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Who would have thought that two nineteen year old girls attempting
to buy drinks in a Mexican restaurant in Texas would have dominated
the international news and sparked social and political debate
from all sectors, on every subject linked to drinking alcohol
- including entrapment, teenage stress and finally America's alcohol
laws?
Barbara and Jenna Bush, twin daughters of the American President
are old enough to vote, marry, possess a firearm, die for their
country in the armed services, yet are not old enough to consume,
purchase or serve alcohol. For a country that so prides itself
on the principles of civil liberty, America's contradictory approach
to its protection is extraordinary - you can buy a gun at 18,
but attempt to buy beer three times whilst under 21 in Texas and
you face 'three strikes and your out' and a prison sentence. The
21 drinking age is not a hang over from prohibition as one might
imagine; the 'National minimum drinking age' law was enacted as
part of the federal legal code in 1984, with fiscal leverage (the
loss of a certain percentage of federal monies for highways) used
to persuade States to comply.
America's alcohol control policies stretch further - regulating
advertising, distribution and health warning labels, but is there
proof that there are resultant benefits to public health? Comparisons
with Europe show that the UK,with some of the most liberal drinking
laws - a drinking age of 18 and a BAC drink drive limit of .08,
but with rigorous enforcement, has the safest roads and lower
drink-drive offences (2% of crash victims failed or refused a
breath test in 1998) than their European counterparts. A study
by Valliant et al (1983) found that young Italian American men,
tracked from childhood were 1/7th as likely to become alcoholics
in adulthood as were Irish American adults in Boston. The Italian
Americans were introduced to alcohol as youngsters in a family
context, whereas the Irish Americans adults urged their children
to abstain. It can be argued that over regulation - such as a
drinking age of 21 can send drinking underground and instead of
young adults learning to drink responsibly in the controlled environment
of the home and properly run bars, students and their contemporaries
have to sneak and lie to obtain alcohol and then consume it out
of the public eye, often in the worst place of all, their cars.
Alcohol misuse, such as drunkenness and drink-driving are serious
social problems and should be tackled head on. Worrying statistics
given at the Wine and Spirit Wholesalers of America's symposium
in 2001 show that just 30% of US adults believe that drinking
alcohol can form part of a healthy balanced life, reflecting that
the US public are unaware that the vast majority of drinkers (95%)
enjoy alcohol in a responsible and sensible manner. |
