Blows my mind that an 18 year old senior could buy beer - Dazed and Confused (1993) Discussion

[–] Viper2880 9 years ago

As a toddler I can remember my dad drinking a beer while driving on the interstate. It was legal for the passenger to drink beer, so If he got pulled over he would have just handed it to my mom.

Thats just insane to think about now. And that was only back in 1985

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[–] mobocracy 8 years ago

It was probably less insane by 1985 standards. Most beer of that era was pretty low alcohol and anyone with any tolerance could handle 1-2 without any real problem. A fair amount of states also had 3.2 beer, which is pretty tough to get drunk on at all.

Today's microbrews are often 6.5+ alcohol and more intoxicating.

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[–] MycroftHolmes 8 years ago

Yeah, we had 3.2% for 18 tear olds and 6% for 21. 99% of beer sold now is still in this range. The average is probably 4%.

What we got here is... failure to communicate!



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[–] tallkennj 9 years ago

In my home state (New Jersey), they briefly raised the drinking age to 19, to combat this exact thing. It seems too many 18-year-olds were legally getting tanked at lunch time and, well, not learning a whole lot in the afternoon. Eventually, of course, everybody just decided that kids were having too much fun and raised the drinking age back to 21.

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[–] kwanfan10 9 years ago

The drinking age was 18 back then in Texas. I don't remember when they raised it. At least through the early 80s we were having keg parties in the dorms and no problems with underage drinkers at all. Nobody carded in bars anyways so I was going to bars at 17 in Texas.

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[–] tallkennj 9 years ago

Unfortunately, I know exactly when it happened in New Jersey. My oldest sister (who was 5 years older than me) could legally drink at 18. My other sister (who was 3 years older than me) could legal drink at 19, and, in their day, no bars or liquor stores bothered carding anybody because nobody really cared. I managed to catch the backlash. Not only did I have to wait until I was 21, but there was a major, major crackdown on underage drinking. Whereas both of my sisters could walk into a bar or liquor store at age 15 or 16 and never be questioned, it was a serious hassle for kids of my age group to get booze in my high school and early college days. And, if I am being honest and looking back as an old man, that might just have been a good thing.

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[–] mobocracy 8 years ago

Viet Nam!

The voting age was 21 during most of the Viet Nam war, and war protesters made a point about this being unfair to create a policy that would draft people to go off and kill and die overseas who couldn't vote on the policy. This led to a push to lower the voting age to 18, which was ratified as the 26th Amendment.

A byproduct of this was lowering the drinking age to 18, since if you could get drafted *and* vote, why not drink? Naturally this led to all manner of high school hijinks, so the powers that be mostly raised the drinking age to 19 to cut this off. Probably a reasonable move (I say as a 49 year old parent), if you consider that an 18 year old drinking age would be a nightmare to enforce and also result in lots of high school kids in bars with actual adults.

IIRC, Congress forced the states to raise drinking ages to a uniform 21 nationwide around 1987 by tying Federal highway funds to a 21 year old drinking age.

I was lucky in that I got grandfathered into the 19 year old drinking age when everyone after me had to wait until 21. When I was a Freshman in college, the younger drinking age was well reflected in the dorm rules as most everyone was 19 by the end of the school year, and drinking was permitted pretty much anywhere -- we even had keggers in the study lounge and people walked around with beers in the halls and drank with their doors open.

By my last (and junior) year in college, drinking was verboten nearly everywhere. It wasn't banned for people of age (since nearly half the student body was legal), but it was banned in any public space and the RAs and Night Monitors would card anyone they saw with booze, especially in the dorms which tended to be dominated by Freshmen and Sophomores. We used to drink openly just to be obnoxious, but since a good chunk of our friends weren't legal we had to cover it up if they were drinking with us.

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[–] batigoal9-1 9 years ago

I think this only happens in US. I live in Europe and anyone can buy anything no matter the age. A 10 year old can go to the supermarket and get a ton of alcohol and no one would even think twice about it.

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[–] tomisinthehouse 9 years ago

back in the day, the 70's you could buy beer at 18.

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[–] Viper2880 9 years ago

Look how easy it must have been for sophomore and juniors to get beer from 18 year old seniors. Amazing.

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[–] Viper2880 9 years ago

Ive never even been a big beer drinker, but the easy aspect of getting it back then would have been cool as hell in high school.

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[–] sonofbeach-sheet 9 years ago

Please! I knew many 16-17 year olds in the 1980's that bought alcohol with a fake ID!

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[–] yatzo376 8 years ago

IN the late 70s ,I had a fake ID to get into the nightclubs to see great live music , and drink beer!

We lived on the Ct/NY border and there were a lot of great bands working at that time.

"You work your side of the street, and I'll work mine"

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[–] mymainman 9 years ago

Yeah even here in Canada it's not nearly as strict as south of the border. I went to high school in the 90s, the legal drinking age was/is 19. They would ask for ID in the liquor stores and bars but literally everyone had a fake one, there was a store that sold them around the corner from the school.. I remember when I was starting grade 9, so I guess I was around 14 but I looked I was 10, I walked into the liquor store the first time all nervous and *beep* and when the lady asked for my ID I dropped it on the ground. She says "when's your birthday?" in this serious voice, and I just panicked.. I couldn't remember what I put down so I just stared at her with my mouth wide open like a dumb ass. Then all of a sudden, she breaks face and bursts out in laughter, and then everyone in the place started laughing. They scanned the stuff, gave it to me, nothing else said. Felt like such an idiot.

Alright excuse my little nostalgia trip. Also, here in Ontario we used to have Grade 13, which we don't have anymore. It is another year of high school, but everyone was legal drinking age, so for the Grade 13's the high school would actually have "wet" events. For graduation/prom there was obviously liquor everywhere, I just can't imagine how it would have been otherwise. But I guess that's how things are now..

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[–] jal2358 9 years ago

10? Not in Europe liar! Maybe with a fake id. Legal age is 16.

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[–] Al_and_Smithy 8 years ago

Yeah, I've watched "The Inbetweeners"...I know they were older than 10!

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[–] lpt0127 9 years ago

it was also ok to smoke cigs while pregnant as long as you remembered to eat a green thing every day.. and have lots of calcium

Welcome to the El Flamingo, Jeffrey!
Don't piss in the pool, Jeffrey.

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[–] jal2358 9 years ago

Still the same to this day. Imagine a world you live in where everything you say actually can happen today. I wish my life was high as yours.

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[–] krypton_son 9 years ago

It blows my mind that there are dry counties in the U.S. still. I suppose I can understand the 21 age limit, but come on.

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dies ist meine unterschrift

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[–] cataclysm1071 9 years ago

Krypton, the dry counties and blue laws are all archaic, outdated rules rooted in religion. These places are basically practicing prohibition...in 2015.

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[–] jal2358 9 years ago

My mom says it's true. It was like the 80's USA said 21.

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[–] Viltrumite 8 years ago

It blows my mind that this blows your mind. I first purchased booze at 16, which is two years before I was legal.

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[–] RazziaBE 8 years ago

Been ordering beers at the local pub since I was 14.

Long live Belgium. Boggles my mind that Americans can't legally drink until they are 21.

I will eat your soul and crap delicious chicken nuggets.

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