It’s a different world offshore.
The Telegraph reports that British ministers are considering a plan that would cause anyone under the age of 18 caught with some potent potables to have a conviction placed on their record. Officials are further considering plans to ban those under 18 from drinking altogether.
Of course, from this American’s view, such an act is unfathomable. In this country, you’re old enough to smoke, fight and die for your country, choose someone to fumble their way into the White House and sign a contract before you can ask the barkeep for some whiskey. To put this in perspective, last week Prohibitionists helped to keep a bill lifting a decades-old ban on mixing beer and spirits from passing the Virginia House of Delegates (HB1269). You heard right, Prohibitionists–they’re still alive and well. On top of that, as most of us are aware, the Virginia government has a monopoly on alcohol sales through the ABC stores, leaving legislators in the awkward position of raising revenue through sale of alcohol while trying to reduce drunk driving.
Is alcoholism in Britain, where they’re still trying to decide whether teenagers can drink, as bad as alcoholism in Virginia, where mixing beer and spirits constitutes sin?
I, for one, believe that the voting age and the drinking age should be one and the same–because if you’re old enough to worry about the future of this country…you’re old enough to worry.
UPDATE: From the comments:
Delegate Ebbin’s sangria bill was rolled into Delegate Suit’s ABC omnibus bill, HB1075, which has passed the House and has been sent to the Senate, seemingly unmolested by Prohibitionists.
Posted by Not A.E. Dick Howard at 09:18:34 AM
3 Comments
I’m with you. We currently have youth Prohibition in this country and it’s about as effective as the original. When I was 18 it was perfectly legal for me to have a beer or a glass of wine. I didn’t feel compelled to go to house parties to drink in secret with people ranging in age from 15 to 20 years or to binge drink, but my perception is that binge drinking and drinking by under-18s has gone up exponentially since these laws were enacted.
The current policy is widely flouted, sporadically enforced depending on your county and how many police it has with nothing better to do, and labels young people as problem drinkers needing “alcohol education” because they got caught drinking a beer at a backyard barbecue. Don’t even get me started in the effect it’s had on people’s right to be left alone. Police officers investigating claims of youth drinking frequently approach young people drinking a beer and demand proof of age, often by simply walking into back yards where they see such activity taking place. I’ve made a habit of looking for age among our war dead. Several hundred of our young Americans have been deemed old enough to go overseas and fight and die for their country, but they’re not old enough to order a beer. The thing that tore it for me was the time my 20 year old niece, back from her SECOND tour of Iraq, got tagged for underage drinking by a Florida ATF agent who found her sipping a beer with her classmates. Not drunk, not rowdy, not anything but “too young.”
Delegate Ebbin’s sangria bill was rolled into Delegate Suit’s ABC omnibus bill, HB1075, which has passed the House and has been sent to the Senate, seemingly unmolested by Prohibitionists.
Kenton, I agree with both you and Catzmaw. Like her, when I was 18 I was legally able to get a glass of wine, a beer or a mixed drink.
I also think it’s plain dumb that somebody could risk her life to serve two tours of duty in Iraq and then get tagged by the ATF, a federal agency yet, for underage drinking.
If she’s too young to drink, maybe she’s also to young to pick up a gun, risk her life, and defend ours overseas.
It is time to end youth Prohibition and concentrate on teaching 18 year olds to drink responsibly.