I've had trouble understanding the schizophrenic attitude toward alcohol in the United States ever since I came here in 1993. The contradiction is intriguing. I remember talking to an American student in South Africa before I came to Hanover, and asking her to compare American students to South African students. Her reply (not wholly unexpected) was that "Students are the same all over the world." We're away from home (the distance greater in some cases than in others), we want to learn about ourselves, others and the world, and we want to enjoy ourselves while doing it. At least half of our education has nothing to do with lectures or books. Oh, the one difference: students in the US don't drink at all until the age of 21. Right. That is where the unhealthy contradiction lies.
Stanton Peele, a renowned psychologist specializing in drug use and addiction, notes that no industrial nation other than the United States restricts drinking to ages 21 and above. US guidelines are specific about preventing children from drinking alcohol, whereas in countries such as Spain or New Zealand, children may drink beer or wine in the presence of their parents. He talks about the results that psychiatrist George Vaillant found, that forbidding drinking by children does not seem to reduce alcohol abuse. Vaillant tracked a group of Boston adolescents for four decades, and discovered that Irish-Americans were seven times more likely to become alcoholic in comparison with Italians, Greeks and Jews. He attributes the difference to the fact that the latter groups typically introduce children to alcohol, while in Irish culture children traditionally do not drink in the home.
Peele's observation with respect to underage drinking in the US is that "it stands to reason that teenagers who learn to drink with friends are less likely to acquire responsible habits than teenagers who learn to drink at home in a family setting." In fact his articles make very interesting reading as he discusses how Americans have struggled for two hundred years to figure out what role alcohol should play in their daily lives (his addiction website can be accessed at http://www.drugtext.nl/cedro/peele/).
Imagine this for a moment: a college-sponsored and subsidized Freshman Week party on the Green, with bands playing throughout the day and into the night, an open-air pub (or "beer garden," a term I'm very fond of) where you can sit and relax and hang out, meet new people, drink if you want. It would be awesome -- it is awesome, I've been to events like this on other campuses in other countries (McGill in Montreal has a great open air pub for a few days every September). Naturally, this is only possible if the drinking age is 18 (or if the incoming freshmen are all over 21). I bet it would be a lot more fun than those dorm parties we all never went to (and never consumed alcohol at) as underage freshmen. So the contradiction persists. Students don't drink unless they get caught doing so. We as adults should be able to make these kinds of choices for ourselves, and the College can help by providing what is a better environment for the social consumption of alcohol than currently exists. Students are ultimately going to make the decision to drink -- whether it is out in the open or inside locked dorm rooms or Greek houses. We are expected to think independently and take responsibility for our actions, and yet we can't have a glass of wine with dinner if we so choose. Isn't this unconstitutional age discrimination (as the Louisiana state supreme court decided when it returned its drinking age to 18 from 21)? Having a healthy attitude toward drinking is impossible if it is seen in the all-or-nothing way that seems to be embedded in American culture.
