This actually started at the end of Prohibition. Before then, there were few laws concerning youthful alcohol consumption. Prohibition itself was the result, mostly, of religious groups, especially some Protestant Christian groups, trying to change their religion’s historic tolerance of modest alcohol consumption.

It is with great humor that one reads the King James English version of what the Bible has to say about Jesus’ first miracle. John 2:2-10, tells it all: Jesus and some disciples were attending a wedding in Cana. When they wanted wine, his mother tells him: “They have no wine.” This is a classic discourse between mother and son, and his answer: “Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.” His mother doesn’t take this from her son and she “saith unto the servants…do it.”

The narrator continues: “There were six waterpots of stone.” These were pretty large vessels, because we are told that they contained “two or three firkins apiece” of water. As we know, a firkin is a British beer container of some eight gallons, or just under 10 gallons U.S. That is certainly a good measure of the final product! We can assume the amount to be somewhere near 110 gallons… of wine. Some party, even for a really big Jewish wedding, or maybe even a Kansas chivaree, for that matter.

We can certainly conclude that Jesus was no opponent of alcohol consumption at weddings and other celebrations. But we can also conclude that some religionists are more than willing to warp their religious books in their own image. These people will tell you that it wasn’t really wine, but grape juice! That’s what my Norwegian Lutheran teachers told me when I was 12 or so, and questioned the so-called “wine” at church ceremonies. They had an excuse. Aside from being Lutheran, they were also from Norway and grape juice might just stay unfermented for long time in that austere climate. Baptists, of course have their own rules. But Catholics have no such nonsense in their version of reality. We know that Pope Benedict enjoys good beer, as well he should!

A few Christian groups aren’t the only ones warping their religions to match what they want everyone to believe. Witness Islam and their renegade imams encouraging young people to commit suicide in the name of Allah. The Koran I read in 1948 opposes suicide and didn’t seem to me to be as anti-alcohol as they preach today: The Koran worried that someone would drink before praying. The devout pray five times a day, so that may be why there’s no time left over for partying.

Buddhists (of which I am one with) think of themselves as following the “Middle Way” between opposites, so one has some leeway to indulge in this and that without totally abusing the precepts (precepts, not commandments). Some Zen priests were notorious for their sake consumption. For Buddhists, the “Middle Way” is just that; but there are those who would take another path, and demand that we all follow their example.

Illegal and Unworkable

Nevertheless, I ask you—dear reader—if it’s illegal, and you’re 20 years old and you’ve been voting since you were 18, what could be more inviting than a beer after work? But, of course, you’ll have to bribe another citizen, one at least 21 years of age, to buy it for you, and then where are you going to drink that pathetic six-pack of Budweiser? That popular brew has decent alcohol levels, but the flavor gives little warning as to the effects that alcohol might have on you or your friend.

Where else will most young people go? In a car, with your friend-of-the-evening, of course, because you don’t have a real home, except with your parents and they’re not too keen about your alcohol experiments, especially with friends of the opposite sex, are they? So, after a couple of those brews, you get it on with your friend-of-the-evening when they are in the proper mood, and nine months later there is a pregnancy. How nice.

Within 45 minutes she was in serious trouble, showing symptoms of alcohol poisoning and slipping in and out of consciousness—this in a room full of trained EMTs. No one called 911. Soon, nauseated and vomiting, she passed out, at which point they carried her out of the room. One of the men picked her up, but when he tripped and fell, her head was slammed against the concrete floor and she suffered a massive skull fracture. About 12 hours later, she was declared dead at a nearby hospital. In effect, she died from having no experience managing alcohol consumption.

We’ve all read these sad stories about young people whose inexperience with alcohol leads to tragedy. Our nation’s solution has been more and more restrictions. It’s not working.

For some time now, indeed, longer than some of our younger voting citizens have actually been alive, we have denied them some keystone adult privileges. They are eligible to become targets in our declared and undeclared wars, get themselves deeply in debt, be executed, become parents, buy homes, and vote in our elections. But they can’t sip a beer in the quiet of their own homes, unless they live in one of the 19 states where parents are allowed to share such a libation with their adult children.

I remember that during WWII, even uniformed older Boy Scouts had relatively easy access to “3.2” beer with no questions asked. I entered the Marines at 17, late in 1943 and in uniform never once during the war, and even after, was I ever questioned about my age. My photographs out of that time showed the youngest Marine on the planet. He didn’t look a day older than 14!

At that time I had a profound educational experience in the Marine Corps under the astute tutelage of my peers. I had no drinking experience, nor any clue as to the penalties of over-consumption, but once in the company of friends, I managed to reach a point of no return. Memory of that evening is fuzzy to say the least. We were all due back in our base by 10 pm and late penalties were quite severe. We had ignored the passage of time and the hour of 10 had passed.

My friends were all older and more experienced than I, but equally low in rank. I learned then that Marines never fail to care for their comrades: those guys pushed me over the fence. And then the three of them climbed over that same fence and dragged me to safety in our barracks. This taught me an important lesson: getting drunk is exceedingly stupid, because one gets sick and one’s friends will never let one forget even one minute of the episode. I have been mildly inebriated on a number of occasions since then, but never ever that drunk. It was the most important lesson of my early life. For me, the mere thought of getting drunk was (and is) frightening and even terrifying. We won’t even discuss that morning after, but it too is unforgettable.

A Patchwork of Laws

Yes, it is true that alcoholic beverages can cause problems. We know that about one person in seven will have difficulties from overindulgence in alcohol. We should note that the United States is one of only five nations (along with Malaysia, South Korea, Ukraine and Russia) that prohibit alcohol consumption to anyone under 21 years of age. Japan and Iceland prohibit under-20-year-olds from imbibing, while all but two Canadian provinces hold out for 19. Alberta and Quebec join 26 countries allowing 18-year-olds to drink. Norway, for example has a split program: Wine and beer for 16-year-olds and spirits for their elder 18-year-old siblings. Norway is not known for its drunks. More important: countries allowing 18-year-olds and younger to drink have far less problems with their young people’s drinking than we do in our country.

Of course we know that the Islamic world has always had alcohol prohibition, a practice based on the Haaram section of the Quran, which I interpret to mean that one may not consume alcohol prior to prayer; but which is taken across the Islamic world to completely prohibit any alcohol consumption (although it is widely ignored in much the same way that Prohibition was pretty much ignored in this country during the 1920s). Islamic countries do have a problem with alcohol, one they are quite unwilling to address.

It should be remembered that age 21 has, since the repeal of Prohibition (1933), long been the standard drinking age in most states. However, before Prohibition became the law of the land, most areas had few limitations on alcohol consumption by young people. Often it was “if they can reach the bar with their money, it’s OK.” Youth drinking problems in the nineteenth century were a well-kept secret. The repeal of Prohibition left such matters to the states.

Unintended Consequences

Actually, as I see it, it is very dangerous to make young people wait until they are 21 to drink. They cause us no end of trouble for that reason. Where did the reader go when he or she was 18? Did you abstain? Or did you go out in someone’s car to get totally blotto? Maybe you got someone pregnant. Maybe you got pregnant in that car. (Incidentally, how many of us were actually conceived in such a situation? The truth could be quite shocking to our modern society.)

Our national leaders didn’t get it and they still don’t. Urged on by Mothers against Drunk Driving (MADD), Congress passed what I think of as illegal legislation. The Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 violates the 21st Amendment (repeal of Prohibition) by requiring states to set the drinking age to 21, or lose 10 percent of their Highway funding from the federal government. The 21st Amendment left it to the states as to how alcohol consumption was to be managed. The Feds were to have no hand, whatsoever, in that.

A few years back in 2004, Peter Coors, (yes, that Coors) ran for the U.S. Senate, urging lawmakers to open a “debate on the drinking age.” He noted that the old laws allowing 18-year-olds to purchase and consume 3.2 percent beer was a “perfect” solution and should be “studied.” He lost his run for the Senate.

However, the reader may remember that “3.2″ beer was declared non-intoxicating in 1933! It is possible that law may actually still be “on the books,” as they say. If so, that could solve our problem. “Three point two” beer is actually 4 percent ABV, and could become the bridge that these young adults might use to join us. Maybe we could insist that they’d have to drink in the company of an older adult, or in a pub, where the management could keep an eye on them. It would be a chance for these young people to learn how to deal with alcohol consumption.

Alternate Approaches

Last September, a group of 129 college and university presidents signed the “Amethyst Initiative” urging that this unfair situation be corrected by lowering the drinking age for our younger 18-20-year-old adults. This is another try at an earlier effort initiated in 2007 by John McCardell, a former president of Middlebury College in Vermont. His “Choose Responsibility” was an attempt to bring sanity to youth drinking. He pointed out “Prohibition does not work… [for 18-20-year-olds, who] are choosing to drink… [by taking it behind] closed doors… choosing to drink much more recklessly… underground and off-campus.” And in their automobiles as our grandparents did during Prohibition.

Today’s youth are “front loading,” getting drunk before going out. Some experts tell us a good number of these students (and even younger 16- and 17-year-olds) drink heavily and dangerously on occasion. There’s no argument from me about that. The “drink only at 21″ system ensures that these young people will be kept from learning how to manage their experimental consumption in a reasonable fashion. It also ensures that they will have few possibilities to find a safe venue in which they can experiment with alcohol consumption.

After the “Choose Responsibility” and “Amethyst Initiative” movements were introduced in the nation’s media, there was a rash of stupidity, with most newspapers rejecting the whole idea. True, they were supported by most (it seems to me) letters to the editor. I am at lost to explain this, but there it is. They claim that automobile crashes went up in the 1970s, binge drinking has accelerated, and that even younger children have taken up alcohol abuse.

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy arrived with the “Just Say No” program as the answer. We now seem to have adopted that program as the answer to all of our problems with young people, especially in regards to sex, drugs and alcohol education. These days our youth take their education in drinking and in sex, to their automobiles. They are self-educated in two of their most dangerous situations.

They deserve better from their elders.

In my long career as a swimming coach, I passed that information on to all of my swimmers when they had reached an age where such knowledge would profit them. (Actually, at 81, my teeth are in fairly good shape; I retain most of my original 32, not bad for a person of my advanced age. And don’t forget, I still consume a fair amount of chocolate.)

There are other perils of drinking soda pop, including increased risk of obesity and cancer. The average American 14-year old boy is consumes something like eight cans of that swill every day. If he lived in Belgium, he’d probably substitute a couple bottles of 2.5 percent table beer and be slimmer and healthier for that.

I cannot help but wonder what would happen to a kid who dared to bring a bottle of NA beer (non-alcohol: that is, containing less than 0.5 percent alcohol) to school in his or her lunch box. That might be fun to observe, but we can be certain that person would be in genuine trouble. Don’t forget—we’re dealing with zero tolerance here.

The Over-21 Club

The United States is one of only four nations (along with South Korea, Malaysia and Ukraine) that restricts alcohol consumption to those 21 and over. If we include Iceland, Japan and New Zealand, we can round out the only seven alcohol-drinking countries in the world (and a few Canadian provinces at 19) not embracing 18 or 16 and over as the drinking age.

One can scarcely open a newspaper these days without discovering that our children are being lured into the so-called “evils” of drink at a precipitous rate. No country on the planet has as much trouble with youth drinking as we do. Here, alcohol consumption is a genuine “rite of passage”—an exceedingly dangerous one, we should note. This rite mandates that our young people educate themselves in managing one of the world’s most pervasive so-called “drugs.”

We can be assured that most young people who follow “the crowd” will end up drinking in someone’s car, if only because that is pretty much the only place where they can drink. We can also be assured that when these young folk turn 21, they will binge on hard liquor, after being encouraged by their friends to attempt to drink 21 shots for their 21 years. Every year we lose a number of young adults that way.

And make no mistake: it is our (full-grown adults over 21) fault. We do absolutely nothing to educate these fragile young people to manage their drinking, especially when we know that seven out of ten of them will choose to drink most of their adult lives. Will we ever learn? Most of our youth drinking problems are a leftover from our defunct religion-based Prohibition. That Prohibition was a total failure. I repeat: total failure.

The very idea repulses most rational people—yet we feel it’s not only proper, but wise to cram prohibition and zero tolerance down the throats of these, our 18- to 21-year old citizens. We rely on them to defend our country, pay their credit card debt and fight our wars and non-wars, yet we treat them like children. Citizens, but only to a point—and it’s not fair.

Odd Country Out

Needless to say, Europeans view this matter quite differently than we do. There is little social pressure to drink, and great intolerance for alcohol abuse. Alcohol beverages are considered normal fare, even offered in some high school cafeterias. Some places in Belgium, as I noted earlier, young children are allowed taefelbier at 2 percent ABV. But, of course, that’s “old” Europe.

More to the point, Europeans rarely have the kinds of problems with their kids that we continually have with ours. Drinking is no big thing, as far as most of them are concerned: this, mostly because the drinking ages are more realistic.

In this country, we know that our college students will seize any excuse to party, often merely because it is totally forbidden to them. For example, we can see what happens with the so-called “dry” college parties: participants get drunk before the party starts; they’ll do that off-campus or in their car; they’ll drink more and faster, so the buzz will last; and they’ll drive to the party drunk, and drive home afterwards still drunk.

It has been suggested that if we raise the price of beer (which is what most of these folk actually imbibe), that will reduce consumption. It will probably reduce consumption of beer, but since they drink for effect, they don’t care what they drink. These people are not drinking for the enjoyment of it. If the price of beer were out of their range, they’d easily find some cheap hard liquor. There will always be something they can get, just for the effect.

Alcohol will always be part of the college experience. Always. The only way we can bring such drinking under control is to treat these young adults like the full adults we have declared them to be. Remember, they get their alcohol beverages from legal-aged adults upon whom they also rely to teach them about drinking.

Sadly, responsible drinking is rarely taught at home or anywhere else in our country. Where does our strongly anti-alcohol stance come from? In almost every case, it is the result of our religiosity. Some religions (Jewish, Catholic, most Protestants) and ethnic groups (Italians, Greeks, Germans, Dutch, Jews) are friendly to alcohol libations. If you have ever been to a Jewish or Italian wedding, you might have some idea of the alcohol consumption that goes on in that setting.

Other than Muslims, it is Evangelical Christians that are the bedrock of the prohibition of alcoholic beverages. (This despite the fact that the first miracle of Christ was to get booze—“firkins” in the King James version!—for a wedding.) One has to wonder how they ever came to believe that Christ offered grape juice at his Last Supper. But the Taliban Christians don’t seem to need a good reason for what they do. Zero tolerance will continue until all tolerance is eliminated.

The Three Percent Solution

As we have seen (AAB July), an “intoxicating” beverage was defined during Prohibition as a one with a rather arbitrary alcohol content of 0.5 percent ABV (alcohol by volume) or more.

In 1933, the U.S. Congress was able to relax Prohibition by exempting 4 percent beer (4 percent ABV equals the famous/infamous 3.2 percent ABW, alcohol by weight). The reader should note that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision affirmed that each state has full responsibility for its own alcohol control laws. Could not that be interpreted to mean that a state could legislate something like 3 percent ABV as “non-intoxicating”? Then it would be legal for 16- to-20 year olds to imbibe beer of such strength.

Or, friends, what if the states could change the under-21 prohibition to allow something like that (or an even lower 2.5-3 percent ABV) on-premise for 18-20 year olds? Perhaps we could even include 16-17 year olds, when accompanied by over-21 adult family members? And remember this is on premise, supervised and in the company of older drinkers, not to mention the bartender. These young adults won’t be wandering the countryside in automobiles, as they must do these days if they wish to drink.

Let’s just do it. Declare 3 percent ABV beer “non-intoxicating,” on a state-by-state basis, and let the stupid Feds figure that one out. We can easily produce great tasting, yet weak, 3 percent beer to train our young people in the management of alcohol consumption and still maintain the over-21 limit for other alcohol privileges. Such low alcohol brew would be welcome in other ways, too. I’d certainly enjoy drinking a flavorful, low-caliber beer when I want to drink and smooze with friends in some tavern without getting inebriated.

It is time we ended this double standard in our society between young adults and old adults.

The problem is that the no good, do-gooding, zero-tolerance folks abound, and they are busy trying to micro-manage everything. Case in point: there is an idiotic legislator in the capitol (Jefferson City) of a state (which I shall not mention) who wants to combat drunken and underage drinking by making it illegal to sell chilled beer in that state. Of course, that state’s largest employer, St. Louis’ Anheuser Bush, will surely quash the idea, but then, we can never be sure about that either, can we? It’s OK with me, since I don’t live in that unmentionable state, and rarely drink refrigerated beer anyway. However, those Bud drinkers might object to this unnecessary intrusion into their freedom to imbibe chilled beer right from the market place.

In other “unmentionable” states, we have New Mexico making it a felony to buy alcohol for an adult who is 18 to 21 years old. That’s right: a felony, with a fine of $5,000 and 18 months of prison. Then there’s Michigan, stiffening their laws about such adults legally drinking in Canada (where the drinking age is 19), and then arresting them on their return to Detroit for having consumed Canadian beer in Canada. Not for being drunk, mind you, but for being an adult and having drunk alcohol legally in Canada before returning home to the US. And, of course, Texas had to become one of the unmentionables, by trying to keep youthful American adults from going across the border to the fleshpots of Mexico to satisfy their libational requirements.

One US brewer preached a sane approach to young-adult drinking, at the risk of being blamed for promoting youth drinking. Peter Coors, running for the US Senate in 2004, urged lawmakers to “open the debate on the drinking age.” He noted that the old laws allowing 18-year-olds to purchase and consume 3.2-percent beer was a “perfect” solution and should be “studied.” He lost his run for the Senate.

This national minimum-21 age thing is relatively new, pushed through by President Reagan in 1984, at his wife Nancy’s urging. The bludgeon here is that it cuts federal highway funds to any state that allows under-21 drinking. The states no longer control their own drinkers. Didn’t we repeal Prohibition to give them precisely that power?

The Oregonian reporter, Andy Dorkin, in a sterling example of “fair and balanced” (TM) journalism, was fervent about a 300-page government report, Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility, generated for Congress by a 12-member panel from the Institutes of Health, out of the National Academy of Sciences. It was led by law professor Richard Bonnie of the University of Virginia, who admitted that the panel had not considered proposals to lower the drinking age.

I’ve no doubt whatsoever that the United States has more problems with young folks drinking than any other developed country. Start with the fact that only the USA, Chile, Egypt, Honduras, Russia and Samoa have laws against drinking under the age of 21. Japan comes on at 20, and South Korea, along with 10 of 13 Canadian provinces and territories, hold at 19. All other countries on the planet either have no laws at all about minimum drinking ages, or they set that at 18 or 16. The latter group includes only Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands; but, of course, they are “old Europe,” and not as civilized as ourselves, Chile, Egypt, Honduras, Russia and Samoa. In fairness, I should note that only 31 of our 50 states actually prohibit anyone under 21 from drinking, although none allows the purchase of alcohol under the age of 21.

Alcohol Abuse is Real

I must admit that we really do have an alcohol problem with our young people and their drinking habits. The above-quoted government report is quite correct about alcohol abuse among our young people. It is shaping up to become the major social problem of this decade. According to the Oregon Office of Alcohol and Drug Abuse, some 8 percent of sixth graders, 26 percent of eighth graders, and 42 percent of 11th graders had used alcohol in the previous 30 days.

Oregon seems to be a little ahead of the national averages in this field. In February 2001, an Oregon girl from Corvallis, a college town, drank seven consecutive, and probably double, shots of vodka before she died on her 14th birthday.

Get in Touch with Reality

These are terrible statistics for my state and our nation, but our society seems totally out of touch with reality regarding youthful drinking. We have been dealing with our young folks on a “just say no” and “zero tolerance” level for about 10 years now.

On the other hand, the people of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands handle things differently. In Belgium a couple of years ago, according to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, a Flemish beer club set up a pilot program to provide low alcohol (under 2.5 percent alcohol by volume) tafelbier (table beer) to school children between ages 3 and 15. This was to counter high calorie soft drinks and the resulting risk of obesity. I have the Nederlandsch text of that episode, and they didn’t worry a bit about their children becoming alcoholics.

How could this be? Well, in those “old Europe” civilizations, the youth, and their families, drink beer and wine with dinner. It’s not really worrisome for them.

Among American adults, we have alcohol abuse by something like 10 percent of our total population although some 70 percent of us drink moderately. If our young people were educated to manage social drinking, then we could probably expect something like 10 percent to cause trouble. Even so, that’s a lot better than what we have now, but we could be sure that 70 percent of them would follow their elders and become moderate drinkers.

]]> https://allaboutbeer.net/live-beer/people/beer-enthusiast/2004/01/please%e2%80%94not-again-yes%e2%80%94lower-the-drinking-age/feed/ 0 https://allaboutbeer.net/live-beer/people/beer-enthusiast/2001/11/and-yet-another-diatribe-on-youth-drinking/ https://allaboutbeer.net/live-beer/people/beer-enthusiast/2001/11/and-yet-another-diatribe-on-youth-drinking/#comments Thu, 01 Nov 2001 19:29:38 +0000 Fred Eckhardt https://allaboutbeer.net/?p=12570 There’s a lovely invitation in a recent Schlafly Growler, a monthly newsletter put out by Tom Schlafly, owner of the Saint Louis Brewery and Tap Room. That’s the other St. Louis (MO) Brewery, the second largest brewery in that city. It reads:

“Free Beer on Your Birthday. Certain conditions and restrictions apply. Offer is available only to females born on November 25, 1981. Offer is valid only on November 25, 2002. Only twins are eligible. Offer is limited to individuals who have been charged with one or more liquor violations in the state of Texas. Offer is limited to the immediate family of an incumbent President of the United States. Valid identification required.”

A little late in my view. The invitation should have been made for November 25, 1996. Jenna, and her sister, Barbara, would have been old enough to drink legally that long ago—if only they lived in Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, France, Georgia (the one in Russia), Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Thailand. But, of course, Tom can’t be faulted for that.

We are one of only five countries in the world to hold that adults must reach the advanced age of 21 to indulge in libations of an alcoholic nature. (The other four are Russia, Malaysia, South Korea, and Ukraine). The Bush twins could also have traveled to Canada, without daddy’s permission, where 19-year-olds can and do drink at their will. Iceland and Japan, of course, don’t allow drinking until the adults are 20. Most other civilized nations hold to 18 as a reasonable age to imbibe alcohol beverages (ICAP Report, issue #4, 3/98).

Actually, as I see it, it is very dangerous to make young people wait until they are 21 to consume. They cause us no end of trouble for that reason. Where did the reader go when he or she was 18? Did you abstain? Or did you go out in someone’s car to get totally blotto? Maybe you got someone pregnant, or maybe you got pregnant in that car. And incidentally, how many of us were actually conceived in such a situation?

If a young person is old enough to be convicted of an adult crime, old enough to be drafted (and killed in the defense of our country), how can we then say they are not old enough to drink? If we believe that they are old enough to share in our government by voting, how can we tell them they must abstain from alcohol consumption? Either they is or they ain’t!

How to Resolve the Problem?

I’m certain there are many who will protest the idea of lowering the drinking age to 16 or 18. Well, it is certainly true that some people simply are not ready for alcohol consumption at that, or any, age. And, yes, alcohol misuse is very troublesome in our society.

It is, in fact, one of our society’s greatest problems. One in four US children live in a household where an adult abuses alcohol. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has determined that 19 million school children live in such homes. That same government agency tells us that 14 million adults abuse or are dependent on alcohol. One can question the government’s statistics, but we must acknowledge that there is indeed a major problem here. According to Bridget Grant, in a 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiological Survey, alcohol abuse and dependence “are the two most prevalent and deleterious psychiatric disorders in the world.”

But are we approaching the problem rationally? In 1997, Scott Krueger, a freshman and Phi Gamma Delta fraternity pledge at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died of alcohol poisoning (blood alcohol 0.4 percent). He had drunk beer, and then under the tutelage of a fraternity “big brother,” he also drank some 41 ounces of Jack Daniels and spiced rum (according to some reports).

Last fall, we were treated to the spectacle of MIT president Charles Vest groveling at the Kruegers’ door, with a $4.75 million check, and a $1.25 million scholarship in Scott’s name. But his remedy went no further than yet another “Just Say No.” It was them terrible “binge” drinkers! Stop binge drinking, and we cure the system. Duh! And where were Scott’s parents when it was time to teach him how to manage drinking situations? Just say no. (Newsweek 9/25/2000)

Some say that our young people are entirely out of control. We, of course, don’t have to walk in their shoes. We’ve survived our adolescence; let them do the same. But we’ve dumped the whole world in their laps. The average 14-year-old boy is faced with more female upper torso flesh in one day than I got in my whole 14th year. I have seen 13- and 14-year old girls berating a classmate because he didn’t show a satisfactory bulge. And we all know what happens to young girls who fail to exhibit an appropriate bust pattern. The young males in their life can, and will, be quite cruel. Did I mention violence?

Just say no. Ham-fisted government regulations are not the answer.

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