4 ms·

None of which detracts from his point: we (Americans) are nuts about mind altering drugs, and most of the debate on both sides is laughably sophomoric. Europea

by wdewind 12y ago

None of which detracts from his point: we (Americans) are nuts about mind altering drugs, and most of the debate on both sides is laughably sophomoric. Europeans have a lot to feel superior about when it comes to these regulations. That there is a complex political history here doesn't alter that.

bane 12y ago
There's lots of good in the European approach to alcohol. It's not unusual to sit down with a glass of wine with lunch in Italy, but in the U.S. you might get flagged as an alcoholic. Children grow up learning how to manage alcohol better when they're adults and you don't see much binge drinking and rates of drunk driving are far lower. Then again, even the Irish are getting irritated with the Brits coming over to Dublin to get pissed and get in fist fights in the street and causing other bits of ruckus.
- wdewind 12y ago
  > Then again, even the Irish are getting irritated with the Brits coming over to Dublin to get pissed and get in fist fights in the street and causing other bits of ruckus. Stuff like this was the impetus for the federalized drinking age in the US.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    It's only sort of federalized though: The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (23 U.S.C. § 158) was passed on July 17, 1984 by the United States Congress. It punished every state that allowed persons below 21 years to purchase and publicly possess alcoholic beverages by reducing its annual federal highway apportionment by ten percent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_A... (I'm posting because I think the mechanism might be news to some readers, not to argue about whether it is federalized or not)
    - wdewind 12y ago
      Thanks, I knew that was the mechanism but never knew it was 10%.
    - mabhatter 12y ago
      I cannot wait til we can sin-tax old people because they are on Social Security!!!
- dalke 12y ago
  By "European approach" I don't think you mean "European approach." The drinking cultures in, say, the UK, Sweden, and Italy are quite different. In Sweden it's relatively unusual to sit down with a glass of wine for lunch, and the UK is much more beer oriented than Italy. In any case, does your logic extend to other forms of alcohol? Only a few decades ago it was common in the US to have a three martini lunch, and watching the TV shows of the 1960s shows an incredible amount of leisure-time drinking. See http://www.harpiesbizarre.com/cocktailhour.htm http://www.harpiesbizarre.com/cocktailhour.htm for examples from Bewitched. Has the amount of binge drinking and DD rates in the US gone up now that those are no longer as culturally acceptable?
  - bane 12y ago
    By "European Approach", I'm talking about the more acceptable normalization of alcohol as a food item. Americans treat alcohol like either radioactive poison or a moral suspension drug. I've noticed in my various times in various parts of Europe that alcohol consumption general starts earlier and the usage of it is generally better moderated in consumption than in the U.S. (there's an entirely different pattern for alcohol that I've seen in East Asia as well). Sure, Swedes might not sit down and drink wine for lunch, but the grape/grain alcohol divide kind of is the cause of that. But I'm old enough to remember being able to purchase beer in Germany as soon as I was tall enough to look over the bar and get the bartender's attention. You are right that alcohol consumption, particularly hard alcohol seemed to have been more common in the 1960s. Overall traffic death rates were very high before the Ralph Nader auto safety revolution, often for stupid reasons. I'm sure somebody has done a good analysis of the complex reasons why, but my hypothesis is that commonplace drinking has gone down as car safety has gone up, being attributed to traffic deaths by organizations like MADD, etc. It's become less socially acceptable to drink during working hours.
    - dalke 12y ago
      Understood. My comment is that "European Approach" is a poor shorthand for what you mean. In the UK, for example, alcohol seems much more like a 'moral suspension drug', as the innumerable accounts of drunken Christmas parties from the UK, or stories like http://metro.co.uk/2010/11/01/aebooze-asbosae-for-drunken-yobs-569174/ http://metro.co.uk/2010/11/01/aebooze-asbosae-for-drunken-yo... ("We remain concerned about the number of alcohol-related incidents and the drink-fuelled violence and disorder that blight many of our towns and cities") seem to attest. You mention Germany, but as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_in_Germany points out, "The German laws regulating alcohol use and sale are some of the least restrictive ones in the world." I don't think it's appropriate to use an extreme as if it is representative of the average.

by wdewind 12y ago

bane 12y ago

There's lots of good in the European approach to alcohol. It's not unusual to sit down with a glass of wine with lunch in Italy, but in the U.S. you might get flagged as an alcoholic. Children grow up learning how to manage alcohol better when they're adults and you don't see much binge drinking and rates of drunk driving are far lower. Then again, even the Irish are getting irritated with the Brits coming over to Dublin to get pissed and get in fist fights in the street and causing other bits of ruckus.

wdewind 12y ago
> Then again, even the Irish are getting irritated with the Brits coming over to Dublin to get pissed and get in fist fights in the street and causing other bits of ruckus. Stuff like this was the impetus for the federalized drinking age in the US.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  It's only sort of federalized though: The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (23 U.S.C. § 158) was passed on July 17, 1984 by the United States Congress. It punished every state that allowed persons below 21 years to purchase and publicly possess alcoholic beverages by reducing its annual federal highway apportionment by ten percent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_A... (I'm posting because I think the mechanism might be news to some readers, not to argue about whether it is federalized or not)
  - wdewind 12y ago
    Thanks, I knew that was the mechanism but never knew it was 10%.
  - mabhatter 12y ago
    I cannot wait til we can sin-tax old people because they are on Social Security!!!
dalke 12y ago
By "European approach" I don't think you mean "European approach." The drinking cultures in, say, the UK, Sweden, and Italy are quite different. In Sweden it's relatively unusual to sit down with a glass of wine for lunch, and the UK is much more beer oriented than Italy. In any case, does your logic extend to other forms of alcohol? Only a few decades ago it was common in the US to have a three martini lunch, and watching the TV shows of the 1960s shows an incredible amount of leisure-time drinking. See http://www.harpiesbizarre.com/cocktailhour.htm http://www.harpiesbizarre.com/cocktailhour.htm for examples from Bewitched. Has the amount of binge drinking and DD rates in the US gone up now that those are no longer as culturally acceptable?
- bane 12y ago
  By "European Approach", I'm talking about the more acceptable normalization of alcohol as a food item. Americans treat alcohol like either radioactive poison or a moral suspension drug. I've noticed in my various times in various parts of Europe that alcohol consumption general starts earlier and the usage of it is generally better moderated in consumption than in the U.S. (there's an entirely different pattern for alcohol that I've seen in East Asia as well). Sure, Swedes might not sit down and drink wine for lunch, but the grape/grain alcohol divide kind of is the cause of that. But I'm old enough to remember being able to purchase beer in Germany as soon as I was tall enough to look over the bar and get the bartender's attention. You are right that alcohol consumption, particularly hard alcohol seemed to have been more common in the 1960s. Overall traffic death rates were very high before the Ralph Nader auto safety revolution, often for stupid reasons. I'm sure somebody has done a good analysis of the complex reasons why, but my hypothesis is that commonplace drinking has gone down as car safety has gone up, being attributed to traffic deaths by organizations like MADD, etc. It's become less socially acceptable to drink during working hours.
  - dalke 12y ago
    Understood. My comment is that "European Approach" is a poor shorthand for what you mean. In the UK, for example, alcohol seems much more like a 'moral suspension drug', as the innumerable accounts of drunken Christmas parties from the UK, or stories like http://metro.co.uk/2010/11/01/aebooze-asbosae-for-drunken-yobs-569174/ http://metro.co.uk/2010/11/01/aebooze-asbosae-for-drunken-yo... ("We remain concerned about the number of alcohol-related incidents and the drink-fuelled violence and disorder that blight many of our towns and cities") seem to attest. You mention Germany, but as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_in_Germany points out, "The German laws regulating alcohol use and sale are some of the least restrictive ones in the world." I don't think it's appropriate to use an extreme as if it is representative of the average.