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People have the cause and effect backwards in my opinion. You know why "binge drinking" isn't a problem in Germany, except for when the Australians turn up for

People have the cause and effect backwards in my opinion. You know why "binge drinking" isn't a problem in Germany, except for when the Australians turn up for Oktoberfest? It's because you can just buy a beer on the side of the road with your currywurst, and drink it without being hassled. If you act up, you get arrested for acting up. Try openly having a few beers in the park in Australia or the US, you'll be run out by the constabulary, or at the least they'll make you empty it in the trash. When you treat people like naughty children and bake into your culture the idea that drinking is itself an anti-social behaviour that always leads to fighting and dickheaddery, then that's how they act.

plandis 5y ago
I regularly go out and have picnics with my wife and have never once been harassed about sharing a bottle of wine with our meal. My family goes camping over Memorial Day weekend to state parks all over Ohio and it’s pretty common to have alcoholic drinks but, as long as you’re not bothering anyone, nobody cares. We’ve been doing this for as long as I’ve been alive and not once has anyone cared in 30+ years. The US has open container laws but they primarily exist for a pretense to arrest people for being disorderly, in my experience. Edit: The person I’m responding to isn’t even in the US how is what they are saying more valid then my actual life experiences in the US?
- kbenson 5y ago
  There's a whole different side of this your comment isn't really addressing, which is how these laws apply to poor communities. Most places I know of in the U.S. if you're walking down the street and a cop sees you with a beer, they'll make an issue about it. The thing is, it's not always super obvious, and they don't bother to look too close usually if they don't have a reason to. I don't think this is the case in poorer communities. Not only are the police more likely to be looking closer, but the situation of the people involved sometimes means they're more likely to be outside in a shared location instead of inside (smaller dwellings, shared living, etc), and open container laws are used to exert control over this populace. Put in much simpler terms, I wouldn't be too afraid of walking down my street with an open beer if I felt like it, because police driving down the street are rare and unlikely to decide I'm an issue. I neither of those things are true to the same degree just 4-5 blocks away from me though, and I wouldn't want to risk my luck doing the same thing on a street there.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    > There's a whole different side of this your comment isn't really addressing, which is how these laws apply to poor communities. Poor communities? Really? People are oppressing others “right” to drink now? Where’s your evidence for any of this? In my “rich” neighborhood cops stop people all the time for drinks in the park or glass bottles on the beach.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      > People are oppressing others “right” to drink now? I didn't say that. I said it's a law applied unevenly, as I see it. > Where’s your evidence for any of this? I stated an observation based on my own experience, and why I believe it. The evidence for my belief is my own observations, which were explained. > In my “rich” neighborhood cops stop people all the time for drinks in the park or glass bottles on the beach. Parks and beaches will be policed differently, as public gathering places. I wasn't talking about those, even if the comment I was replying to was, I was referring to the more general topic of open containers in public in general, which is why I mentioned my street and a street a few blocks away. It's obvious you have strong feelings on this topic (or another topic that you want this to stand in for), from both the way you approached the conversation and how you pigeonholed my statement into some other narrative that it wasn't intended to apply to. I've done my best to ignore the aggressive tone and re-framing of my point, but perhaps that approach isn't a useful strategy for productive discussion, if that's what you're actually going for?
      - tekknik 5y ago
        > I've done my best to ignore the aggressive tone and re-framing of my point, but perhaps that approach isn't a useful strategy for productive discussion, if that's what you're actually going for? What I'm going for is a stop to the race baiting. You have no evidence, just "feels", and we're now supposed to change society as a result. Racism has started increasing because people like you are going around expressing opinions with no facts. Where's the science? Or are you not interested in actually solving problems just creating more?
- Sophistifunk 5y ago
  Firstly, I'm clearly not talking about camping. I'm talking about parks in the suburbs and cities. Secondly, "having a wine with my wife" is treated very differently from "having some beers with my fellow twenty-somethings," without needing to bring in the extra baggage that would be included if those twenty-somethings happen to be black. I'm sure I can drink a wine in the park with my wife too, now that I'm old. Doesn't make it OK the way the police treat the young and/or brown. And no, for what it's worth, it's not as bad in the US as it is here, because Americans (generally) respect the freedoms of others much more than Australians do. Which is why in my experience the subsequent dickheaddery isn't as prevalent or extreme there either.
  - renlo 5y ago
    People in the US drink in the parks, the suburbs and the cities, especially in the evenings. The care and discretion one needs to take is proportional to how much free time the cops in the area have and circumstance / setting. You can drink openly at the beach. If in a small town park, you'd want to either have the alcohol in an unmarked bottle, a soda can, or a brown paper bag. In the cities the cops are typically concerned with real crime that they do not care and one can almost openly drink. In some areas one can legally openly drink, like in Las Vegas. Access to alcohol is a separate thing altogether, and is freely available depending on county and state, but, in the areas where the majority of Americans live (ie, not Utah, or similar), it's very easy to get alcohol and it's not seen as a bad thing. The issue is that the US is so large and disparate that everyone's experience will be slightly different, and, no offense, but your opinion of drinking culture in the US seems off base and I get the sense you don't know what you're talking about.
    - swensel 5y ago
      > You can drink openly at the beach. In CA at least, drinking at most beaches is not legal: https://beachlifeexpert.com/beaches/alcohol-guide-california-beaches/ https://beachlifeexpert.com/beaches/alcohol-guide-california...
      - my_usernam3 5y ago
- jmckib 5y ago
  This likely depends on what state and what park you're in. I've travelled the US in an RV and I've definitely seen people scolded for simply enjoying a glass of wine in a state park. Lots of parks also have huge signs all over the place warning that alcohol is not allowed, so presumably they are taking it seriously.
boringg 5y ago
This is the narrative that North America tells itself that the EU doesn't have a binge drinking problem as a result of a more liberal policy towards alcohol. It seems like a way to justify a more liberal policy here and it also sounds like a great sound bite people like to say that isn't validated.
Phillipharryt 5y ago
Australia allows drinking in parks unless it's a designated no-drinking area (usually any area outside an alcohol store). That being said different states in Aus handle alcohol differently and some are very strict. The major states of NSW and Vic are pretty chill though.
- 6foot4_82iq 5y ago
  In Australia, all alcohol (yes, even beer and wine) can only be bought at designated liquor stores. The vast majority of which are only open 10AM~10PM, with a handful in Sydney and Melbourne open after midnight. Further, public drinking is all but restricted to destitutes outside of NYE and Aus day. Contrast that with Germany. Every two blocks there's a Späti, many open 20–24h daily, each selling beer, wine, and spirits, at all hours of the day. You'll find hordes drinking in the streets, parks, and riversides anytime weather permits. It isn't unusual to see people sharing a beer on the U-bahn on the way to the work. One culture demonises (although indulges in) alcohol, the other embraces it.
  - Phillipharryt 5y ago
    Saying Australian culture demonise alcohol is a laughable claim. Australian summers are about BBQs and beers on the beach.
  - tcpekin 5y ago
    I'm not sure that is Germany as a whole though, Berlin yes, but in Munich there are not nearly as many spatis, and from the people that I've interacted with, in smaller towns the only place to get a beer in the evening/night is the gas station.
    - wink 5y ago
      True. Also in Baden-Württemberg they banned selling alcohol at gas stations at certain times (iirc) and here in Bavaria there were some temporary bans (I think due to covid). But all this is /mostly/ because our (in Bavaria) shops aren't allowed to be open 24/7, it has nothing to do with alcohol per se. And yes, in general I 100% agree with the local policy that beer is free to buy and consume from age 16. The majority of people (I know) start drinking responsibly by age 20-25 and from the stories I heard from other countries there are quite a few less hospital visits involved.
SilverRed 5y ago
The public drinking laws are not because the government thinks the average person can't be trusted. It's because the homeless population has a large drinking problem and it often results in people getting assaulted on the street. These laws let the police do something about this before it results in harm.
- yoz-y 5y ago
  If that’s the case then I think that the government is solving the wrong problem.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > These laws let the police do something about this before it results in harm. Yeah, as if repression is the answer to homelessness. Homeless people drink or consume other drugs to relieve the various stress associated with being on the street (as evidenced by drinking and drug use amounts immediately going down in housing-first projects), or to self-medicate physical health problems (alcohol is an effective pain number) that the life style brings with it or the mental health conditions that caused their homelessness in the first place. Actually helping people with housing and healthcare would be a way more efficient usage of public funds than wasting it on police that is using it for power trips against the powerless.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    >Actually helping people with housing and healthcare would be a way more efficient usage of public funds than wasting it on police that is using it for power trips against the powerless. In Australia there is usually somewhat good access to housing/welfare. Certainly leaps and bounds ahead of the US. The problem is that your options are either a homeless shelter which prohibits drugs, or the welfare system which requires you to apply for jobs and attend checkups. To some people, neither of these options is desirable so they choose to live on the street. The system in Australia isn't perfect but it is fair to say that it's almost impossible to be involuntarily homeless for an extended period.
- kvgr 5y ago
  Does the brown paper bag magically fixes this situation?
mushbino 5y ago
I I think you make some good points as far as general cultural attitudes exacerbating the problem. To an extent, I also think the same can be applied to all drugs. These are social, cultural, and health issues more often than they are criminal issues.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  But they certainly become criminal issues if you put them in the criminal corner.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    So then the answer is to decriminalize so they can continue to violate a law and receive no punishment? Is that what we’re supposed to do with laws we don’t like?
hutzlibu 5y ago
Binge drinking is a problem in germany. You can allmost call it youth culture, most kids go through, before becoming adults. In my late teenage years, it was common and expected on parties to drink, until you have fun, who can drink the most (and puke afterwards), etc. Most people, like myself, had enough of this after some time and matured - but I know too many people, where the booze and beer stayed with them.
- fab1an 5y ago
  Yes, there is some level of binge drinking in Germany, but it's not the same as the binge drinking that is common in the anglosphere, and especially in British culture, which is quite a bit more extreme.
- capableweb 5y ago
  > 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.
  - tilolebo 5y ago
    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
    - tomhoward 5y ago
roland35 5y ago
Some people are just wired differently and are more or less susceptible to alcohol addiction.
Jabbles 5y ago
The UK has both the freedom to drink in a park and a binge drinking problem.
- Sophistifunk 5y ago
  Last I checked, everybody in London is kicked out of the pub at some stupid hour like 9pm and they have to go to restaurants to keep drinking.
  - mFixman 5y ago
    Check again. Most pubs are open until midnight, and some are open further than that.
  - t0mas88 5y ago
    That's more than 20 years ago, now the pubs are open much longer.
defaultname 5y ago
Germany has one of the highest alcohol consumption rates. Significantly higher than Australia. Almost double Canada.
- Sophistifunk 5y ago
  Yes. And yet you don't see drunken cockheaddery at the same rate you do here. This is entirely my point.
wavefunction 5y ago
My US city allows you to consume alcohol in public in a big section of the city center. So people stand around in line for BBQ drinking beer they've got in a cooler. Of course it's also completely legal for women to be topless in public in this city so it's not the American norm by any means.
hammock 5y ago
What are your thoughts on gun control?

plandis 5y ago

I regularly go out and have picnics with my wife and have never once been harassed about sharing a bottle of wine with our meal. My family goes camping over Memorial Day weekend to state parks all over Ohio and it’s pretty common to have alcoholic drinks but, as long as you’re not bothering anyone, nobody cares. We’ve been doing this for as long as I’ve been alive and not once has anyone cared in 30+ years. The US has open container laws but they primarily exist for a pretense to arrest people for being disorderly, in my experience. Edit: The person I’m responding to isn’t even in the US how is what they are saying more valid then my actual life experiences in the US?

kbenson 5y ago
There's a whole different side of this your comment isn't really addressing, which is how these laws apply to poor communities. Most places I know of in the U.S. if you're walking down the street and a cop sees you with a beer, they'll make an issue about it. The thing is, it's not always super obvious, and they don't bother to look too close usually if they don't have a reason to. I don't think this is the case in poorer communities. Not only are the police more likely to be looking closer, but the situation of the people involved sometimes means they're more likely to be outside in a shared location instead of inside (smaller dwellings, shared living, etc), and open container laws are used to exert control over this populace. Put in much simpler terms, I wouldn't be too afraid of walking down my street with an open beer if I felt like it, because police driving down the street are rare and unlikely to decide I'm an issue. I neither of those things are true to the same degree just 4-5 blocks away from me though, and I wouldn't want to risk my luck doing the same thing on a street there.
- tekknik 5y ago
  > There's a whole different side of this your comment isn't really addressing, which is how these laws apply to poor communities. Poor communities? Really? People are oppressing others “right” to drink now? Where’s your evidence for any of this? In my “rich” neighborhood cops stop people all the time for drinks in the park or glass bottles on the beach.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    > People are oppressing others “right” to drink now? I didn't say that. I said it's a law applied unevenly, as I see it. > Where’s your evidence for any of this? I stated an observation based on my own experience, and why I believe it. The evidence for my belief is my own observations, which were explained. > In my “rich” neighborhood cops stop people all the time for drinks in the park or glass bottles on the beach. Parks and beaches will be policed differently, as public gathering places. I wasn't talking about those, even if the comment I was replying to was, I was referring to the more general topic of open containers in public in general, which is why I mentioned my street and a street a few blocks away. It's obvious you have strong feelings on this topic (or another topic that you want this to stand in for), from both the way you approached the conversation and how you pigeonholed my statement into some other narrative that it wasn't intended to apply to. I've done my best to ignore the aggressive tone and re-framing of my point, but perhaps that approach isn't a useful strategy for productive discussion, if that's what you're actually going for?
    - tekknik 5y ago
      > I've done my best to ignore the aggressive tone and re-framing of my point, but perhaps that approach isn't a useful strategy for productive discussion, if that's what you're actually going for? What I'm going for is a stop to the race baiting. You have no evidence, just "feels", and we're now supposed to change society as a result. Racism has started increasing because people like you are going around expressing opinions with no facts. Where's the science? Or are you not interested in actually solving problems just creating more?
Sophistifunk 5y ago
Firstly, I'm clearly not talking about camping. I'm talking about parks in the suburbs and cities. Secondly, "having a wine with my wife" is treated very differently from "having some beers with my fellow twenty-somethings," without needing to bring in the extra baggage that would be included if those twenty-somethings happen to be black. I'm sure I can drink a wine in the park with my wife too, now that I'm old. Doesn't make it OK the way the police treat the young and/or brown. And no, for what it's worth, it's not as bad in the US as it is here, because Americans (generally) respect the freedoms of others much more than Australians do. Which is why in my experience the subsequent dickheaddery isn't as prevalent or extreme there either.
- renlo 5y ago
  People in the US drink in the parks, the suburbs and the cities, especially in the evenings. The care and discretion one needs to take is proportional to how much free time the cops in the area have and circumstance / setting. You can drink openly at the beach. If in a small town park, you'd want to either have the alcohol in an unmarked bottle, a soda can, or a brown paper bag. In the cities the cops are typically concerned with real crime that they do not care and one can almost openly drink. In some areas one can legally openly drink, like in Las Vegas. Access to alcohol is a separate thing altogether, and is freely available depending on county and state, but, in the areas where the majority of Americans live (ie, not Utah, or similar), it's very easy to get alcohol and it's not seen as a bad thing. The issue is that the US is so large and disparate that everyone's experience will be slightly different, and, no offense, but your opinion of drinking culture in the US seems off base and I get the sense you don't know what you're talking about.
  - swensel 5y ago
    > You can drink openly at the beach. In CA at least, drinking at most beaches is not legal: https://beachlifeexpert.com/beaches/alcohol-guide-california-beaches/ https://beachlifeexpert.com/beaches/alcohol-guide-california...
    - my_usernam3 5y ago
jmckib 5y ago
This likely depends on what state and what park you're in. I've travelled the US in an RV and I've definitely seen people scolded for simply enjoying a glass of wine in a state park. Lots of parks also have huge signs all over the place warning that alcohol is not allowed, so presumably they are taking it seriously.

boringg 5y ago

This is the narrative that North America tells itself that the EU doesn't have a binge drinking problem as a result of a more liberal policy towards alcohol. It seems like a way to justify a more liberal policy here and it also sounds like a great sound bite people like to say that isn't validated.

Phillipharryt 5y ago

Australia allows drinking in parks unless it's a designated no-drinking area (usually any area outside an alcohol store). That being said different states in Aus handle alcohol differently and some are very strict. The major states of NSW and Vic are pretty chill though.

6foot4_82iq 5y ago
In Australia, all alcohol (yes, even beer and wine) can only be bought at designated liquor stores. The vast majority of which are only open 10AM~10PM, with a handful in Sydney and Melbourne open after midnight. Further, public drinking is all but restricted to destitutes outside of NYE and Aus day. Contrast that with Germany. Every two blocks there's a Späti, many open 20–24h daily, each selling beer, wine, and spirits, at all hours of the day. You'll find hordes drinking in the streets, parks, and riversides anytime weather permits. It isn't unusual to see people sharing a beer on the U-bahn on the way to the work. One culture demonises (although indulges in) alcohol, the other embraces it.
- Phillipharryt 5y ago
  Saying Australian culture demonise alcohol is a laughable claim. Australian summers are about BBQs and beers on the beach.
- tcpekin 5y ago
  I'm not sure that is Germany as a whole though, Berlin yes, but in Munich there are not nearly as many spatis, and from the people that I've interacted with, in smaller towns the only place to get a beer in the evening/night is the gas station.
  - wink 5y ago
    True. Also in Baden-Württemberg they banned selling alcohol at gas stations at certain times (iirc) and here in Bavaria there were some temporary bans (I think due to covid). But all this is /mostly/ because our (in Bavaria) shops aren't allowed to be open 24/7, it has nothing to do with alcohol per se. And yes, in general I 100% agree with the local policy that beer is free to buy and consume from age 16. The majority of people (I know) start drinking responsibly by age 20-25 and from the stories I heard from other countries there are quite a few less hospital visits involved.

SilverRed 5y ago

The public drinking laws are not because the government thinks the average person can't be trusted. It's because the homeless population has a large drinking problem and it often results in people getting assaulted on the street. These laws let the police do something about this before it results in harm.

yoz-y 5y ago
If that’s the case then I think that the government is solving the wrong problem.
mschuster91 5y ago
> These laws let the police do something about this before it results in harm. Yeah, as if repression is the answer to homelessness. Homeless people drink or consume other drugs to relieve the various stress associated with being on the street (as evidenced by drinking and drug use amounts immediately going down in housing-first projects), or to self-medicate physical health problems (alcohol is an effective pain number) that the life style brings with it or the mental health conditions that caused their homelessness in the first place. Actually helping people with housing and healthcare would be a way more efficient usage of public funds than wasting it on police that is using it for power trips against the powerless.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  >Actually helping people with housing and healthcare would be a way more efficient usage of public funds than wasting it on police that is using it for power trips against the powerless. In Australia there is usually somewhat good access to housing/welfare. Certainly leaps and bounds ahead of the US. The problem is that your options are either a homeless shelter which prohibits drugs, or the welfare system which requires you to apply for jobs and attend checkups. To some people, neither of these options is desirable so they choose to live on the street. The system in Australia isn't perfect but it is fair to say that it's almost impossible to be involuntarily homeless for an extended period.
kvgr 5y ago
Does the brown paper bag magically fixes this situation?

mushbino 5y ago

I I think you make some good points as far as general cultural attitudes exacerbating the problem. To an extent, I also think the same can be applied to all drugs. These are social, cultural, and health issues more often than they are criminal issues.

hutzlibu 5y ago
But they certainly become criminal issues if you put them in the criminal corner.
- tekknik 5y ago
  So then the answer is to decriminalize so they can continue to violate a law and receive no punishment? Is that what we’re supposed to do with laws we don’t like?

hutzlibu 5y ago

Binge drinking is a problem in germany. You can allmost call it youth culture, most kids go through, before becoming adults. In my late teenage years, it was common and expected on parties to drink, until you have fun, who can drink the most (and puke afterwards), etc. Most people, like myself, had enough of this after some time and matured - but I know too many people, where the booze and beer stayed with them.

fab1an 5y ago
Yes, there is some level of binge drinking in Germany, but it's not the same as the binge drinking that is common in the anglosphere, and especially in British culture, which is quite a bit more extreme.
capableweb 5y ago
> 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.
- tilolebo 5y ago
  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
  - tomhoward 5y ago

roland35 5y ago

Some people are just wired differently and are more or less susceptible to alcohol addiction.

Jabbles 5y ago

The UK has both the freedom to drink in a park and a binge drinking problem.

Sophistifunk 5y ago
Last I checked, everybody in London is kicked out of the pub at some stupid hour like 9pm and they have to go to restaurants to keep drinking.
- mFixman 5y ago
  Check again. Most pubs are open until midnight, and some are open further than that.
- t0mas88 5y ago
  That's more than 20 years ago, now the pubs are open much longer.

defaultname 5y ago

Germany has one of the highest alcohol consumption rates. Significantly higher than Australia. Almost double Canada.

Sophistifunk 5y ago
Yes. And yet you don't see drunken cockheaddery at the same rate you do here. This is entirely my point.

wavefunction 5y ago

My US city allows you to consume alcohol in public in a big section of the city center. So people stand around in line for BBQ drinking beer they've got in a cooler. Of course it's also completely legal for women to be topless in public in this city so it's not the American norm by any means.

hammock 5y ago

What are your thoughts on gun control?