2 ms·

> and you can buy alcohol at 18 or be given it with a meal by your parents at younger ages, because we didn't have puritans making motorway funding contingent o

> and you can buy alcohol at 18 or be given it with a meal by your parents at younger ages, because we didn't have puritans making motorway funding contingent on passing strict drinking laws like the USA did. 16 if you're buying wine or beer with a meal, at least in Scotland. This means that when you go to your mate's mum's pub for a pub lunch on a Friday you need to watch out for your teachers also going for a lunchtime pint. Man, the 80s were wild.

alexfoo 8mo ago
> Man, the 80s were wild. Early 90s for me but there was an unwritten rule that the teachers had the nearest couple of pubs and the students had a few further afield. That prevented most unwanted mixing. But those days are still here in some ways. As a parent of a 16yo in the UK I can confirm that the vast majority of teenagers have somewhere they can go to get a drink if they really want. Unless you live in the sticks there will always be some pubs that will happily serve 16/17 year olds a few drinks as long as they're not doing shots or obviously getting hammered. Off-licenses are mostly stricter but very good/convincing fake ID is so easy to get nowadays. What tends to be the limiting factor is money. £7 a pint in a London pub quickly eats away at whatever allowance they're getting or money they're earning themselves, and Spoons (the cheaper pub option) is often stricter on ID/ages than most (some nights/pubs are minimum age 21 which means the fake ID that says a 16yo is 18 is no use). Chatting to my kid's friends they say that if they do want some kind of a buzz most of their cohort prefer low-grade drug use (weed, ket, etc) as it is considerably easier to get hold of and much cheaper than alcohol. However, as a generation, they tend to be a lot cleaner than previous generations, certainly cleaner than my generation. There are a huge number of them that don't do any drugs, many don't drink alcohol at all but are quite tolerant of friends who do want to drink/take. There seems to be a lot more acceptance and less peer-pressure.

alexfoo 8mo ago

> Man, the 80s were wild. Early 90s for me but there was an unwritten rule that the teachers had the nearest couple of pubs and the students had a few further afield. That prevented most unwanted mixing. But those days are still here in some ways. As a parent of a 16yo in the UK I can confirm that the vast majority of teenagers have somewhere they can go to get a drink if they really want. Unless you live in the sticks there will always be some pubs that will happily serve 16/17 year olds a few drinks as long as they're not doing shots or obviously getting hammered. Off-licenses are mostly stricter but very good/convincing fake ID is so easy to get nowadays. What tends to be the limiting factor is money. £7 a pint in a London pub quickly eats away at whatever allowance they're getting or money they're earning themselves, and Spoons (the cheaper pub option) is often stricter on ID/ages than most (some nights/pubs are minimum age 21 which means the fake ID that says a 16yo is 18 is no use). Chatting to my kid's friends they say that if they do want some kind of a buzz most of their cohort prefer low-grade drug use (weed, ket, etc) as it is considerably easier to get hold of and much cheaper than alcohol. However, as a generation, they tend to be a lot cleaner than previous generations, certainly cleaner than my generation. There are a huge number of them that don't do any drugs, many don't drink alcohol at all but are quite tolerant of friends who do want to drink/take. There seems to be a lot more acceptance and less peer-pressure.