Britain for many years, where drink driving used to be a problem. However, a very extensive government campaign beat it into our heads not to drink and drive. Actually, I think it is illegal to allow somebody to drive if they are intoxicated. By that, I mean, if you know somebody is going to drive home drunk, the police can arrest you because you did nothing to stop them. Hard to prove in a court of law of course, but I think that the law is there. Somebody from the UK can confirm that or tell you that I don't know what I am talking about.

However, if you go out on a Friday or Saturday night into a typical British city centre, you will be surrounded by drunk people shouting abuse and probably the odd fight here and there.

So, in Britain, people do binge drink. Pubs and bars have to close at 11:30 pm (11 pm on Sundays), unless they have a special permit, so all the drunks end up outside without any drinks at exactly the same time. Therefore, you drink as much as you can before you have to leave.

To try to tackle this problem, the government introduced 24-hour licensing. In other words, you can buy alcohol 24-hours a day as long as your vendor has a license (just to confuse matters, I think they ask for proof that you are 21 if you want to buy alcohol outside hours, even though the drinking age is 18). The jury is still out on whether or not it has worked. I actually think that it has had a little effect, and things feel a little more pleasant when you go out at night.

Of course, you can actually drink legally when you are 5, with parental supervision of course.

However, Britain is a Northern European country. People tend to binge drink in Northern Europe (probably because it is colder, was the answer a Russian gave me once).

I now live in Slovenia, which is a Northern European country stuck in Southern Europe. If you have no idea what I am talking about, come to visit. You will think you are in a slightly dirty version of Germany. Drink driving is a big problem here. Also, when I leave the office now, I am bound to meet some drunks in the street... perhaps they will shout at me, perhaps they won't... they seem to be nicer here than they are in Britain.

The answer is, it depends on where you live. In Southern European countries, people don't tend to binge. In Northern Europe, they do.

One thing I did notice while I was in the US during my holidays - I was always asked for ID. This isn't so common in Europe. It does mean that teenagers who are underage often end up with alcohol. However, I believe that a lot of teenagers use fake IDs in the US - perhaps that is just something I got from the movies.

I don't think that the drinking age actually matters - there are always ways to get around it. I'm so sorry... I'm so tired that I'm not thinking straight. I'll probably get in tomorrow, read this post and think to myself, "What on Earth was I talking about?".

Goodnight... lahko noc.

>>If people would have an understanding that alcohol is - under every aspect - a drug, then they would begin to think twice on how much and when to drink. If they would know of how many people dies of it, then they would go a bit further.


That logic doesn't apply to tobacco, so why would it apply to alcohol?

Just as a little caveat to it being legal to drink in England when you're five, our high school marching band went to London to march in the New Years parade last year. When we showed our director that not only was the drinking age 18 there, which nearly all of us were, but that 5 year olds could drink for medical reasons he didn't really know how to respond but told us that we were Americans so we couldn't drink till we were 21. Our cries of his hubris in imposing extraterritoriality on what was essentially just an Illinois law fell on deaf ears.

Well, to put in a little Canadian perspective... as well as my experiences as an 18 year old...

In a small side note, Canada also had a Prohibition, just much less notably than America, and I believe that following Prohibition alcohol was put under government control, and to this day most provinces have all or alcohol above a certain proof sold only in government owned stores, eg. the LCBO in Ontario, and the SAQ in Quebec. This makes alcohol quite a bit more expensive here than both the States and Europe (damn your cheap booze!).

However, Canada's legal drinking age is 18 or 19 everywhere, with regulations varying province to province, some with alcohol consumption by minors allowed under supervision, and different regulations against public drinking, many provinces require alcoholic beverages to be concealed when in public. All the American students here at McGill are positively thrilled! As am I, now that I am now officially legal...

I definitely find that now that I am legal, my alcohol consumption is much more relaxed. I can't see any practical way for the legal drinking age to be reliably enforced anywhere I've lived, and teenagers will always manage to find alcohol or marijuana for that matter. However, alcohol is sometimes a hassle (maybe 10% of the time?) to get when you're underage and I think it definitely encourages binge drinking. I don't think I would lower the drinking age more in Canada, except I think it should be a blanket 18. I think first year students in college and university are particularly at risk for alcohol poisoning in provinces where the legal drinking age is 19. Though it's probably impractical, I could conceive a system which allowed an even lower legal drinking age that simply required a simple test of education about the adverse effects of alcohol resulting in a sort of alcohol consumption license. It would have to be simple enough to make counterfeiting ineffectual, but enough that teenagers would actually learn about alcohol in the process, and perhaps make better decisions. I think the legal age in America should be lowered... but I can't really pass judgement on the situation in America despite that I imagine it to be similar for alcohol.

Invictus, you say that you believe marijuana to be much more dangerous than alcohol, but I disagree. I think that may only be the case in the States with the whole War on Drugs thing. Here in Canada, marijuana is technically illegal, but it's not enforced at all. If you walk around brazenly drinking from a beer in public, you'll be fined. If you walk around brazenly smoking a joint, you might be asked to put it out. I think that a lot of the problems in America associated with pot is because it's considered much more illegal down there. I have American friends who I talk to regularly and it seems they always have a story about a friend who's life was ruined by pot, because they became apathetic and spent so much money and had criminal records and became alienated and so on. However, I don't believe ever hearing a similar story here in Canada, despite that I have much more exposure to the pot smoking community here. As a result of it's de facto legality here in Canada, marijuana is much, much, cheaper than in the States and people rarely find themselves spending beyond their means on pot. Also, I haven't heard of anyone who's had any legal troubles because of their pot smoking habits here. I think most of the factors that ruin lives in America are caused by the harsher punishments and the consequent drive in price.

As to apathy, I don't really think that marijuana necessarily causes apathy, though I will consider the possibility it may cause more apathy in people who are generally more apathetic, but of even that I'm skeptical. There is a vast pot smoking community here at McGill University and other surrounding universities, and most of them are ambitious and will successfully contribute to society and actualize their potential and their happiness. Also, I don't consider myself apathetic. ; )

You make a good point about it being less of a problem if it were legalized. I still wouldn't do it because of what I've seen it do, but I think we ought to legalize it if only to deprive the gangs of that source of revenue.

But like lowering the drinking age, it just isn't going to happen. I don't think it's necessarily constitutional for the government to regulate what people put into their bodies, unless there's been a Supreme Court ruling on the matter I'm not aware of. The War on Drugs was started on a national level by Nixon to break the Hippies. A good idea, but I'd take Hippies over gang-bangers any day.

Wow, that post was organized poorly.

Kinda off topic, but Dr. Drew (addiction specialist) was saying he believes that the reason he sees so much binge-drinking among the young is due to a 'Hook-up' culture - that is, because random hook-ups are so unnatural and destructive, but almost expected, people binge-drink in order to go through with it. (Personally, I wish I WAS apart of the hook-up culture instead of the Dip culture /sigh)

So all I need to do to crack into it fully is drink more? Score!

Hm... DeliciousWolf, that's a really good point. That's definitely one of the main reasons for imbibing alcohol... otherwise I would probably choose marijuana over alcohol most of the time, except that alcohol gets you laid. That's definitely a really important factor, probably more so than the legal drinking age actually...

@Invictus

"I would disagree about alcohol being more dangerous than marijuana. I've seen more lives destroyed by pot than booze. Marijuana might not have as many deaths (which is probably how the danger level is calculated) but it does decrease people's will to succeed at life." No, the way it was calculated was including factors such the permanent damages done to the body, level of chemical habituation, ratio between dose/overdose (you can drink yourself to death, but you can't stone you to death), and others...

About the effects of alcohol and marijuana on the "will to succeed at life" I am not apart of any scientific study/statistics. I personally think it would be very difficult though to find conclusive data. For example, in Europe many drugs are "typical" for a certain lifestyle: for example joints are used more by "easy going alternative culture", while the ecstasy is predominantly used by people attending raves and disco's, and cocaine is widespread in upper-class schools. Alcohol is more "across the board", although you can still identify social groups that in tendency will go for wine, groups that will socialise over beer, and groups going for spirits.

Of course I am not suggesting that there is a unique relationship between drugs and social categories, what I am suggesting is that certain drugs are typically used amongst social categories that might have different aspirations and success chances in life.

@ Dingleberryjones

The logic of "understanding is a drug = less use of it" DOES APPLY to tobacco. In UK, for example, number of smokers is in steady decrease after they began to advertise pictures of people with tobacco-related diseases on cigarette packets. They have recently even raised the bar of the level of shock generated by those pics in order to achieve even better results...

Anyhow I will convene with you on the fact that for education to be effective the most, this has to happen BEFORE the person is an habitual user. (In UK, however, since the beginning of the anti-tobacco campaign, the number of people phoning to the helpline to quit smoke has multiplied of a ridiculous amount (something like x5 or x10, can't remember...). So... there is hope! ;)

[For the same reason, I would ban TV ads for alcoholic drinks, that in many countries are broadcast prime time every night, every break]

@Chrispminis

Actually many states here in the US also have state run liquor stores (some go so far as to sell all acohol in state run stores). Here in Virginia for example, anything that is considered liquor (ie not beer or wine) is sold in ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) stores. Luckily for us, they actually seem to have fairly decent prices (especially up here in Northern Virginia, where they have to compete with private stores just across the border in DC and Maryland). A lot of this stuff varies from state to state, but it's interesting to hear that the situation is pretty similar in the provinces in Canada!

Being from NJ, where you can walk into any 'Liquior Store' and buy both beer and hard liquor, I found it a shock that many states require you to go to different stores to buy beer and liquor. Why is that?

@mac: actually, graphical warnings have only recently been introduced on cigarette packets in the UK. Cigarette manufacturers started using these images at the start of this month, and there are still lots of packets available in the market that do not carry any of these warnings as they were manufactured before this date. So, I think it is a little early to state that there has been a steady decrease in the number of smokers since the introduction of these pictures.

I don't doubt that there will be. However, they just haven't been around long enough to say for sure. It is likely that, as with written warnings, there will be a huge initial decrease in the number of smokers. Then the number will stabalise as people de-sensitise to these images. I believe that this has been the case in other countries where they have introduced graphical warnings.

@DingleberryJones - It does very quite a bit by state. Here in Virginia, you can get beer and wine in all sorts of stores (grocery, convenience... probaby some others). But you have to go to a state run ABC store for liquor. However, in the ABC Store they also sell some wine (I think it's all Virginia made wine, but I'm not sure there's any law preventing them from selling other alcoholic beverages).

In some other states I've visited, liquor stores are private, but you have to go to a liquor store to get ANY alcohol, in still others the situation is the same but the liquor stores are state run, in still others you have to go to a private liquor store to get Liquor, but can get other alcoholic beverages in other stores, and in still other states you can get all forms of alcoholic beverages in just about any store (so you can walk into a grocery store and get a bottle of scotch for example). This last one was also the situation in Scotland when I spent a semester there. It was a nice change of pace to be able to get my vodka, gin, and such in the same trip as I got my groceries.

Oh, also someone was talking about London pubs closing at 11:30. I had forgotten about that, and how frustrating/weird that was.

But it's important! You have to make sure those Munitions workers can get a good nights sleep so we can defeat the Kaiser! ;)

Here in Illinois there's usually a whole section of the grocery store dedicated to booze. In the Jewel it's usually right by the flower department. There are also liquor stores here too, but I have to admit I'm not at all knowledgeable about the regulations.