The US approach to underage drinking

togster · 20-06-2007 02:03PM

Burn the b!tch.

ballooba · 20-06-2007 03:31PM

Acid_Violet wrote:

Mind, I agree with you that most under-age drinkers are stupid and irresponsible. I'm under-age and I drink, (shock horror!) but I know I'm a light-weight and know exactly when to stop. Most people I know simply shouldn't drink for obvious reasons (black out, not at all in control of themselves, violence etc.) and most people my age that I know are completely irresponsible with their health in general, unfortunately. But so are adults. For a change to come about society's whole attitude to drink must change, I doubt any add campaign can do that over-night.

It may come as a shock that I completely agree with you. If you know your limits and you stay within them then that's fair enough. It does depend on what you limits are. I am talking about our general attitude to drink in this country. Yes, ad campaigns are useless to change attitudes, for any issue. They are a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.

Acid_Violet wrote:

The woman jailed let the kids drink in her house and collected their car keys. Under-age drinking is bad. Under-age drinking in an insecure enviroment is worse. Under-age drink-driving is the worst. She picked the least of three inevitable evils.

She also deceived the parents of all the other children.

Sangre wrote:

American schools and colleges very much have a binge drinking culture (from my experience). Don't know about after that.

I never said they didn't. Even if the problem in colleges there is as bad as here, our problems are much more widespread than that.

CiaranC wrote:

I have to laugh at baloobas 'wont somebody think of the children!' nonsense.

The mind boggles at someone who thinks a state who hands out 8 year sentences for this kind of thing is less dangerous than a 16 year old drinking a beer.

Now who's taking the moral high ground. Who are you to say my point of view is nonsense? Thanks for your contribution to the thread.

ballooba · 20-06-2007 03:36PM

Of course the punishment was over the top, I never said it wasn't, I only said it was better than doing nothing. Custodial sentences cost a lot of money to the taxpayer and achieve little. Community service or a fine would be far more productive.

cooperguy · 20-06-2007 04:10PM

ballooba wrote:

It may come as a shock that I completely agree with you. If you know your limits and you stay within them then that's fair enough. It does depend on what you limits are.

None of the teenagers in this case were even over the drink driving limit and this was at 11pm at night. I think its safe to assume the party had been going for a few hours at that stage. It is organised, controlled events like this that give teenagers an understanding of alcohol and keep alcohol from becoming something they have to try. It becomes normal and not something they are goin to go out of their way to get and drink.

jimi_t · 20-06-2007 04:22PM

ballooba wrote:

Of course the punishment was over the top, I never said it wasn't, I only said it was better than doing nothing. Custodial sentences cost a lot of money to the taxpayer and achieve little. Community service or a fine would be far more productive.

She has lost 27 months of her life, has a criminal record and her family has been (indirectly) destroyed by the whole experience. Underage drinking wasn't the problem, it has always existed. It has a lot more to do with the current conservative political climate of scaremongering and witch hunting in the US. Saying it was justified to any degree, even to the point where it was "beter than nothing" I simply cannot agree with, nevermind comprehend.

Acid_Violet · 20-06-2007 05:07PM

ballooba wrote:

It may come as a shock that I completely agree with you.

Em, considering I said this, that was a dumb thing to say.

Acid_Violet wrote:

I agree with you that most under-age drinkers are stupid and irresponsible.

She also deceived the parents of all the other children.

Well if she decieved their parents it warrants a prison sentence, especially if it was because she was actually being responsible and ensuring the safety of these kids instead of hopelessly flailing about like all the other parents not knowing how to get their kids not to drink.:rolleyes:

seamus · 20-06-2007 05:29PM

ballooba wrote:

Of course the punishment was over the top, I never said it wasn't, I only said it was better than doing nothing. Custodial sentences cost a lot of money to the taxpayer and achieve little. Community service or a fine would be far more productive.

In fact, it's worse than doing nothing. What if she had/has children under 18? Without her around, their incidence of underage drinking is going to go up. It's going to cost the state more, and may well wreck the lives of a few people far more than a beer ever did.

She made the right call. The drinking was going to happen. She just controlled it. Like a controlled crash, as it were.

vorbis · 20-06-2007 07:19PM

This is the WORST EVER sentence I've seen.
The original judge should be sacked for handing down an 8 year sentence!
What she did was wrong but warranted nothing more than a misdemeanour.
Between a high drinking age and a ban on gambling, America can be a really crazy country at times.

ballooba · 20-06-2007 07:41PM

lol, this has been great fun rattling a few cages today. I'll have to agree to disagree with all of you.

I think drink culture is a serious problem and the worst thing we can do is ignore it. Obviously none of you agree but that's the beauty of living in a democracy. Enjoy.

mloc · 20-06-2007 08:46PM

ballooba wrote:

Yeah, things like those we read every day in our country as a result of drink culture. Murders, assaults, fatal RTAs, health problems, rapes. Isn't it a great little country.

None of those problems, with the exception of health problems, are a result of drink. They are a result of people acting irresponsibly.

It is akin to saying drive by shootings, hit and runs and drink driving are a result of cars. It's true, but it's also a result of petrol, air, gravity etc. The problems are social, not alcohol. Alcohol is Ireland's best catch all excuse for real social problems.

On another note, the level of naivity, hypocracy and back tracking in your posts is nothing short of hilarious!

ballooba · 20-06-2007 09:59PM

mloc wrote:

On another note, the level of naivity, hypocracy and back tracking in your posts is nothing short of hilarious!

I'm glad I entertained you. You're quite right, actually binge drinking is not a problem.

mloc · 21-06-2007 02:15AM

ballooba wrote:

I'm glad I entertained you. You're quite right, actually binge drinking is not a problem.

Of course binge drinking is a problem. But it is a serious social one, and not something that jail sentences and family destroying convictions can cure. The real root of drinking comes down to a lack of alternatives, and because of its huge part in irish culture, its difficult to get someone to change unless everyone has already changed so they don't feel excluded. It is a catch 22 essentially.

Something is not always better than nothing.

BlitzKrieg · 21-06-2007 02:52AM

Ok didnt read the whole list of backtalking.

But on the op:

It is up to a point a stupid system. It stopped being stupid at the moment she served alcohol to other people's children without their consent (I dont know how accurate the *getting the kids to lie to their parents* angle is). Now I know that has no effect on the law (they would have been arrested even if it was only their own children.) But if I was a parent I would be pretty pissed off too if the other parents checked it was ok with me (which my parents did with my friends and vice versa) then I would take into consideration how safe I felt my teenage son/daughter was with said family (i.e how well I know them.)

Aside from that. Punishing the parent for serving alcohol to their own son is a ridiculous law which will have no affect on curbing under-age drinking, if anything it will increase it by encouraging it to go underground. It will be unsupervised and binge drinking will be more common.

Also I like that its considered one of the worse cases, yet later in the article it is pointed out that they were all under the legal limit. I am curious enough to know if any single event occur to draw attention to the event, or did a neighbour call them in on underage drinking?

to ballooba:

Yes I agree Binge drinking is a huge problem in Ireland and the UK (had 3 years experiancing it and yes it is just as bad, if not in some cases worse.) But I dont feel that the government is doing *nothing* as you put, they are just not doing enough.

I dont see the american approach being any better, and I find some elements (like the above) to be excessive and I find (again personal experiance) that the alcohol related problems that affect the Ireland are different to the US in that Irish Binge drinking occurs primarily in pubs and clubs while the majority of binge drinking in the US occurs in private residence and there are different consequences as well. One could argue back and forth which is better or worse but the result is they are both bad and need to be dealt with.

On a personal note. I dont binge drink, I keep a very tight control on my drinking, yet still have alot of fun. I started drinking at 15. Until I was 17 all my drinking was under my parents supervision, It was laxed when I was 17 to the extent that my parents would leave me a number to contact at the house and will check up on me later in the night.

Dave! · 21-06-2007 07:03AM

seamus wrote:

In fact, it's worse than doing nothing. What if she had/has children under 18? Without her around, their incidence of underage drinking is going to go up. It's going to cost the state more, and may well wreck the lives of a few people far more than a beer ever did.

She made the right call. The drinking was going to happen. She just controlled it. Like a controlled crash, as it were.

Seconded!

Snickers Man · 21-06-2007 07:27AM

something MUST be done about our binge drinking culture.

Here's what:

1) Greatly reduce the tax on alcohol. By about a quarter or maybe even a third.

2) Make alcohol ( ie beer and wine) more readily available in restaurants and cafes. And at sporting occasions

3) Promote greater awareness of the dangers of alcohol abuse

Expensive and restricted access to alcohol encourages binge drinking.

Cheap good alcohol encourages moderate restrained civilised drinking.

Ireland does not have the worst binge drinking problem in Europe. Sweden does, and it is the only country with more expensive alcohol than us.

In Ireland just about the only place to buy alcohol is in a pub. In Germany, you can get a beer with a Big Mac. We are the ones with the bigger binge drinking problem.

Our attitude to alcohol sucks. We see the only reason to drink as being to get pissed. Other Europeans see it as an aid to digestion and conversation. Let's make moderate consumption a normal and civilised practice as opposed to a naughty treat that you have to go to a pub to indulge in.

Oh and that judge in the US, and the media columnists who supported the sentence on that poor woman are evil idiots.

cournioni · 21-06-2007 08:27AM

Its no wonder that some of the kids over there are so ****ed up on drugs, having to wait around until they are 21 to take a sip! It is obvious at that stage that they are going to just turn to something else which is more readily available than alcohol (you can get drugs out on the street but can't get alcohol in off licences). The Americans really need to rethink this silly over 21 law.

Not saying that I agree with anything the mother did, that was grossly irresponsible handing out so much drink to school children. Fair enough if it had been just her own kid, that should be between herself and her son to decide. But not the kids from other families. She deserved some punishement for her role in it.

cooperguy · 21-06-2007 09:56AM

PORNAPSTER wrote:

Not saying that I agree with anything the mother did, that was grossly irresponsible handing out so much drink to school children. Fair enough if it had been just her own kid, that should be between herself and her son to decide. But not the kids from other families. She deserved some punishement for her role in it.

She handed out very little drink. About half of them had nothing drank at all and the rest of them were all under the legal driving limit!!!

ballooba · 21-06-2007 11:52AM

mloc wrote:

The real root of drinking comes down to a lack of alternatives, and because of its huge part in irish culture, its difficult to get someone to change unless everyone has already changed so they don't feel excluded.

That's a pure BS excuse people use all the time. There are plenty of alternatives. If there was a market for them there would be even more. A night out these days costs €40 min. There are plenty of businesses who would jump at the chnce of €40 to entertain you for the day/evening. People don't want alternatives. Pubs are businesses the same as any other, the reason they are there is because there is a market for them.

ballooba · 21-06-2007 11:57AM

Snickers Man wrote:

Expensive and restricted access to alcohol encourages binge drinking.

Cheap good alcohol encourages moderate restrained civilised drinking.

Making alcohol cheap without sorting out the problem is not going to solve anything. People will just drink twice as much. The attitude to alcohol will remain.

ballooba · 21-06-2007 11:58AM

PORNAPSTER wrote:

Its no wonder that some of the kids over there are so ****ed up on drugs, having to wait around until they are 21 to take a sip! It is obvious at that stage that they are going to just turn to something else which is more readily available than alcohol (you can get drugs out on the street but can't get alcohol in off licences). The Americans really need to rethink this silly over 21 law.

Plenty of kids around here ****ed up on drugs.

Shadowless · 21-06-2007 02:15PM

Under the legal driving limit. Isn't that like 1 pint?

mikemac · 21-06-2007 02:20PM

I haven't read this entire thread but aren't the daughters of President Bush supposed to be party animals and have been caught drinking underage.
I don't remember any furore over that.

Double standards me thinks

FX Meister · 21-06-2007 10:39PM

He didn't supply them with drink, lie to people to cover it up and then lie to the police about it afterwards. There was furore over that, how do you know about it?

Jenna Bush was cited for underage drinking in an Austin bar in April of 2001; she later pleaded no contest and was sentenced to community service and alcohol awareness classes. A second incident occurred on 30 May 2001, when both girls were cited by police after attempting to buy drinks at an Austin restaurant

JensenDenmark · 30-08-2007 08:58PM

Well, here in Denmark we do not have an age limit of alcohol consumption and a 16-year limit of alcohol purchase. So if the boy had been a Dane, he should have celebrated his birthday one day later, and he would not have to involve his parents at all.

Why do we have such limits?

We have discovered that youth use alcohol as a kind of phase that should be done with once they can drive a car. So they have two years where the parents can observe them and their way of drinking. If they show that they cannot control it, it means no drivers license.

This strategy results in a low number of people killed in alcohol related accidents. If you compare your numbers to ours in Denmark, you will find that ours are very low. (15 people killed per 1,000,000 for the whole year of 2006)

We have adjusted our laws on several occasions in order to spare lives and we find that making the introduction to alcohol an assignment for the parents and not the police remove the need for secrecy. Some youth as young as 8 have been spotted in the streets drinking making it very easy for adults to spot them and tell their parents, so it can be a subject for discussion in the family. Most parents introduce alcohol for their child at an age of 13-15 as a part of the confirmation, which is an Old Danish custom.

Terry · 30-08-2007 09:13PM

JensenDenmark wrote:

Well, here in Denmark we do not have an age limit of alcohol consumption and a 16-year limit of alcohol purchase. So if the boy had been a Dane, he should have celebrated his birthday one day later, and he would not have to involve his parents at all.

Why do we have such limits?

We have discovered that youth use alcohol as a kind of phase that should be done with once they can drive a car. So they have two years where the parents can observe them and their way of drinking. If they show that they cannot control it, it means no drivers license.

This strategy results in a low number of people killed in alcohol related accidents. If you compare your numbers to ours in Denmark, you will find that ours are very low. (15 people killed per 1,000,000 for the whole year of 2006)

We have adjusted our laws on several occasions in order to spare lives and we find that making the introduction to alcohol an assignment for the parents and not the police remove the need for secrecy. Some youth as young as 8 have been spotted in the streets drinking making it very easy for adults to spot them and tell their parents, so it can be a subject for discussion in the family. Most parents introduce alcohol for their child at an age of 13-15 as a part of the confirmation, which is an Old Danish custom.

Yeah. Most Irish people go through that phase from about 13-15.
It lasts until death.

Welcome to boards.ie.

JensenDenmark · 10-09-2007 10:14AM

Terry wrote:

Yeah. Most Irish people go through that phase from about 13-15.
It lasts until death.

Welcome to boards.ie.

Well, it last some years for most people and we have the numbers to prove it:

Danish numbers 1997-2006: Red = deaths, yellow = injured

Our 16 year limit was introduced around year 2000.

So save the lives of your children caused by DUI by lowered the agelimit!!

togster · 10-09-2007 10:31AM

I was in copenhagen last week and have to say that its one of the most relaxed places when it comes to alcohol consumption i have ever been. @ jensen i don't think lowering the alcohol limit in ireland would work yet. We have too many socially engrained issues to resolve. The problem is no-one can put there finger on a single root for the problem- The issue is an abstract one, it is defined by previous generations and history. The Danes know how to party but they don't get fcuked up like we do and boast about it to our mates for the next week untill we preceed to do the same thing again that weekend.

po0k · 10-09-2007 10:56AM

That's a cop-out.

I heard on an interview in the radio recently that ireland cannot be compared to "more progressive countries like Denmark [Norway, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands]" because they are predominately middle-class and don't have the social make-up present in Ireland.
As though that were a fine excuse for not even attempting to take a more long-term, generation-spanning approach to social change.

JansenDenmark wrote:

We have adjusted our laws on several occasions in order to spare lives and we find that making the introduction to alcohol an assignment for the parents and not the police remove the need for secrecy.

Spot-on. I agree whole-heartedly with this approach, rather than foisting responsibility upon the state.
A possible problem is when the 8-year old's parents are both collapsed in sunloungers and the child has no-one to watch over him/her. Why those parent's aren't arrested there and then always boggles me.

Dave! · 10-09-2007 09:43PM

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0910/alcohol.html

Commission to look at alcohol in society
watch listen Monday, 10 September 2007 20:21

The Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan, has said he is to bring a proposal to Government to reduce the effect of alcohol on society.

Speaking in Dublin, Minister Lenihan said he was currently compiling a proposal on the make up of the commission to review the matter.

However the minister added that in a country were there is full independence at 18 years of age it would be difficult to place restrictions on the consumption of alcohol.
Advertisement

Meanwhile, a new €4m campaign aimed at informing people about the impact excessive drinking can have on others is due to be officially launched tomorrow.

The Had Enough campaign looks at the impact irresponsible drinking behaviour can have on third parties, through the eyes of those it has impacted.

The campaign has been developed as part of the drinkaware.ie initiative by Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society.

Advertisements will run until December on television, radio, the internet as well as in bars, nightclubs and cinemas.

etc

togster · 11-09-2007 07:43AM

Snickers Man wrote:

Sweden does, and it is the only country with more expensive alcohol than us.

.

Yes that is possibly true. However in Sweden the problems associated with binge drinking e.g fighting violence puking etc are far less pronounced. They also drink one day a week. And alcohol is actually a little cheaper in Sweden than at home (not much). It is a cultural issue. The Swedes work all week with little socialising. On fridays they go yo the off-licence and by alcohol. The majority drink at home with friends and family. Their pub culture is different to ours. They dont do shots or drink to get pissed IMO.

The US approach to underage drinking

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