21 and Up
Posted on Monday, August 8th, 2005 at 1:24.
I went bowling for the first time in years with Arthur, his sister, and her boyfriend tonight. After a few turns, Arthur went to grab everyone refreshments, including a Smirnoff Ice for me. I decided to return the favor and grab Arthur a vodka-tonic.
Only the bartender refused to serve me because I had an out-of-state driver’s license. I later found out that the bartender didn’t even ask Arthur for identification.
This is the second time that I have been denied the purchase of alcohol even though I am 21. Once upon a time, I tried to purchase a bottle of wine for a date at the The Clayroom in Brookline, MA. The cashier refused to sell me the wine because I “didn’t look 21″ even though my driver’s license says in bright red letters, “Under 21 until January 15, 2005.” Arthur was with me, showed his Texas driver’s license to the cashier, and I was still allowed to pay for the wine. Besides both of us being out-of-state and Massachusetts law prohibiting the sale of alcohol if anyone in the party is under 21 (which apparently the cashier believed to be true), I quite enjoyed being discriminated against by someone so freshly legal in America.
The alcohol laws in this country are ridiculous and encourage wild behavior by making alcohol exclusive. In a truly conservative government, regulation of substances would be limited with punishment aimed at disrupted and harmful substance abuse. Only people in denial believe that current alcohol laws prevent the consumption of alcohol by those the law targets. If I can be drafted to die for this country and elect the most powerful political officer in the world, I am old enough to die of alcohol poisoning or elect to not drink at all.
Amen!
-dl
I personally don’t like drugs & rarely drink (since alcohol doesn’t mix well with anti-depressants), but the drug and alcohol laws make absolutely no sense to me. Why should alcohol & tobacco be perfectly legal when they destroy many more lives than pot, which is banned even from medicinal uses.
I agree with you on this. What’s especially annoying is how the states were bribed into raising their drinking ages by the federal government threatening to take away their highway funding.
If nothing else, it sends a confusing message to the 18-20 crowd: You’re adults…but not totatly. I say either bring it back down, or raise the voting age (which would also be ridiculous, but at least it would be consistent). It’s basically a lame way for the government to delude itself into thinking that it’s doing something about the very real problem of drunk driving, rather than…oh, going after actual drunk drivers. Why punish the many for the transgressions of the few?
I also agree with you. Having worked in a drugstore sometime in a past life, though, I also know that paranoia behind carding runs wayyyyy overboard. In California, anyhow, anybody who sells any age-restricted product (including >.5″ felt markers and spray paint!) is subject to heavy fines, having their employment terminated, and having their own drivers’ license suspended for a year. However, since the fear runs from the top down, my advice is to always demand to speak with the disputant’s superior immediately. Since any state’s license is valid identification within the US, it is a superior’s responsibility to be able to recognize a fake. I also know an awful lot of underage-looking people who bring their passports along, too, since most people will have seen one of those at some point in their life. More often than not, though, a purveyor will simply fold under the threat of having his or her boss disturbed, and will begrudgingly hand you your drink. Don’t worry too much, though–some of us miss those days (not long ago at all!) that we got carded on a regular basis…. :)
The reason the drinking age in the US is 21 is because that’s about the age when the human brain is finished developing, and the presence of psychoactive drugs (eg., alcohol) could lead to improper development. That said, I also think that the substance laws in the US are terribly inconsistent and contradict themselves. If you can’t have alcohol until you’re 21 because it can hurt your neural development, why are you allowed tobacco smoking? Why are we allowed to smoke tobacco, but not marrijuana, which is a heck of a lot less dangerous? Yes, marijuana is still a dangerous drug, I’m not advocating it, but at least it’s a little cleaner burning, and doesn’t cause physiological dependence… I don’t know if lowering the drinking age is necessarily the answer, but lots of things sure need to be shuffled around in our laws, don’t they?