Booze Arts Academy - Best Booze Nations

England, Scotland and Wales are infinitely saner about drinking than the United States, and so far, there are relatively few signs that it is going to follow our MADD lead and begin making a normal part of human life a crime.

In England, at the moment, children over five years of age can drink in private. This is sensible; how many times, in that halcyon period between U.S. Prohibition and the current neo-Prohibition climate did a grandparent let a minor sip a little bit of Christmas eggnog, bourbon and all? Today, in the United States, it would be cause for putting Gramps in jail, or even charging him with corrupting the morals of a minor. In England, Gramps could do as Gramps has always done…give little Percy a big thrill by letting him sip the wondrous beverage.

Minors age 16 and older may drink beer wine and cider (in the U.K., cider is alcoholic unlike in the U.S., where it is basically apple juice) in a pub or restaurant with a meal if an adult orders it. In short, when the family goes out to eat, if the parents want to allow the teens in the family to have a short beer or a glass of wine, it's fine. (In Scotland, no adult is needed, making it even more liberal than England.) At 18, anyone can go out and order any sort of alcoholic beverage with our without a meal and with or without a parent in England, Scotland and Wales.

In England and Wales, one may not buy alcohol for a minor and take the liquor away from a licensed outlet. In Scotland, this is not specifically prohibited until 2009. Slightly worrisome, but not overly so.

In Ireland, the legal drinking age in public--whether drinking in pubs or restaurants, or buying packaged liquor at a store--is 18. There is no limit in private. By law, the only acceptable proofs of age are a passport, Irish driving license, or Garda (police) age card for those who don't drive (and there are many, especially in cities such as Dublin where public transport is available and where parking spaces are at a premium.) In practice, ID is rarely requested. It is, however, illegal to sell alcohol to someone who is already drunk.

Naturally, official U.S. government agencies, apparently purchased by MADD, have claimed that U.S. teenagers display lower rates of intoxication than European teenagers, who can drink far earlier. However, it was yet another example of the "weird science" issued by MADD and more than a few U.S. government agencies (you know, the same people who once claimed Saddam Hussein had WMDs).

On a website called Alcohol: Problems and Solutions, David J. Hanson, Ph.D., analyzed the claims, and concluded:

…even the numbers the Department did use don't back up its claims. American teenagers had a higher rate of intoxication than did their counterparts in half of the European countries. When compared with teenagers in Southern Europe, which has very liberal views and practices regarding alcohol, American teenagers were more likely to have been drunk in the last 30 days (21 percent vs. 13 percent). And while more than half of the American teenagers who drank reported getting drunk, less than a fourth of young Southern Europeans said they had been intoxicated. (http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/controversies/1098894305.html)

Perhaps most Southern European teenagers simply lied about getting drunk. Perhaps the conclusion is that Southern European teenagers, then, are simply less honest than American teenagers, by a wide margin.

Or possibly being able to drink in a sane environment--where one is introduced to alcohol at the family dinner table and not illicitly at a frat party--simply makes more responsible drinkers out of more young people than demonizing rum has ever done.

Next time: The Insanity, State by State