Drinking has been a central part of college life for 500 years, and that is not going to change anytime soon. A drinking age of 21 and a voting age of 18 makes no sense.

Curmudgeon wrote:

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Drinking has been a central part of college life for 500 years, and that is not going to change anytime soon. A drinking age of 21 and a voting age of 18 makes no sense.

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I agree. I always thought the law forbidding sales of alcohol on election day was stupid, too -- the one day when folks ought to be able to drown their sorrows & wash away their disgust!

And next time you're pondering some particularly bone-headed law, consider how many of the legislators were hung-over when they voted!

I understand that alcoholism and habitual drunkenness (= without actual addiction) are big problems in our society, and especially among the young who naturally try things, have fewer impulse controls, and get overlooked by an aging baby-boom generation raised permissively via Dr. Spock. (Feel free to list additional causes, anyone.) It's a pervasive societal problem, and it will require a pervasive societal solution.

College drinking has also become a big problem in England, where similar societal drift coupled with income-generating on-campus pubs have encouraged drunkenness. And I see that the problem also affects even younger people. Note this troubling story from Reuters: Teenagers Drinking Themselves into Hospital.

(Just to clarify my own position. I myself drink, usually a glass or two of wine in the evening. Every now and then I take a week off to make sure I'm not slipping into alcoholism or anything scary, a caution I learned from my parents, who were responsible social drinkers. I am troubled alike by drunkenness and by categorical restrictions against alcohol.)

Jameela