the unequivocal notion

This morning in the Idaho Statesman there is a story about Meridian Mayor Tammy de Weerd’s daughter and two tickets she has received for underage drinking. The common theme in the comments section at the Statesman site is to either forgive her for her “mistake” or advocating harsher punishment.

One commenter even wanted to make underage drinking a felony – yes, making the vast majority of our teens felons for experimenting with a socially acceptable intoxicant is a brilliant solution.

What’s to forgive?

I will also note that high school senior RoAnne de Weerd is the chair of Meridian’s Anti-Drug Coalition and also serves on America’s Promise National Youth Partnership Team plus a couple of other anti-booze/drugs groups. I think that it’s pretty clear she should resign those positions. Of course, drinking while telling others it’s evil is kind of an American pastime. This is also the second time she has been ticketed for underage drinking.

RoAnne de Weerd only did what about 66% of Idaho teens and a great deal of teens around the world do — drink alcoholic beverages. Only other countries actually educate their youth about alcohol. People wonder why we have so many problems with drinking in this country, the solution doesn’t lie with stricter regulations, it lies with education, understanding and reasoning. The prohibition of people under the age of 21 to drink has only pushed it underground, making it “taboo” and thus making it a special thing to drink. This is what creates binge drinking and addiction – binge drinking and alcoholism being the source of most of the ills caused by alcohol. People don’t kill people drunk driving after only 2-3 beers, they do it after 10 or 14.

Over the last couple of weeks there have been some interesting discussions about this topic on several of the wine and cooking blogs that I regularly read. I’ve wanted to mention something about it here, but haven’t been motivated to until I saw this story.

I find the 21 age requirement and fallacy ridden reasons behind it make for an interesting argument. On one hand the state allows you to get behind the wheel of a 5000lb truck or SUV at 16 and you’re allowed to elect city, state and national leaders at 18 – an awesome responsibility, on both accounts. But on another hand you can’t legally have a glass of wine with your parents at the dinner table. And let’s not even get me started that you can serve and die for your country at 18 (17 with mom and dads permission) and you still can’t sit down with a beer, either in public or at home. The government will train and arm you to go to foreign countries and kill human beings — one of the most sacred responsibilities known to man.  And yet when you return home you can’t have a beer with your dad on your own back patio – is that freedom?

Doesn’t make sense to me. You?

Not allowing people to drink until they are 21 makes it seem like it’s this “big” thing when they are finally allowed to drink. Well, they don’t know it yet, but it’s not a “big” thing, it’s just an enjoyable thing. Here is something that history has proven time and time again – if you make something taboo, you’ll make people curious. And curious people do curious things.

When I was in the Army and in training at Fort Bliss in El Paso we were allowed to drink on base at 18 because they didn’t want soldiers going to Ciudad Juárez to drink (I call this being realistic). To me it wasn’t a big deal; I had done my fair share of weekend boozing by then, I’d lived on my own, I had what they called in the Army; “life experience”. I just wanted to focus on the Army and my task at hand and it paid off in dividends for me. However for the young soldiers who’d never been exposed to alcohol, well they went bat shit crazy with it – which invariably led to disciplinary problems. I’m sure you can take this same example and apply it to colleges across the country. There is nothing more degenerate than a sheltered kid who is finally beyond the grasp of their overbearing parents.

People think that if they shelter their children from alcohol and not teach them about it, that they won’t ever drink. Mom and dad do it, the media talks about it, their friends talk about it, and frankly it is a part of our society. And if parents they think their precious little snowflakes aren’t going to throw down at a kegger when mommy and daddy aren’t looking – well, they’re crazy.

One thing I’ve never understood about a great deal of Americans is their fascination with punishment over preventive education. Not only is it more cost effective to educate instead of punish but it makes logical sense. You can’t tell kids that no, alcohol is bad, bad, bad, but then turn around and drink yourself. They’re only going to wonder what you’re trying to hide from them — thus experiment on their own, which in turn leads them to not experiment responsibly in a controlled environment.

We don’t teach our kids how to drive without allowing them to physically drive so why would we do it any different with alcohol? Granted this is something that should be the parents’ responsibility; I’m not advocating a booze class as an elective for your senior year. Parents should have the right to allow their children to drink in their homes and be allowed to teach the negatives and positives of alcoholic beverages. And frankly, once a kid turns 18 and the government treats them as an adult in both privilege and punishment; they should be able to drink as well.

MEDIA: NYtimes

BLOGS: Left Side of the Moon on de Weerd