Is this just for bars/pubs etc or is it the same for restaurants? What about retail outlets?
Are all states the same?
How rigidly enforced is the law?
If it is 21 across the board what happens at places like colleges. The few “frat house” type films I have seen seem to feature drinking. How does that happen?
Are there ways around the law?
Does the lack of alcohol cause people to turn towards other relaxants, in particular marijuana?
And finally how do Americans survive their teens without alcohol?
Does being wildly out of step with other countries bother anyone?
The drinking age is the same across states and between different types of establishments. Someone who is under 21 cannot purchase alcohol, whether to be consumed on the spot or carried out. Certain states (I don’t know if it’s all of them or not) allow a teenager to consume alcohol if he or she is with a parent.
The enforcement varies depending on how strict the owner of the establishment is and how tough local law enforcement is. A local grocery store chain was busted for not “carding” (asking to see the state ID/driver’s license) underage customers, and since that time put up signs stating that they will card anyone who appears to be 30 or under.
Typically in college, you get of-age friends to buy alcohol for you and drink it in dorm rooms, or go to house parties where kegs of beer and other alcohol is provided - you pay a certain amount for a cup at the door, and from there it’s all-you-can-drink. Then you hope that the cops don’t come to bust the party, and try to sneak out the back door/a window if they do.
For the teenage years, some parents will even buy alcohol for their teens, figuring that it’s “better” for them to stay home and drink there rather than go out and drink (and maybe drive). This of course can lead to other teens coming over to the houses where the alcohol is. And of course there’s sneaking hard alcohol from the family liquor cabinet, and getting older friends to buy for you. I don’t have any statistics on if the drinking age has shown to have any effect on other drug use.
I simply didn’t drink when I was a teen, but drank most heavily in my underage college years, slowing down dramatically once I turned 21. Interpret that as you will.
It’s the same age everywhere. There are exceptions for serving wine and such during religious ceremonies.
There used to be a few hold-outs that kept it at 18, but the Federal government threatened to eliminate their hiway funding if they did not raise the drinking age, so they did.
It varies from place to place. Small bars and resturaunts usually don’t make a big deal out of it; more trendy places are usually more closely watched by the local police and will ask for ID more often.
First, frat-house movies have absolutely nothing to do with reality. Second, when it comes to college parties, generally a person of legal age buys the alcohol and brings it back to the dorm/frat, where the other consume it.
See above.
Quite debatable. There is the oft-heard claim that it is easier for a teenager to buy a joint than a beer, because the former is not regulated. But I don’t know if there’s any good hard data available.
Many American teens drink up a storm. As noted, the law is usually quite lax, and any legal person can always buy alcohol for teens to consume in the privacy of their own homes. (Not to mention finding the key to the parent’s liquor cabinet. )
All states are now 21. Congress held the revocation of federal road and highway funding over the states heads like a hammer and basically forced compliance.
If people are doing their job, it’s rigidly enforced. Seriously, most of the work is done at the retail level, with the threat from schools of banishment from any school activity if caught. The cops’ll only get involved if you’ve already attracted them some other way.
In my experience, colleges will turn a blind eye as long as you don’t do anything too stupid. Like cops, the RA (who is far more likely to get involved at first than anyone else higher up) will not go around looking to bust you unless you do something stupid.
There are ways around any law. Easiest way, get someone who’s old enough to buy for you. If the clerk’s not doing his job and doesn’t card you, there you go.
I’ve never bought the gateway drug argument with marijuana, and I don’t buy it with alcohol. Seriously, I don’t know what the stats look like.
I’ve survived them by going to Germany and learning there that I don’t really like the loss of control of being drunk. It also helps when you spend a night with the guy in the bunk above you puking up his guts into a trashcan because he had to much to drink, or a friend who almost killed himself with alcohol poisoning. Seriously, except for the occasionally drink I wish I could have when it’s been a bad day, I haven’t minded.
An RA is a Residential Advisor, who is a person in a dorm, usually an older student, who helps runs things. He also advises the students living there. He may have various disciplinary powers based on the school. It’s completely arbitrary as every college has their own regulations about these sorts of things. Where I went to school the RAs had the awesome power of reporting you to the dean for being naughty.
An RA is a Resident Advisor, an “adult” who lives in the dorm with the students. They can be upperclassmen, grad students, or even staff. They generally enforce rules with non-judicial authority, advise troubled undergrads on smaller issues, and tell people to turn down music. Bigger issues, they recommend to a higher authority.
As noted above, you are correct that the age limit is 21 in every state. Under the U.S. version of federalism (that is, the law of how the states and the federal government interact), the regulation of alcohol is a health and safety issue and therefore primarily the province of the states. The federal government, which is limited to the powers granted it in Article I of the U.S. Constitution and a couple of the later amendments, probably has no power to directly regulate alcohol sales.
However, the federal government does have to power to spend the money its taxes generate. As asterion noted, in the mid-80’s (IIRC) the fed decided that it would refuse to give states highway money if they did not raise their age limit to 21. South Carolina sued the fed, claiming that since the direct regulation of alcohol was outside the federal government’s province, it had no power to regulate indirectly by threatening to withold funds. The state lost; the U.S. Supreme Court held that as long as there was a legitimate goal for the use of the spending power (in this case, the reduction of drunk-driving fatalities) that was even reasonably related to the desired regulation (which the drinking regulation is because it was expected to lead to fewer young, inexperienced drivers getting behind the wheel drunk), then the fed can use the spending power to motivate others (including states) to accept the regulation; if South Carolina is that interested in letting teenagers drink, it was free to do so if it was willing to give up the highway funds.
re: the movies, the drinking age used to be 18, so movies such as “Animal House” were accurate (although hilariously exaggerated!!) when showing drinking at college. And as others above have pointed out, currently kids just find ways to get other people to buy the booze, or use fake IDs.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving lobbied heavily for the 21 drinking age. And apparently they have more political clout than 18,19, and 20 year olds, so they prevailed.
We don’t, for the most part. That is, most of us choose to disobey the law.
Nope, not even then.
This is more of a GD thing than GQ, but yes I fully agree. I posted an angry rant at the BBQ pit a few months ago about this contradiction. If they are going to force you to do die on the battlefield, they should treat you as a social equal who can have a drink at the end of the day.
Not anymore. Many commands are now following the state laws due to possible financial liabilities. Many states now have laws that hold the servers of alcohol liable for the actions of the consumers. If one of under 21 service members drinks on base then drives and kills civilians, the base can be held financially responsible. All military bases in Washington state follow the state law. And about a year ago, the US Army had to pay a Tacoma, Washington family $5 million because a soldier that had been drinking on base drove the wrong way on a freeway and killed 3 members of the family.
Here is a post I copied off a legal forum. It pretty much spells out why the government can limit the drinking age at 21.
“Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” (U.S. Const., 14th Amendment)
My Bar Exam Constitutional Law is rusty, but here’s a sample. I’m sure someone will correct my errors.
The analysis has nothing to do with “rights” vs. “privileges”.
Basically states are free to restrict your right to liberty by law (via the state’s broad “police power”) unless the law infringes upon your “fundamental rights” (e.g., right to vote, etc.) Drinking is not a fundamental right. A law restricting something less that a fundamental right (e.g., drinking) need only be “rationally related to a legitimate government interest” to be constitutional. Here, the legitimate government interest is to protect youth from the so-called evils of alcohol. The age restriction is rationally related to that end. Therefore, the law limiting the age of drinkers does not violate the “due process clause” and is constitutional.
What about discrimination under the “equal protection clause”? Well, unless the law discriminates against a “suspect class” of people, the above analysis is the same. A “suspect class” of people is basically those people who have been getting a raw deal for years and years (e.g., minority races, religions, and people from certain nations, etc.) Discrimination on the basis of age does not affect a suspect class (minors). Since the law barring minors from drinking doesn’t affect a suspect class, and it is rationally related to a legitimate government interest, that law doesn’t violate the equal protection clause either. The analysis would be totally different if the law prohibited Argentinean-Americans or Muslims from drinking, or what-have-you.
Owl-- I guess you’re from the UK (yes?). One other point is that we don’t have any sort of differentiation between “pubs” and “bars” like in the UK. All places that are licensed to serve alcohol have the same age limits.
Regarding enforcement: This is totally dependent upon the state and locality. In New York City, for instance, underage kids can readily get served (though less easily in neighborhoods near NYUniversity, etc.). Back in Pennsylvania where I grew up and went to college, kids in high school had their house parties raided by the police every single weekend. At college, I never heard of a raid of a house party/frat party taking place. But when it came to serving minors at bars, enforcement was very strict. Bouncers scrutinized every patron’s ID to be sure he/she was of age, since the massive fines levied against the bar owners for serving minors could quite easily put them out of business.
I remember living through the great drinking age shell game…
I live in NY state and before I turned 18 in 1983 NY raised the drinking age to 19. So I had to wait an extra year. 1984 comes and, yipee!, I can go to bars. Then, in 1985, NY raises the drinking age, again, to 21! So I had to wait (again!) until 1986!
So first I couldn’t drink, then I could, then I couldn’t again, then I could (again)!
Although at the time I thought it to be the most despicable and totalitarian bunch of crap I’d ever heard, nowadays I think its a good idea. You’re too much of an irresponsible idiot at 18…
Hail Ants, same here, but in NC. In college, I legally could not drink as a freshman, could as a sophomore (drinking age was 19), could not as a junior (went to 21 three days before my birthday), then could as a senior. Not that it slowed me down much.
In 1983, I was 18. I couldn’t legally drink in my homestate (MN - legal drinking age was 19 at that time), but less than a mile away in WI, the legal age was 18. So when I was still in high school, I could legally drink in WI. I remember going on vacation in 1985 and the legal age at the airport I was in for a stop over was 21 (Pennsylvania?), so I was denied service there. Really weird drinking age situation back in the 80s.
Enforcement of drinking-age laws, at least around here, seem to be pretty episodic.
Small, independent restaurants are usually pretty lax about carding, in my experience.
As for bars, unless they card at the door as you come in, it seems to depend on crowd volume. A very crowded and busy night more often than not means that the bartenders/waiters/waitresses aren’t so up on carding every new face.
Smaller, family-owned liquor stores can be pretty wishy-washy about carding as well. I’d say a teen, if they look even remotely close to 21, has about a 50 percent chance of buying alcohol at these type of places.
The only places that seem commited to strict enforcement are dance clubs and the larger liquor stores, who pretty much card anyone who looks under the age of 50. Chain restaurants (like TGIF’s, etc.) are usually pretty tight as well.
Every so often the state and county governments announce a crackdown on underage drinking, and it probably lasts all of a few months before they forget about it and focus on something else.
Let’s put it like this: from age 17 up until I turned 21, I had very few problems buying alcohol…sometimes there were inconvenient factors, like having to hit 4 or 5 different places before getting it, but we’re talking a hour’s worth of work at the maximum.
When I was 17 in 1979 living in Iowa (at that time drinking age 18) a friend went into a bought beer while wearing his letter jacket (which has your year of graduation printed on it, thus advertising your age). At 18 I moved to Missouri (drinking age 21) but Kansas (drinking age 18) was only 10 miles away. In those days if you were a skinny white kid of 16 and they asked for ID, you could hand them an ID for a 45 year black woman and you would get in.
It think 18 (local laws here) is about right. Granted, 18 - 20 year-olds can be an immature bunch at times, and sometimes I see things which make me think anyone under thirty shouldn’t even be allowed off a leash, but at 20 you’re not a child, and I know I would’ve been pissed off had I been refused entry to a pub at that age. The kids who are going to whoop it up down by the river with a case of beer and a bottle of Jack will do so regardless of the law. At twenty, I was a bit crazy sometimes, but for the most part, I just wanted a quiet beer at the pub, same as I do now. I was working full time and I reckon my friday night beer or two on the way home wasn’t hurting anybody.
Also, I haven’t been carded since I was 16. It’s good being a big, ugly, hairy bugger sometimes.
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