My colleague Radley Balko has a great piece in the Washington Post today on “Zero Tolerance Makes Zero Sense.” He takes on one of the most dangerous, most self-defeating, and most fanatically unthinking groups in America today, the “Mothers Against Drunk Driving.”
Radley quite sensibly poses a choice:
High school kids drink, particularly during prom season. We might not be comfortable with that, but it’s going to happen. It always has. The question, then, is do we want them drinking in their cars, in parking lots, in vacant lots and in rented motel rooms? Or do we want them drinking at parties with adult supervision, where they’re denied access to the roads once they enter?
The approach in most European countries is far more sensible than what MADD has promoted in the U.S. Typically, people there can drink at 16 (or younger, especially when their parents are present), but they can’t drive until 18. That means that they go to pubs and restaurants and learn to drink in public, after which they take the bus or streetcar back home. In contrast, American teens can’t drink in public or in the presence of any adults, so … they get in their cars, where they can be away from adults, and that’s where they drink. Thanks a whole lot for that, “Mothers Against Drunk Driving.” Thanks for putting your own feelings of self-righteousness above any concern for real-world consequences. Thanks for every death caused by your utterly stupid and indefensible policies.
It would seem the group should simplify its name to Mothers Against Drunkeness, or MAD. Driving seems to play only a minor role in their desire to return to prohibition. MAD indeed….
RL
I read the complete article of Radley Balko. I am still astonished. And I am from Romania, an ex-comunist country. I can’t belive that parents are arested for throwing parties for their children. In highschool, I remember that I spent almost every New Year’s Eve with my colleagues, usually at the home of one of us. And we had beer, wine, champagne. The parents waited for the guests, to see them, and then left to celebrate with their friends. And we never never imagined that they could be sent to jail. Ok, we are not allowed to drive until we are eighteen, but the situation in the US is unbeliveable.
Now for a few years we have a law that bans the selling of alcoohol to people under eighteen. But they are still drinking. So what’s the use of that law?
Iulia Borca.
That’s scary. Thanks for sharing Iulia, but now you’ve frightened me even more about the future of freedom in America!
Iulia asks: ” Now for a few years we have a law that bans the selling of alcoohol to people under eighteen. But they are still drinking. So what’s the use of that law?”
IT’S BECAUSE THE LAW ISN’T BEING ENFORCED!! WE NEED MORE POLICE ON THE STREETS. ZERO TOLERANCE. WE HAVE TO START SENDING TEENAGERS WHO VIOLATE THE LAWS AGAINST UNDERAGE DRINKING TO JAIL! IF A FEW END UP ON DEATH ROW, IT WOULDN’T HURT IN TERMS OF SENDING A MESSAGE!!
The fact the above paragraph isn’t denounced as utter nonsense by every American is evidence of the problem faced by those who value liberty.
RL
Ross, you are very wrong!
It’s not the teenagers who break the law, it’s the people who sell alcohol to them. The law doesn’t forbid teenagers to drink (it would be impossible), but it’s intended to stop stores from selling alcohol to young people unde 18. But that means givind up income and profits so, even though all the stores have a stick on their door saying that they would not sell alcohol (or tobacco) to teenagers, it doesn’t apply.
Zero tolerance? You might want to reconsider that, or be really careful about your behaviour.
You think that sending teenagers to jail is the appropriate answer to this problem? It’s a great idea, we should do that more often!!!
Ross was, I think, employing the difficult rhetorical strategy of irony. He doesn’t really support the death penalty for underage drinking, but … he *might* support it for loud cell phone conversations on airplanes.
“he *might* support it for loud cell phone conversations on airplanes.”
Now that’s something we can all agree on. I would extend the death penalty to loud cell phone conversations on trains. Since I’m a moderate, I would only go as far as supporting life imprisonment for loud cell phone conversations on restaurants and 10 to 20 for annoying ring tones.
Dr. Palmer, who knows me better than Ovidiu, is quite correct on my ill-fated effort at irony. But Ovidiu is clearly incorrect that it is the suppliers, or enablers, of teenager drinking who are (solely?) at fault. It is rather straight-forward to understand that to violate a law against teenage drinking, a teenager must choose to drink. If teenagers insist on attempting to drink, drinks will be supplied. All we know of markets confirm this. If one wants to eliminate teenage drinking, one must work at the source of teenage drinking. To eliminate teenage drinking, clearly, requires eliminating teenagers…
THIS IS IRONY…:-)
So Tom, AAA, and perhaps Ross favor the death penalty for loud cell phone conversations on airplanes. Well, as a TRUE libertarian I absoultely oppose this. Instead, the offending parties should simply be immediately thrown off the plane.
I am arguing the law (at least the one in Romania)doesn’t say that teenagers shouldn’t be drinking, is say there will be no alcohol selling to them in stores or restaurants.
It is straight-forward that without demand there would be no supply, but how do you keep that from happening? How do you keep a 14-15-16 year old, who obviously knows everything at that age and can make the difference between what is good and bad for him, from drinking?
A girl from Denmark (Mr Palmer probably recalls her, from the IES seminar in Varna) said that this law takes responsability away from the parents. I would argue that it could only “enforce” the rule of not drinking, by providing a “safety net”.
You might respond that the answer is not to prevent them from drinking and letting them decide…but I am sure that alcohol consumption (especially in excess) does severe damage to the human body at such a young age.
I saw this news on TV just the other day about an increasingly popular game in USA: the faint game. Very symple: you hyperventilate yourself by tying a rope around your neck and pass out…
The problem is that it might (and has) cause severe brain damage or death. But it is very popular among children between 10 to 14 years old.
So should they be allowed to play this game under competent parental supervision?
Ovidiu: In the U.S., state laws forbid alcohol consumption by anyone under age 21, as well forbidding alcohol sales to persons under 21. The laws are not very effective, particularly those forbidding underage drinking. In my experience, it seems likely that teenage drinking problems are greater in the U.S. with our supposed “zero tolerance” policy than they are in European countries where teenage drinking is permitted to varying degrees. In the U.S., young peoples’ first experiences with alcohol tend to be with binge drinking at secretive & unsupervised parties, rather than relaxed and sensible social drinking; hence they not only harm themselves and run the risk of harming others, they also learn alcohol abuse rather than use.
There’s no doubt that heavy drinking is particularly harmful for younger people, but that’s really an argument for *not* outlawing it so that it is driven underground. Decriminalization is better both from a libertarian perspective and a public health perspective.
Ovidiu, already upset about the challenges of getting teenagers to not drink, becomes positively apoplectic over the problems of getting them to not choke themselves to death. He notes:
“I saw this news on TV just the other day about an increasingly popular game in USA: the faint game. Very symple: you hyperventilate yourself by tying a rope around your neck and pass out…
The problem is that it might (and has) cause severe brain damage or death. But it is very popular among children between 10 to 14 years old.”
Clearly, the solution is to outlaw selling rope to teenagers.
Ah, irony…you are my one true love…
RL
It’s great, you found your one true love…but “she” is not the answer to either one of the problems posted above…
Ovidiu chides me:
“It’s great, you found your one true love…but “she” is not the answer to either one of the problems posted above…”
That is correct, Ovidiu. The actual answer is to gain a sense of historical insight and historical proportion.
You should realize that not all problems are solvable, and that apparently simple solutions like “just outlaw it” usually have unintended consequences that make things worse rather than better.
Learning to live with the realization that one can not remake the world, and the people in it, so that all your problems are eliminated…that is the solution to the problem you reference, and to many others.
Non-ironic Ross
I have to agree that some issues may not have a proper solution, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying. I would say that adopting the most effective of the avilable solutions would be a better idea that accepting the facts as they are.
In this case, I think a strict control of alcohol selling to teenagers, combined with raising the driving age above the alcohol-drinking age would be efficient. It works in Romania and some other european countries, where almost all car accidents caused by drinking involve grown-up drivers.
Non-chidder Ovidiu
Ovidiu, not chiding but now perhaps ironic himself (though, unfortunately, I suspect not) says:
“I have to agree that some issues may not have a proper solution, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying. I would say that adopting the most effective of the avilable solutions would be a better idea that accepting the facts as they are.
In this case, I think a strict control of alcohol selling to teenagers, combined with raising the driving age above the alcohol-drinking age would be efficient. It works in Romania and some other european countries, where almost all car accidents caused by drinking involve grown-up drivers.”
This is wrong on so many levels I don’t quite know where to begin:
1. To say that “raising the driving age above the alcohol-drinking age would be efficient” depends on how one measures efficiency, and in particular depends on whether one includes in the measurement the loss in valve people face when the wish to drink but cannot.
2. Ovidiu says it’s efficient to raise the driving age above the alcohol-drinking age. By “alcohol-drinking age” he means the age one can legally START to drink alcohol. I suggest it would be even more “efficient”–if one’s ONLY goal were to prevent deaths from drunk driving–to not allow driving until one was no longer allowed to drink. One could legally drink from age 18 to 35 (but not legally drive)and after 35 one could legally drive (but not drink). Application of the death penalty to all drunk drivers might also be “efficient” depending on how one measures efficiency.
3. I find it ghoulishly amusing that Ovidiu thinks Romania has solved a problem simply because anyone killed by a drunk driver there can go to his grave comforted by the fact his killer was an adult, not a teenager.
In returning to my original point: Ovidiu has to look at the big picture and realize that laws form a framework for society; society is harmed when general legal principles are ignored or vitiated for short-term gain by using laws to “solve” specific social problems better handled by other means. Deaths from drinking and driving will decreae when drinking and driving is socially frowned upon and people who do it are shunned. It won’t be solved by simply forcing people underground when they drink. (Has Ovidiu considered the possibility that Romanian officials have a vested interest in underreporting the number of drunken teenagers found driving?)
RL
I am a teenager that grew up in Romania and now I live in Canada. The drinking age is 19 here in Ontario which makes no sense while in Quebec is 18. I am 18 now and will turn 19 in July. I believe my opinion should count the most as this problem directly affects me. When I was in Romania and when I go there to visit, I drink every time, go to a pub or bar play some cards, darts or something. It is good social time then we always take the bus home or the tram or even walk. Here in Ontario, it is amazing how because of those stupid laws prohibiting drinking kids my age are encouraged to do other stupid things such as drugs which are so much easier to find and buy rather than alcohol. You can find marijuana or ecstasy a lot easier than a 26 ouncer of vodka for example. Because it is so enforced here, everytime North American kids have the chance to drink they over do it without even thinking of the consequnces, rather to the instant gratification they get when they can drink. Now everytime I want to drink I have to drink at home and then go out and watch all my friends who are older drink while I have a coke. And most of you should know that the more taboo a thing is, the more a teenager would want to do it. I find this law stupid and the drinking age should be lowered to 18. I can hold my alcohol as I am almost 200 pounds while my older friends are less therefore I would not get as drunk off 4 beers for example yet the ones that are of age can and be worse off than me. And to the guy that wants to put teenagers in jail, you must be kidding me. Brag all you want with the American democracy but there is no freedom whatsoever in North America. Everytime me and my buddies want to have a good time, we have to drive around 500 km to Montreal and drink a few beers, smoke some hookah and go to a strip club. Rather put in more laws and make it more strict and more problems will arise rather than dissaper. Good day.
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