A third reason why the age of alcohol consumption should be eighteen is that it works in the rest of the world. Europe is a classic example of the success of the lower age of alcohol consumption. According to an initiative called Choose Responsibility, fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds in European countries where the age of alcohol consumption is eighteen or younger experience far fewer cases of dangerous poisoning than American teenagers of the same age. The initiative also revealed that in Southern Europe, where the age of alcohol consumption does not exceed eighteen years, only 10% of alcohol consumption ends in intoxication. In comparison, in the United States, 50% of alcohol consumption ends in intoxication. The same substance is significantly more dangerous in the United States than in Europe. What for? Quite simply: the higher age of alcohol consumption. In Europe, alcohol does not have the same taboo. From an early age, parents expose their children to alcohol. They teach their children to deal with it in a responsible and socially acceptable way. However, alcohol has a severe stigma here in the United States. As a result, parents rarely talk about it with their children. As a result, American teenagers suffer and risk much more dangerous alcohol conditions than European teenagers.
Many people often say that their most memorable – or perhaps least memorable – birthday was their twenty-first birthday. Twenty-one years is, of course, the legal drinking age (MLDA). Because of the freedom that comes with the ability to drink legally, the age of twenty-one is deeply rooted in American society as a kind of rite of passage, but this has not always been the case. In fact, U.S. drinking laws have changed dramatically over the years. Activists founded Iowa`s first mothers against drunk driving (MADD) in Linn County, and lawmakers passed a stricter law against drunk driving. Millstream Brewing opened in Amana in 1985 and the legal drinking age in Iowa was raised from 19 to 21 in 1986. Germany is one of the most interesting countries when it comes to the minimum age for alcohol consumption.
It has one of the lowest minimum drinking ages in the world, allowing 14-year-olds to drink alcohol when accompanied by an adult. The 21st Amendment ended prohibition in 1933, but Missouri legalized beer 3.2 percent earlier than Iowa, creating an interesting location in the border town of Lineville that stretches along the Iowa-Missouri line. When Jack Craney of Lineville, Missouri, received 75 cases of beer one day in 1933, 25 Iowans crossed the Missouri Line to taste a few. The Des Moines Tribune reported that „residents of Lineville, Ia., and Lineville, Mo., formed the rather small group that came together for the first test of the new beer. When the first group lined up on stools, bottles were lifted on their lips and a pause followed the first swallow. Considerable slaps followed when the taste was determined, and then came the testimonials about the quality. All members of the group who participated in the first open case praised his strength and palatability. Nor should we forget another important irregularity in the history of our country`s alcohol laws: the ban. From 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, to 1933, when it was repealed by ratifying the Twenty-first Amendment, „the making, sale, or transportation” of alcohol was illegal in the United States. First of all, there is a formality that we must eliminate. People under the age of twenty-one drink, and in fact they drink quite hard. About 90 percent of underage alcohol consumption is excessive alcohol consumption, according to a report by the National Academy of Medicine.
Even conceptually, banning alcohol does not work. Making something illegal doesn`t stop people from getting it if it`s important enough to them. Look at prohibition in America in the 1920s and early `30s. Smugglers made millions by bringing alcohol into the United States from abroad, while moonshines made illegal alcohol wherever they could, and speakeasies opened their doors to serve a wide clientele. In the same way that Prohibition has led Americans to more mysterious and dangerous drinking habits (such as drinking toxic methanol wood alcohol, accidentally or out of desperation), the „ban” on adult Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one leads to more mysterious and dangerous drinking habits. Parliamentary inquiries focused much less on the drinking habits of middle- and upper-class men, and often the only conclusions came from members of the committee who consumed alcohol. The heated exchange of blows between the Bishop of Peterborough and reverend Burns of the United Kingdom Alliance during the 1877 inquiry struck the heart of the debate over the extent of alcohol controls. The idea of banning alcohol itself was an attack on masculinity because it violated the right of men (all men and not just working class men) to drink alcohol. Controlling and restricting the sale of alcohol was one thing, but preventing men from drinking in the privacy of their own homes or clubs was simply absurd for men like the bishop. Looking at the files of the London clubs, it became clear that alcohol consumption was presented in a very different way, in which the status of alcohol was elevated to the status of valuable cultural property. Bourdieu`s ideas about the links between consumption and social class were most evident in London clubs, where the purchase and consumption of certain types of alcoholic beverages showed high levels of cultural capital.1 Victorian men of all social classes could drink alcohol because notions of male consumption and drunkenness were framed by broader debates about freedom in relation to State control. and in a highly patriarchal society, the biological and moral freedom to drink alcohol resided in men.
Obviously, the age of alcohol consumption is fungible. Countries around the world have established many different guidelines. Even in the United States, it has changed several times over the years and could change again. Considering that a change in the age of alcohol consumption is quite possible in the United States, there are many strong reasons to change this age. The MLDA should not be twenty-one, but eighteen – the legal age of majority in almost every other aspect of American life. The minimum age for alcohol consumption in Mexico is 18, and alcohol is available around the clock in many places. In 1920, the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution introduced the ban, making it illegal for Americans to manufacture, sell, or transport „intoxicating beverages.” But the new law brewed a strong mix of unintended consequences – alcohol consumption remained popular, speakeasy replaced saloons, and crime increased dramatically. One of those things in the past was just drinking in early America (which affects a lot of my attitude).
I have read articles claiming that many Americans, including children, drink a lot of whiskey because of the poor quality of drinking water. Drunkenness was just one of the many outcomes or reasons why Victorian and Edwardian consumers had to drink. The desire for intoxication, the multitude of ways to seek intoxication, and the range of drunken behaviors were infinitely more complex because they were deeply rooted in the social and cultural context in which alcohol was produced and consumed. Questions about alcohol consumption have motivated parliamentary inquiries, shaped the business practices of alcohol manufacturers, and sparked debate within the medical profession. The Victorians knew that the problems of alcohol coexisted with the pleasures of drinking, and that while alcohol remained a legal intoxicant, the freedom to drink ultimately fell to consumers.