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When I grew up in Germany you were allowed to drink beer and wine at 16. It's hard to drink yourself into the hospital with those and you are still living with

When I grew up in Germany you were allowed to drink beer and wine at 16. It's hard to drink yourself into the hospital with those and you are still living with your parents. It provided a safe environment to experiment and learn how to deal with alcohol. At 18 you were able to get a driver's license and start drinking stronger drinks. However, you weren't as excited about the novelty of liquor. It's the only policy are I feel Germany has nailed better than anyone else I'm aware of

lupusreal 3y ago
Hard to drink yourself into the hospital with wine? I know Europeans drink a ton but remarks like this really drive home the point. One bottle of wine is easy to drink and enough to get me vomiting. Two wouldn't be hard and is definitely in alcohol poisoning territory for people who aren't experienced alcoholics. Anyway, I don't think America should emulate European drinking laws until it can be shown that Europeans drink less than Americans. The average German drinks 13.4 liters of pure alcohol a year, vs 9.8 liters for Americans (still too high): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_c...
- Grustaf 3y ago
  If you’re not a veteran wine drinker, which few adolescents are, then it takes real effort and dedication to get crazy drunk on wine. If you pass out it’s because you wanted to pass out. With distilled spirits, and especially cocktails, it’s not at all hard to get dangerously drunk without intending to, so it’s a lot riskier.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    Huh? If you're a novice to wine it's much easier to drink way too much. It tastes like juice and you can drink way too much too fast. At least liquor tastes like gasoline to warn novices off. Of liquor, beer and wine, wine is easily the most dangerous for novice drinkers.
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      You need to drink a lot of wine for it to get dangerous. A novice drinker on his first glass of alcohol is not going to slam them back unless they’re already determined to get violently drunk (e.g. crazier than most).
- Aeolun 3y ago
  I think you should put deaths from drunk drivers next to those figures
indigochill 3y ago
> It's the only policy are I feel Germany has nailed better than anyone else I'm aware of I'm not super familiar, but my impression is Germany also handled early 90s-ish hackers better than the US did. Just comparing the CCC in Germany to stuff like Operation Sundevil.
hutzlibu 3y ago
"At 18 you were able to get a driver's license and start drinking stronger drinks" You must have lived in a different german reality then. For us it was always easy to get someone else to buy your booze, if it was not already given to you somehow by the older guys. Or if you looked slightly older(I was NEVER asked for ID while buying drinks). Many people in my age group developed a drinking habit - and big surprise, quite some of them turned into alcoholics later. Also no surprise, with so many adult role models being drinkers as well. The general principle of gradually allowing more, might help a tiny little bit preventing early access for some people, but it absolutely did not help prevent alcohol abuse. There is just a general culture of alcohol abuse (Oktoberfest and co). So yeah, we had also fun, but I strongly reject the idea, that alcohol could help preventing smartphone addicts or is somehow better. Rather the contrary as teens still drink today and can just get addicted to both.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  I dunno, I never feel the need to pull out my phone when drunk? If it weren’t so problematic for other reasons being drunk all the time might stop smartphone addiction.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    Oh well, Heroin might even "work" better in that regard..
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      True, but there’s a supply issue.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Lol, I wasn't suggesting that drinking alcohol is good. I was merely saying that allowing a gradual on-ramp when kids still are living with their parents is less bad. Compare the German situation to the opposite extreme of the US where you aren't allowed to drink anything till you are 21 and living with other people your age. You could hardly design a worse approach of you tried.

lupusreal 3y ago

Hard to drink yourself into the hospital with wine? I know Europeans drink a ton but remarks like this really drive home the point. One bottle of wine is easy to drink and enough to get me vomiting. Two wouldn't be hard and is definitely in alcohol poisoning territory for people who aren't experienced alcoholics. Anyway, I don't think America should emulate European drinking laws until it can be shown that Europeans drink less than Americans. The average German drinks 13.4 liters of pure alcohol a year, vs 9.8 liters for Americans (still too high): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_c...

Grustaf 3y ago
If you’re not a veteran wine drinker, which few adolescents are, then it takes real effort and dedication to get crazy drunk on wine. If you pass out it’s because you wanted to pass out. With distilled spirits, and especially cocktails, it’s not at all hard to get dangerously drunk without intending to, so it’s a lot riskier.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  Huh? If you're a novice to wine it's much easier to drink way too much. It tastes like juice and you can drink way too much too fast. At least liquor tastes like gasoline to warn novices off. Of liquor, beer and wine, wine is easily the most dangerous for novice drinkers.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    You need to drink a lot of wine for it to get dangerous. A novice drinker on his first glass of alcohol is not going to slam them back unless they’re already determined to get violently drunk (e.g. crazier than most).
Aeolun 3y ago
I think you should put deaths from drunk drivers next to those figures

indigochill 3y ago

> It's the only policy are I feel Germany has nailed better than anyone else I'm aware of I'm not super familiar, but my impression is Germany also handled early 90s-ish hackers better than the US did. Just comparing the CCC in Germany to stuff like Operation Sundevil.

hutzlibu 3y ago

"At 18 you were able to get a driver's license and start drinking stronger drinks" You must have lived in a different german reality then. For us it was always easy to get someone else to buy your booze, if it was not already given to you somehow by the older guys. Or if you looked slightly older(I was NEVER asked for ID while buying drinks). Many people in my age group developed a drinking habit - and big surprise, quite some of them turned into alcoholics later. Also no surprise, with so many adult role models being drinkers as well. The general principle of gradually allowing more, might help a tiny little bit preventing early access for some people, but it absolutely did not help prevent alcohol abuse. There is just a general culture of alcohol abuse (Oktoberfest and co). So yeah, we had also fun, but I strongly reject the idea, that alcohol could help preventing smartphone addicts or is somehow better. Rather the contrary as teens still drink today and can just get addicted to both.

Aeolun 3y ago
I dunno, I never feel the need to pull out my phone when drunk? If it weren’t so problematic for other reasons being drunk all the time might stop smartphone addiction.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  Oh well, Heroin might even "work" better in that regard..
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    True, but there’s a supply issue.
ajmurmann 3y ago
Lol, I wasn't suggesting that drinking alcohol is good. I was merely saying that allowing a gradual on-ramp when kids still are living with their parents is less bad. Compare the German situation to the opposite extreme of the US where you aren't allowed to drink anything till you are 21 and living with other people your age. You could hardly design a worse approach of you tried.