99 Bottles of Beer

I will be the first to admit that I don't fully understand drinking. At my school in Pennsylvania there is a currently an event going on called Springfest. The point of this event, if the behavior of the participants is to be believed, it to become astoundingly drunk; American students really like to be drunk and it doesn't stop when they leave the country either. There are a few people in the study abroad group I'm in who don't seem go places to see things as much as they go places to drink, so that at the end of this trip they won't have learned about the culture and social life of Mainz or Wissembourg, they'll just have been drunk in Mainz or Wissembourg. Why even go then? You can get drunk alone in your room. (Hell maybe they do that too; I don't know.)

It's not people getting drunk that bothers me though. It's the pride. It's like a badge of honor. "My mind was so chemically altered last night that I urinated somewhere I wouldn't normally. Fucking awesome man!" Yeah, you're cool. But take pride in not ingesting a drug in order to act like an idiot and see how far that gets you socially.

And then there's the reasons for drinking. "I loosen up and become more social when I drink." (I'm boring and awkward so I need a drug to help me interact with others.) "It's fun to be out of control." (I'm afraid and incapable of making decisions in my life.) "I drink because other people do it." (I have no personality, or I'm too afraid or too uncomfortable with it to express it.)

However, while I don't get drinking, I don't mind that people do it, because the best reason I've heard is just that it's fun, and well, ok. I don't personally think it would be, but I really can't argue with that. Which brings me to the point of this post.

I personally have never been drunk. That being said, do I like alcoholic beverages? Yes. Have I had them before I was 21? Well that would be a dumb thing to admit to in a public blog if I had, wouldn't it? So I'll let the reader guess. And the fact that I know exactly what that reader will guess is exactly why drinking laws don't work.

Being in Germany really widens your perspective on alcohol. It's everywhere and kids can buy it. Sure, they card, but if you're 16 you can buy beer, and if you're 18 you can buy vodka. Do people get drunk? Certainly. Are they annoying in public? Yes. Do they commit alcohol related crimes or vandalism? Well I'm sure it happens, but I sure haven't seen it yet. Now step foot on any US college campus on a Friday night, at, say, three in the morning. It is out of control. Completely and utterly out of control. Yes, it's safe. But you still watch yourself, especially if you're a female student. (I'm not trying to be sexist to either gender; I'm just explaining the prevailing attitude on campuses.)

There are a million cultural differences that could explain this, but one of the more important is that Germans are brought up with the view of alcohol, not as something shady, but as a part of life, and as such, are far more aware and familiar with it. A very similar argument could be made for firearms: if they were treated as a tool, a part of life, instead of something sinister, people would be be more familiar with them, and fewer accidents would occur.

Alcohol, like a firearm, cannot hurt you unless you choose to use it irresponsibly. If you decided to drink to the point of danger, or use a loaded weapon like a toy, you and those around you will pay the consequences. If you are familiar with them, you will understand why you must not misuse them.

Kids drink in America all the time. The law isn't even effective because if it was enforced it would lead to more crime as it did in the 20s, and as drug regulation does today. Kids drink all the time in Europe too. The difference is that, even while drunk, they generally have a greater understanding of what's going on because they grew up with alcohol. Kids in the US on the other hand, are told from an early age that alcohol is bad and that they shouldn't drink it. They're given horrific stories designed to deter underage drinking which they then find out aren't true, and if adults lied to them about that, kids figure, they probably lied about everything else too. Then people wonder why kids become alcoholics or drink to excess on a regular basis.

Kids shouldn't be lied to to scare them into not drinking or not doing drugs. Part of the thrill many people derive from drinking underage is based on the discovery that their parents lied to them about what it would do and the fact that they're doing something taboo to rebel against their elders. In Germany where everyone gives you a beer as a teenager, you probably don't find anything particularly exciting about it, and you'll probably learn exactly how it affects you as you grow up. Kids in the US don't get that education. The only "education" kids in the US get is a stern warning that drinking will turn you into an alcoholic, kill you and set the devil loose on the world, and they're told when they're smart enough to know it's not true, but dumb enough to go overboard when they find out, so they have their first drink, like it, and continue to drink to the point where they're completely wasted, because they were never told there's a middle ground, and they continue to do it because they think that's how alcohol in a social setting works.

Our drinking age is set so high that we, as Americans, can legally drive, own a long gun and join the military before we can legally taste alcohol. It doesn't make sense and it doesn't work. Kids obtain and drink alcohol long before they're 21. Making it illegal doesn't change that and, in fact, makes it worse. Most kids even know that, like speeding limits and marijuana prohibition, drinking laws will hardly ever be enforced. There is no point to such a high drinking age in a country such as ours and certainly no point to the way we treat drinking. When we make drinking taboo, we encourage what we are trying to stop: excessive and harmful drunkenness. Take the fun out of drinking, and fewer people will do it to excess. It's as simple as that.