The Amethyst Initiative is a movement backed by college chancellors and presidents to lower the drinking age to 18. While the University of Virginia President, John T. Casteen, doesn’t know “whether eventually [he] will sign this initiative or not,” it is an interesting debate, nonetheless.
In a statement released yesterday, Casteen explained:
We know for example that since the national 21-year drinking age was adopted, traffic deaths involving young people and alcohol have gone down. It’s not often said that they went down for the decade before that also. It’s not often said that such deaths have gone down nationwide. It’s very hard to judge cause and effect.
As far as we’re concerned, it’s not about age, it’s about having the responsibility and understanding of the risks of drinking. We do know that back in the day it was culturally acceptable to drive drunk, but today it’s not. L
Let’s look at some numbers…
First, this report, shows a decline in underage alcohol use (note, this is only high school), but still shows a vast majority of people under the age of 18 consume alcohol illegally.
But this is also some truth to the end of the decline in alcohol-related injury and risk taking.
Underage alcohol use is associated with injury and risk-taking. Perhaps the most familiar risks have to do with driving. Young drinkers are over-represented in drinking driver deaths. Even when their blood alcohol concentrations are low to moderate, teen drinkers are involved in automobile accidents at higher rates than older drinkers. The long-term reductions in underage alcohol use that occurred between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s coincided with a 50 percent reduction in the rate of alcohol-related fatalities in underage drivers, but the decrease in fatality rates, like the decrease in many important marketers of teen alcohol use, has stopped. Indeed, a recent study shows an increase in the willingness of college students to drive after drinking.
My college experiences absolutely agree with this. I couldn’t put my finger on underage alcohol related deaths, so if anyone has any good resources, let me know.
At the end of the day, it’s about responsibility, but the how do you know lowering the age will make people more responsible? Isn’t it a cultural thing, not an arbitrary age?
[pic] [for further stats, checkout this presentation]
Popularity: 32% [?]
Tagged as: 18, 21, age, amethyst, debate, drinking, initiative, lower, Questions, underage
how do you know lowering the age will make people more responsible?
Give them weed, too, so they don’t move around too much once their drunk.
I read it’s easier to get pot in high school than booze.
Heh… I was going to write a post on this about a week ago, but thought it didn’t have enough to do with Charlottesville. Now that Casteen has released a statement, Thors beat me to it. Drats.
STANLEY ……THEIR?
I think if America should stop making alcohol this taboo thing that you can only get from certain places at certain times.
@4: Plainly I’m drunk. My bad.
i like this one:
well, i sleep better when i huff paint because i can’t see or hear anything! HOLLA!
@7 i heard that in college from my oh so masculine Greek friends…when that was the closing line of the night, you ran for a taxi cab.
It’s not how careful you are is the problem with driving drunk. It’s your reaction time when that other drunk person falls off the sidewalk and into the road.
/I’m a better driver when I’m drunk
Now that I am old enough to never get carded for pretty much anything, I find it very hard to care about the young whipper snappers and their boozing, but I bet that the Corner would not have any vacancies (O’Neils for example), or venues turning into fucking drugstores, if college kids could legally drink. All the drinking age of 21 does is make people go through a hassle to get their booze and put a huge burden on businesses and law enforcment in order to make a hopeless attempt to stop adults from doing what they are obviously going to do anyway.
@10 Slippery slope.
/know I’m uncool for saying that.
@ 11, I know, I know, especially in mountainous regions like ours, a lower drinking age would result in many people falling down various slippery slopes, hills, ravines, etc. But that is just the price we have to pay. Maybe if kids didn’t have to waste their money on fake IDs, they could afford sturdy hiking/drinking boots that would give them better footing on these aforementioned slopes.
@12 Darkstar LMAO… VERY VERY FUNNY DUDE.
look at countries with lower, or no, drinking age…their kids are much less douchey when it comes to drinking. while we’re at it we should be able to drink (legally) at UVA games too. who is the ad wizard who came up with not letting us drink at UVA games? NCAA rules I know…but it’s dumb.
@10 - I walk better on slippery slopes when I’m drunk
I wasn’t saying letting 18 year olds drink was a slippery slope. I was saying the argument that they’re going to anyway so might as well let them was a slippery slope. There are many other great arguments that lend me to believe a new 18 year old law is beneficial to society.
/Just a clarification.
@14 - not NCAA rules, UVA rules. Some college facilities sell alcohol. Plus, if you are rich enough, you can have all the booze you’d like in your suite at UVA football, basketball and baseball games (not sure about suites at futbol/lacrosse).
@17: It’s actually and ACC rule that prohibits the sale of alcohol at sporting events held on campus. They have booze in suites because technically it isn’t being sold, and they sell beer at Miami games (they do sell beer at Miami games, right orchid?) because they use the Dolphin’s stadium (not on campus), and they sold beer at the VT/USC game at FedEx Field, but they do not sell beer at the ACC Championship game at Alltel Stadium (Jacksonville Jaguars) because the ACC chooses not to. As long as the game is off campus, the decision is up to the host, if it is on campus, the ACC rule applies.
@18 Miami has their first game in Dolphin’s stadium tomorrow night. The used to play in the Orange Bowl. Maybe they just sell beer because their team is better than everyone elses???
Just a beer comment, not sports talk!
@19: You’re right, but the Orange Bowl was also off campus.
@21 Does the rule only apply to on campus facilities? I’d find that odd since the OB was still technically an ACC only facility.
@18 they sell beer at miami games, but they used to use the orange bowl, which was also not on campus.
…& then i read @19.
The answer is make the drinking age 5. Then by the time you are 18, you will be sick of that shit.
sucks though because they’d take the bottlecaps so you’d have to chug them so they didn’t spill. unless you brought your own bottlecaps which takes way too much planning.
@18 there is no ACC or NCAA rule against the sale of beer. There was a school in Washington state that allowed it a couple of years ago. The NCAA rules do kick in at the Basketball tourney since tha is their event. You can however sell beer ads to play during the games.
@25 they don’t sell bottled water in philly’s stadium with caps- so that you can’t turn them into projectiles.
Without caps the water spills out when thrown. Ahh Philly!
@27 at the OB too. & they stopped selling water when they ceased beer sales at the end of the 3rd quarter. not allow drunk, dehydrated people water before driving home? brilliant!
Don’t give other people’s kids booze. I was at this pig roast and a cute 11 year old came up and was like, “Can I have a sip of your drink?” and I thought why not? It was rum based drink with lots of fruit juice in it. Figured she’d take a little sip and be like, “Ew! what is that?” and run off but NO– she grabs the drink in both her hands, tilts it back and chugs the entire thing while I stare in horror. Then she wipes her mouth and starts theatrically swaying while yelling, “I’M SO DRUNKKKK!!!!” and everyone looks over in our direction. I about had a heart attack.
@29 Well now the whooole office wants to know what’s so funny. Thanks Shen!
@29 i did that when i was a kid. apparently i was a really cute 2 year old (nobody knows what happened) and i made the rounds at my parent’s cocktail party, asking in an adorable and innocent way if i could have a small sip… of everybody’s drink.
when the party was over my parents found me passed out face first in the flower bed. front yard.
Auntie Shen- that get you put in jail. I know what bar I’m sending the under 21’s to now
@32: Libel! Slander!
@33 Do I need my ID if I bring you shoes?
No comment.
@31… I had a similar experience at my aunt’s wedding. I threw up in the bed at my grandma’s house, and instead of cleaning it up, my dad tossed the mattress out the front door. My uncle came back late that night to find what he thought was “someone sleeping in the front yard.” Oh man. That story still makes me laugh.
But to the underage drinking thing… I truly believe that binge drinking makes your a better person. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
But, making the drinking age 18 is gonna increase the number of 16 and 17 year olds that get drunk.
Just wanted to add that 18 may be too young…19 is a much better fit. At 18, a lot of kids are still in H.S, and that is a problem. I know. Kids that don’t experience civilized drinking until 21? Well, there is so much potential for social retardation (trust me, I know) if you wait until such a late age. 21? Too late for comprehensible rehabilitation. Kids, 21 and under, need to know at an earlier age what a “bar tab” means. That garners respect! It also teaches that binge drinking… fast and hard in a corn field or a parent’s home, frat house…etc., is not all there is to life…that should only come around when you’re 25+!!! You know, looking for LOVE in all the wrong places! 19 is good, 18? Thoughts???
It’s hard to say whether returning the drinking age back to 18 will result in more responsible behavior, but it’s just plain bullshit that you can get drafted or vote at 18, but not buy a beer. While they change that law, they should go ahead and legalize drugs and prostitution. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to snort coke of a hooker’s tits while pouring vodka in her asshole.
OMFG… ROFLMAO Ethan.
Ethan…I still think you are a total wanker, but good lord man that was funny as shit.
/ oh and in the absence of Stanley and the Grammar Police (great band name), that should read ‘…coke off a hookers tits while pouring vodka in her asshole’
You get more drunk by putting alcohol in your asshole rather than digesting it orally because it is a more direct route to the bloodstream.
THE MORE YOU KNOW®
Wanker™
Aren’t there better initiatives that these college presidents could be taking up other than this?! Jezum Crow. THEY’RE IN COLLEGE! People have been, are, and forever will be drinking in this environment. It harbors it already. It’s like making a big commotion about making a rule saying that dogs can now legally shit in the park. Guess what, Professor Fingerbang, they’ve been doing it all along. And granted a few people in the past may have come along and slipped in that shit and got laughed at, but now you and your corduroy cronies want to make sure that you gave the nod for the shits. That sorta fell apart at the end, but I think you see where I’m going with this.
Maybe pen a memo or 2 toward better pay for the incoming faculty and staff, or find a way to get the less economically supported students into your school.
Waste of effing time.
Um, no, not a waste of time. I agree that if our young folk can be carted off to war and held responsible for taking lives in other countries that they should be afforded the courtesy of buying a beer or whatever, but I also understand that they can be the cause of horrific automobile deaths in their own countries.. It’s a tough question with no easy answers.
@44 you are not really thinking about the issue at hand. (not only you) I think you’re missing the point. There is a big difference between a dog shitting in the park and a HS student buying alcohol for his/her fellow students because they are underage and they all want to party. You’re right, they’ll do it anyway. That happens regardless of the drinking age. I drank and bought alcohol before I was legally sanctioned to do so, but I was allowed to learn the HARD way about how to act appropriately and socially due to the law that allowed me to be in a BAR at 18. (bar tabs and behavior were key) The laws changed (for a brief time) the drinking age changed from 18 to 19 and then to 21. I was “grandfathered” at the age of 19 if you can believe that, (had to show ID)! Wierd, but true. It changed the way, me and fellow “students” behaved in public. I had friends in the same boat as me and others that were younger, that could not frequent the same establishments, due to the new laws. (Yes, many were still in HS) It was an interesting time, yet, even then, I felt it was socially crippling because there were lessons to be learned, socially and economically. I’m a huge fan of letting the 19 year olds (unless they stayed back several times) publicly drink alcohol. Obviously, you were not granted this privilege. So be it. Bar tabs and Taxis bring reality, responsibility and focus into a young person’s life almost as much as a dog shitting in the park brings to you. Hopefully, the drinking age will revert back (not to 18, but 19) and today’s American kids will feel kinship and privilege within their own country and other like-minded countries, that respect a younger (21 is way OTT), more responsible, socially acceptable being. One can only hope! OK…tear down this wall!
who else knows about why casteen now has a third wife — something to do with the rotunda??
@47 Cuz three’s the charm?
cheers
1. Lowering the drinking age will move binge drinking from clandestine to in the open. The easier it is to get alcohol, the easier it is to abuse it, the more people will abuse it.
2. The reason they don’t have as many drunk-driving accidents in European countries is because the urban centers are not as car-centric as the US.
3. If you want to solve binge-drinking in college, you’ve got to actually do work. Lowering the drink age, even if it worked, is a Lazy solution. Crack down *more* on it, not less. Right now, the whole unofficial attitude among college officials is to look the other way. The whole system is full of people, conservative AND liberal, who think “heck I drank back in college, my kid’s drinking in college, I don’t want to ruin anyone’s college career, so I’ll look the other way.” So everyone looks the other way on alcohol. I guarantee if cops started breaking up parties on a regular basis, then college students would back down quickly and stop party-binging so much. If you want to attack alcohol at its heart, you have to separate it from its socialization aspect. Alcohol isn’t as fun alone. It’s kinda boring unless you’re an alcoholic. Break up the parties. Break up the speakeasies. And punish the ones who provide the alcohol. The parents, the older brothers, the big sisters, etc. Those local parents who got convicted and were on Oprah constantly had a look of surprise on their faces that this was all happening. That was because it was accepted in their horsey-set subculture to allow older teens access to your alcohol as long as you took care of them. Well, when alcohol is involved in a party, you find you can lose control easily.
4. It’s a weird assumption to make that “imbibing surreptitiously” leads to binge drinking. No - the more logical statement is that it being illegal for you to drink means that it’s harder for you to get means that you will drink less. One article quoted that underage drinking was relegated to “dorms and dark corners”. You’re kidding right? So if the drinking age is lowered, no one will drink IN THEIR OWN HOME anymore? Duh, people. Don’t try to bullshit me into equating underage drinking with hiding out in a crackhouse.
5. People always compare the drinking age to the military age…as if the age at which you can be drafted is unchangeable. Fuck that. Increase the military age of consent/draft to 21.
6. Fuck the idea that kids and teens need more education on the effects of alcohol. They already know all this. People know that alcohol is bad for you. An alien could land, take a sip and immediately know that it’s bad for you. Everyone knows that you have to acquire a taste for alcohol, which actually tastes quite nasty the first time you drink it. But people want wants comes after the nasty taste. The buzz, the acceptance as part of the group, the drunken high.
You can’t get more liberal than I am, but I am never going to lie to myself about drugs. The fact is, the more accessible a drug is, be it alcohol, pot or coke, the more people use it, then the more people abuse it and get sick or dead because of it. This is the real reason behind the stat that potheads love to quote so much about so many more people a year dying due to alcohol than pot. Duh–it’s because alcohol is more accessible. Once pot and other drugs are more accessible, more people will use and abuse them. Accessibility does not make a culture responsible. It just makes it easier for the irresponsible to get it and go crazy with it then ruin lives. Be it drugs or guns or bombs.
It’s just fucking alcohol, people. Why can’t Americans get this excited about the voting age? Oh, I’ll tell you–because AnheuserBusch and Seagram can’t make as much money off your vote. Oh, but nobody talks about that. Liberals love to talk about the role of corporate america in trying to manipulate us to make money…except when it comes to liberals’ booze and cigarettes. That’s right I said it. Bring it.
Alcohol is not some “unhealthy if overconsumed” food that may kill you slowly over decades, like fried chicken or cheezburgers. Alcohol hurts your body and brain every time you take it.
Can I haz facts on underage drinking? http://www.why21.org
@40
s/b “hooker’s”, possessive?
and how do you pour it INTO??? aren’t those things hermetically sealed, like tupperware?
do you need/use a funnel? are there special funnels sold in Nevada and Amsterdam for that purpose? Can you get them mail-order, or are the import taxes and local laws governing possession of FLUE-TRUMPETS prohibitive?
@50 I feel bad that you spent that much time typing gibberish which is completely untrue. Greater accessibility does not equate to higher level of abuse. If that were true, why did Prohibition and the War on Drugs fail?
I can only conclude that your post was a parody or a long-winded attempt at trolling.
@53
long-winded posts are FAIL for trolling/trawling.
it’s the SHOES, Money.
@53
cvillain-dot-com: “LOVE YOUR LURKERS!”
um, what???
@50
1# It’s probably true but will it be statically significant
2# That’s a little true but it’s the difference i enforcement. There is ZERO tolerance in germany for example and in the US drunk driving laws are much stricter than 10 to 20 years ago. This makes the European difference less than you think.
3# Seriously this will never work. There is no money for it and it won’t work. Prohibition mean anything to you
4# It is reasonable to assume that people who drink in bars are not allowed to get as drunk as student in apartment. Lower the age will lower the amount of private drinking. It will never eliminate it
5# agreed
6#education is bad? Umm cigarette smoking, anyone. Education took decades but it does have an effect.
You can’t smoke in almost any public area. So education slowly will drink change. Talk to someone over 50 about driving and drinking when the legal limit was over 50% higher. Three martini lunches? gone
American don’t drink like they did 20 to 30 years ago.
You will never
I’m not a prohibitionist. I just want to keep it real. Yes, organized crime increased during our prohibition era…but the organized-crime-related deaths during that time do not compare to the alcohol-accident and -abuse-related deaths in the time periods before and after it.
What’s the solution? Treat alcohol like pot and stop letting it pass because it’s socially accepted to break the laws we have controlling it. And in liberal havens like this website, let’s not drown in the “alcohol is so awesome!” lie too much. People in our town have died this very year in alcohol-related ways. Keep it real, please.
The War On Drugs “fails” because drugs feel good. It’s not a policy thing. A buzz feels good. A high feels good. Cheezburgers taste good. In a “War On” whatever, you’re usually fighting human nature, which is to do things that feel good. Besides, who says it’s failed? There are plenty of people whose lives have been saved because the legal system somehow stopped them from abusing drugs.
Yeah…I know…it’s like “what the fuck is this person doing coming on Cvillain and being a buzzkill?” But I just wanted to inject a little sobering reality. There are lots of us in recovery just like there are lots of us who loves to party harty on Fat Mardi.
Thanks Palindrome for actually reading instead of zoning out. I appreciate ya.
3 & 6: Control/Enforcement of existing laws is not the same as prohibition. There is money for it. It’s just that it’s being spent on cops standing around an empty Kroger on a Saturday night instead of going into the house parties and bringing down the hammer. Stop patrolling on Rugby and Grady, and get out of your squad car and check some ID’s.
Right now, the real battleground for alcohol abuse is on the socialization/party level. Americans believe we cannot relax or party without alcohol. Until our social vision of alcohol is taken off it’s high pedestal, we’re going to have a problem with rampant abuse.
Let’s be real about why undergrad binge-drinking happens: Because we go to the party with the screamed intention of GETTIN’ FUCKED UP WOOOHOOO! Because everybody else is gonna be doing it. Because we are 2000 miles from our parents and they can’t do shit about it. Because beer tastes fuckin’ good, wine tastes better, mixed drinks tastes even awesomer, and Jager tastes like distilled road tar but everyone else is passin around the bottle so WOOOOHOOOO! Then the buzz hits. Oh shit this feels good. Oh I’m floating. This feels new but I like it. This is what the adults drink for. Oh yeah man. And the more I drink, the more my buds encourage me to drink, the more stories I will have to tell tomorrow. The more I will be able to bond with them, slap 5 and be like “bro, you were soo fucked up” … “no bro, you were shit-faced as hell” and then we’ll hug and start to plan the next event. We’ll even be able to bond over the pain of our hangovers.
Socialization is a form of education too. Often it is stronger than anything “official” one learns in a classroom watching a DARE video or sitting in an assembly listening to a recovering alcoholic pro-athlete or D-list TV celebrity who “lost everything.”
So, I’m not saying “education doesn’t work”. I’m saying we need to be real about all the forms of education there are. We can’t be like “hey undergrads, binge drinking ain’t cool” then bombard them with ads for “College” and “What Happens in Vegas” which show just the opposite. Our culture doesn’t allow any drug to look as publicly “cool” as we do alcohol. Pot we allow a little, but drugs past that we start to get protesters if we allow it to look cool. We need to have protesters on the “alcohol is kewl!” cultural icons. Our cultural creators need to allow us to see images of coolness without drugs that aren’t fundamentalist. That you can have fun by truly being yourself without being chemically adjusted or without being at an Intervarsity Christian Fellowship meeting.
And we cannot forget that behind every episode of your favorite show where the party of 5 sits in their kitchen on Melrose Place drinking beers and laughing, there is a beer company who made a business deal to have that beer in that moment. Alcohol conglomerates are part of the evil empire, too, liberals. Don’t let them slide because they make you feel good at happy hour.
Thanks to Palindrome and Real for great commenting! It’s nice to read something substantial every now and then, not that I don’t love good old banter either! If only I could write so well! Keep up the good work everybody!
Alcohol conglomerates are part of the evil empire, too, liberals
I, too, suspect that you’re trolling or possibly new to the internet dot com. Who the hell calls other lefty people “liberals” with such Sean Hannity-esque disdain?
Oh, and I think you picked the wrong comment section to advance your forward-thinking alcohol views. cVillain comity was built on the back of yeast poop.
/grows beer in his garden next to the weed
@59 & 60 Hey you guys don’t twist my words! it’s Emord Nilap that other guy so backward thinking.
I still not convinced that lowering the drinking age to 18 would be such a bad thing. I do agree with your concern over the glamorization of alcohol and think that won’t change till pot is legal. Then we will have that to enjoy/worry about.
@61 Can haz address to beer wielding garden?
@63 Yeah, hop to it Stanley I can barley contain myself. If you don’t you could have some trouble brewing.
I can cure what ales ya!
/directions to beer garden: head out towards the rainbow; turn left at the unicorns
Nope, not a troll. Not a conservative. Just a lurker and radical who chose this topic to jump into the conversation. Sorry to ruin your buzz with actual heartfelt discussion. I’m calling you out as “liberals” from the left of you, not the right.
I’m calling you out as “liberals” from the left of you, not the right.
Aha, understood. Well, I’m happy that you chose to pipe in. And I don’t think you’ve had the formal hello: help yourself to an ice cold PBR. They’re in the fridge. We’ll be out back grilling veggie burgers. Welcome aboard!
@65 Dude, I followed your directions…all I found was some leprechaun named parlie butt naked eating lucky charms out of his hairy belly button, drinking plastic bottle whiskey and waving his shillelagh at every unicorn that passed by.
@68: Aw, crap. I thought Flooze was watching him. I guess he escaped from the basement again. Sorry about that, TSU.
It’s spelled “cheeseburger” fyi.
@70: I thought the newly agreed upon convention was CHSBRGR? I’m zo confuzed….
LetsGetReal: If a man or woman is deemed to be an adult in U.S. law at 18, that means they are considered old enough to make their own choices. Are you saying that someone who can legally choose to vote, choose to serve in the military, choose to get married or have sex, or choose to establish a loan or bank account does not have the ability to choose whether or not they want to put a substance–alcohol–into their body?
E-dawg:
We have different ages of consent/initiation for different things. 12 for a hunting license or a bank account or your Gardasil vaccination. 16 for cigarettes and driving and sex. 18 for military conscription and voting. 25 to be a Congressman. 35 to be President. The reason 21 was chosen was because the brain doesn’t stop developing until the early to mid 20s and alcohol has a harsher affect on the brain during development.
http://www.why21.org
Alcohol is a controlled substance. There are medical reasons why we control it. There are public safety reasons why we control it.
@73 If you could get married, vote and die for your country you should be able to drink,
The other age limits are for things that aren’t rights
Drinking alcohol isn’t a right. It is a social privilege like driving.
true but the others are and i don’t see the difference
social privilege??? - is dying in some god-forsaken military conflict a social privilege - WTF?
“lets get real”, dammit
@75 or you could argue it falls under the right of privacy. if my birth control, sex, or drinking doesn’t bother anyone, why can’t you mind your own business?
oooh, thank you
right of privacy
Fourteenth Amendment! Always there, lurking in the “penumbra”…
so what’s the argument? The governments already regulate birth control, sex, military service and drinking. If you’re talking about whether they should or not, that’s another thread. This thread is about the specifics of regulation that already occurs around drinking age. I can’t respond to the idea that government shouldn’t regulate these things at all and “mind their own business”.
Governments regulate these things because they do “bother” others. No one exists alone. We live in a society in which one man’s abuse of drinking or sex or driving will affect another man. This is government’s purpose, to regulate the space between these 2 people.
Some would say that serving in the army IS a social privilege. That’s why at at certain backwards times in our history the less privileged (women, Blacks, gays) were not allowed to serve. But most would consider it under the separate category of societal “duty”. This is apart from rights and apart from privileges. Duties to a society may include things like military service, paying taxes, community service, etc.
anybody ready to get real about pot?
anybody ready to get real about pot?
I am! Last time I got wicked high, I forgot what happened. So I would like to get real about it. What really happened? All I remember is parlie offering me a bucket of ketchup or something.
This is government’s purpose, to regulate the space between these 2 people
You believe this? Truly?
I humbly disagree, and wish to not have his space regulated.
/except with dave.
I’ll regulate my own space, thankyouverymuch.
@65, @63, @64 i know i’m late, but i’m loving catching up on the witty commentary. you are all so weize.
Don’t take hits off an accordion. That shit will fuck you up instantly. Then you eat a bunch of Dorito’s® and your throat hurts for a week. NEVAR again!
@letsgetreal if you really want to get real, why don’t we discuss how it was the duponts back during the WW1-2 era who lobbied the government with the full backing of the military industrial complex to outlaw cannabis because hemp products would have replaced nylon as the #1 material for our army and navy?
if beer could be used as a non-stick frying surface, they’d probably do the same thing to protect their teflon patent.
and don’t even get me started on what would happen if viagra became an alternative fuel source for automobiles. boner-pills would go bye-bye so fast it would make your head spin.
I’d comment on the accordion thing, but there is so much government between me and shen anymore.
/gots to be real
Is that what it is? Damn, this government is itchy.
And psst go look on MUSE. No reason.
@ 89 Too true, but lets not forget about Hearst Corp complicity. Not to mention the first laws against the doobage were tax laws… not consumption laws. I could rail on this all day, LBR, and if you argue that pot should be illegal, you will lose.
My what? My hacky sack is showing? Damn.
@93 if DuPont’s investors had been descended from hemp farmers instead of petroleum moguls, they would have devised a plan to regulate and tax the devil weed instead of making propaganda films like reefer madness.
i’d love to see local governments started lowering the drinking age and ordering their local enforcers not to prosecute the federal violations (like they are in some areas fighting the medical marijuana battle). Then there’d be a jurisdiction/state’s rights case that would easily go all the way to the supremes. and with Barry the Hopey Unicorn in office getting to appoint Bill Clinton and Pat Leahy to the court, it just might go our way for once….
and thoughts of this is what keeps them up late at night out in the heartland.
@94 You might be better off with a strict constructionist Supreme Court if you want state and local governments to successfully challenge the authority of federal regulations in a 10th Amendment issue, but it’s hard to get a read on the Supreme Court sometimes.
federal regulations in a 10th Amendment issue
Wait. Your talking about the constitution? I remember that thing! Whatever happened to it anyway?
/hi billy odom! glad you’ve taken such an interest in my whargarble.
I should be commenting in this thread, but think I’ll stay out of this one. I never know what to do with libertarianism.