By Woody Hanstein
Two clients of mine recently made the newspaper, but not by choice. They are dormitory roommates at the University of Maine at Farmington and both are 19 years old. Both are also excellent students who had never been in trouble of any kind.
Never, that is, until a few days ago when they made the ill-fated decision to enjoy a glass of wine or of hard lemonade in their room with four visiting 19-year-old friends from high school. These young women weren’t intoxicated or rowdy or bothering anyone, and in the interests of full disclosure I should note that one of them is an outstanding student in the criminal law class teach at UMF.
At age 19 these young women can join the military and buy real estate and carry on all of the other affairs of adult life, but we do not trust them to enjoy a drink in the privacy of their dorm room. Unfortunately, the police were called and the two UMF students were handcuffed, arrested, fingerprinted and jailed for furnishing a place for their friends to enjoy that drink.
My clients’ charges have since been dropped by the District Attorney’s Office in the hopes the matter can be handled more informally, and it is uncertain yet what will become of the civil violations for underage drinking their four visitors received.
None of this ordeal was necessary, but I do not blame UMF or the police or even the newspaper that found this unfortunate arrest to be newsworthy. I blame an illogical and counter-productive law that lets bright, responsible 19-year-old women legally do anything that I can do except enjoy a glass of wine in their dorm room.
If you’ve had children this age you’ve already confronted what’s wrong with a law which forbade you from buying a case of beer for them to safely enjoy with their friends in your home (with their car keys all confiscated). Instead, you could only hope that the unchaperoned evening these young adults had planned at some remote camp or gravel pit wouldn’t end badly.
We tried prohibition in this country 90 years ago and it was a miserable failure. It is unreasonable to think that today young people are any more likely to obey misguided drinking laws. Worse yet is that these laws teach some of them to disrespect other parts of our legal system as well.
Our police and college administrators shouldn’t be forced to implement a law that the majority of the 18- to 20-year-old young adults in this state do not obey. I recognize that some will say that if we lower the drinking age to 18 that we will likely face more deaths on the highway as a result, but if that is our guiding rationale then shouldn’t we talk of raising that drinking age to 23 or perhaps 25.
I would much prefer a law that treats our 18-year-olds like the adults they are. Lowering the drinking age to 18 would be more fair, more honest, and more likely to allow us to have a better discussion with young adults about responsibility, and looking after each other, and being open about the lives they lead.
If Maine’s current drinking law somehow did keep students at UMF from consuming alcohol, I would still argue the law was unfair but at least there would be a reason for it. But we all know that our current law doesn’t keep these young adults from drinking — rather, it causes them to drink in more clandestine, unsupervised ways, often at places which are a risky car-ride off campus.
I think it is time we had an intelligent discussion in this state about our drinking laws. And, to be sure, it is a discussion our representatives in Washington will need to join because of the way years ago that federal agencies financially blackmailed states into raising their drinking ages to begin with. The hard-earned federal tax dollars Maine citizens pay should not be used to keep us from making our state’s legal system more sensible and fair and, in the long run I believe, even more safe.
Woody Hanstein has been a lawyer, teacher and coach in Farmington for nearly 30 years, and sometimes when he feels the world needs a nudge in the right direction the Daily Bulldog lets him write an editorial.
I for 1 agree with Mr Hanstein..!
I recognize that some will say that if we lower the drinking age to 18 that we will likely face more deaths on the highway as a result, but if that is our guiding rationale then shouldn’t we talk of raising that drinking age to 23 or perhaps 25.
I am saying this is absolutely a legintimate safety concern and Yes we should be looking at “Raising the Age”
I think 23 sounds ok.
25,,,Even better.
In Woodys letter I’m hearing a lot of,,,they dont obey this law anyways so lets trash it.
CMon Woody,, I respect you for bettering our community but,,,Stop being a Defense Lawyer for a second.
WillYa?
Woody makes an interesting argument, but not a good one. I was in high school when the legal drinking age was 18 and the result was more — a LOT more — drinking among my 16 and 17-year-old high school peers.
There is a significant number of 18-year-olds in Maine high schools and they hang out with 16, 17, and 18 year old high schoolers, not college students. Presenting the 18 year-old high schooler with easy, legal access to alcohol, it will most certainly end up in the hands of those 16 and 17-year old (maybe even 15-year-olds) high school kids. It will undoubtedly lead to an increase, not a decrease, in drinking among younger teens.
Now, if Woody argued for a legal drinking age of 19 (typically a post-high school age) which would keep easy-access, legally-purchased alcohol out of the hands of most high schoolers, he might have made a strong case.
If they weren’t bothering anyone then why were the police called? I’m sure that the police didn’t just randomly
show up at their dorm room.
I don’t neccessarily disagree with you but the drinking on campus does need to be addressed.
I was a janitor for three years at UMF, Scott Hall, north wing, as well as a instructor of Philoslophy, during the 18 year old legal limit. It was hell. Every Friday I had to empty over filled trash cans—-there were no depost laws back then. There were drunken parties on Thursday nights because most went home on Fridays. Students would play with fire extinguishers during these parties. Many time I found cuts in the carpets due to throwing the extingjuishers around (expensive to fix) . Wine, beer, wiskey, vodka, you name it, it was consumed. Breakage of dorm property was common. Vomit greeted me on Friday mornings. The University wouild throw beer parties (believe it or not!!!!) for the students. Kegs of beer were set up on each floor in the shower stalls. One day I came in and found that a keg had been thrown around and smashesd the tiles in the stall (expensive to fix.) As an instructor I found that the Friday classes were poorly attended. The students couldn’t hold their liquor and they didn’t know their limits.
It would be a big mess if the drinkig age was lowered again. But, as a Libertarian I don’t think there should be any limits for the drinking age. Where I lived in Germany for a few years where there no limits, I worked s a policeman, and I didn’t perceive any overwhelming problem. Wild drinking is a cultural thing. German youth grew up with wine and beer.
Perhaps there should be a school policy that no alcohol or cigarettes will be permitted on school grounds at all .a no tolerance rule that has a penalty of expulsion,period see you later bye, don’t let the door hit you. Kids who want to consume and are of legal age would have to do so off campus or at home on break. If the need to drink while going to school is so great and they can not control them selves then they have a far greater problem then they know. End of story, no booze at school. “If you have to control it its out of control”
16, 17, 18… i drank and smoked my way through those years. by the time i got to college i was downright refined. it took hard knocks and “currency in the bank of experience” to set me straight, not a law or a limit. no laws or limits ever prevented me from destroying my brain. what might have helped: positive role models, solid community, and opportunities to do something more creative than sit in the woods and get high. it’s my own fault that i was a bad kid, but nobody was showing me a viable alternative, either.
personally, i think we’d all be a lot safer if there were no drinking age, and you had to be 30 to drive a car.
Prohibition was anything but a “miserable failure.” As per an article entitled “Did Prohibition Really Work? Alcohol Prohibition as a Public Health Innovation” in the American Journal of Public Health, “Death rates from cirrhosis and alcoholism, alcoholic psychosis hospital admissions, and drunkenness arrests all declined steeply….in the early years after National Prohibition went into effect.”
The image of the young ladies enjoying ” a drink in the privacy of their dorm room” makes it all sound so civilized and sophisticated — one pictures a white tablecloth, fine European cuisine and shiny wine glasses sparkling with some exquisite vintage wine. As Bill Reid’s response indicates, that’s hardly what goes on. We ought not delude ourselves about what teenaged drinking looks like.
I used to be a waiter at The Colony, a rock & roll nightclub that used to exist in the basement of what is now The Lotus Blossom., f/k/a The Fortune Fountain. I think that was during the 18-to-drink era, and the clientele seemed to come straight out of some B-grade frat party movie, with fist-fights, screaming, glasses thrown across the floor, and not a little vomit. Certainly many of the 19-year-olds were well-behaved and better able to drink responsibly than some 30-somethings.But I realized that if I had to draw the line somewhere it would be at 21. The young girls would sometimes buy one beer and nurse it all evening and then pretend to be drunk, hollering and standing up on tables proclaiming an intention to strip. Clearly the idea was not to enjoy a fine beverage but to get crazy. Let’s not kid ourselves.
I would love to hear what the young lady who was raped while drunk in the now-infamous Steubenville case would say about making it easier for teens to get alcohol.
I imagine the Governor would support it as it would create more revenue. I would say that as with a lot of laws, the people who tend to obey laws do and the ones who don’t don’t. There will always be alcohol in college dorms regardless of the drinking age, but when the speed limit is 65, we tend to drive 70 or faster. When the speed limit is 55, we tend not to go 70 +. Would lowering the drinking age to 18 cause more 16 and 17 year olds to drink?
I guess I would need to see some actual facts before I’d even consider it. This feel-good opinion does nothing for me. More and more, we are hearing that alcohol is not good for our health even in moderate quantities. I wonder about those girls sitting in their dorm rooms drinking so young and what it will do to their health–both physically and mentally–for the long run. There’s more to this than just what’s legal.
Creston Gaither: I couldn’t agree with you more.
I know parents who drink who tell their kids not to drink and there only reason is that they’re not old enough. Well kids want to do things that adults do and what example are parents who drink on their children. I’ve seen the children eventually drinking and copying their parents. I’ve heard that it’s legal for kids to drink in their own home with their parents permission. I think that parents need to set the example, because the message they’re giving their kids is: “You’re too young to drink now but when you’re older you can drink all you want and go to the bars.”
It doesn’t matter what their age is they are going to drink no matter what if they are 16,17,18 however old … it is still going to happen legal or not! I guess I am missing how changing the legal drinking age is going to do anything?
When I would say “that’s not fair” growing up – I was always told “life isn’t always fair”!
With all due respect Woody, you a far more responsible enjoying your glass of wine than the average college student. Science teaches us that alcohol has a significant impact on the developing brain, even in moderate amounts. Lowering the drinking age would have a largely negative effect.
Immaturity and alcohol are a bad combination, particularly in a vehicle on the road. Maybe that would mean more clients for lawyers, but the price is too high when it could cost young lives (and others).
Woody is right. An 18 yr old can die for his country but can’t have a beer. However it would be smarter to make the age of becoming an adult, or at least the ability to vote, at around 30. Some ‘kids’ are starting to get it together by then. And yes, admit it or not, many of us can relate!
“Unfortunately, the police were called …” Why were the police called? ? ? It’s disingenuous to glide over that.
There are a lot of good points made in this column and responses. I grew up in the era of 18 for the legal age, and can attest to being educated by my parents as to responsibility and risk. I can also attest to the fact that several friends and family members of that era never made it out of the fog alcohol can induce.
Several posters indicated responsible drinking can be a learned behavior if good examples are set. To this I would add to build responsible drinking habits, we also need to enforce the laws we have for limiting the levels of inebriation and public behavior, or misbehavior. Allowing someone to abuse a restaurant, or a college dormitory because they are too far gone, does not teach anyone legally or socially acceptable behavior.
There are almost always warning signs when people are over indulging. If they are ignored, regardless of age, the indulgers end up harming themselves and others.
Stuebonville happened in Ohio, and happens elsewhere because of the lax habits of the parents and other adults involved. Teenagers under the age of 18 were allowed to have their own unsupervised parties and were able to successfully ruin the lives of at least three young adults. Too much freedom at too young of a maturity level mixed with alcohol never results in good things.
Drinking at 18? Sure, but also enforce the laws that govern acceptable behavior and assess responsibility to where it belongs: The seller, the consumer, and all of the responsible young, and older adults along the way.
Well Woody, whether people agree with you or not you’ve certainly aroused significant interest in what no doubt will continue to be a perennially fascinating topic.
Maine’s prohibition was a phenomenon that went back well before the national model, so early that, about the time it was first enacted in the 1850’s, other laws in the world emulating it were called a “Maine law.”
It’s the culture that needs to change, not the law. Most people overindulge out of sheer ignorance. College is an especially bad place for this due to the lack of adult supervision. Ignorant people + alcohol = bad time.
@ interested: I really wasn’t being disingenuous, although I can understand why you might initially think there was more to this incident. I was really trying to involve as few UMF students as possible in this discussion. In this case, an upper level student who served as a resident advisor in the dorm thought he heard clinking glasses coming from the room when he went to let the young women know that quiet hours were going to begin soon. This RA (who understandably felt this possible violation of Maine law needed to be investigated) called campus security solely to check on what he thought was underage drinking. Even though other contributors have commented about rapes in Ohio and other things people who drink too much can do, it really is possible for responsible 19 year-olds to enjoy a glass of wine without causing trouble.
If your an adult at 18and you can join the military and vote, why can’t you drink legally.
Again, why, with what we know about how alcohol effects the developing brain would we want teenagers legally allowed to purchase and consume alcoholic drinks?
I agree with the above article.Our young people can fight for our freedom and put their very lives in jeopardy but are not treated as adults here. If at 18 you can vote, fight own an apartment etc. You should be able to have a drink without legal action. As a young person I found that more drank before they were 18 than after when adult responsibilities kicked in.
I’ve pondered this for a couple of days, because I can see some sense in most of the opinions presented in this article and subsequent discussion. I grew up when the law allowed 18 year olds to drink, tended bar for a time, and have dealt with my share of drunks of all ages in social situations. Ignorance knows no age limit, I might note.
From this perspective, I feel that a legal drinking age is almost a non-issue. The real issue – just as with gun control – is a cultural one. In a culture where violence is widely accessible in the form of movies and video games, the solution goes far beyond legislation. The same can be said about alcohol consumption. Consider how it’s viewed in our culture. Ads for beer appear during decidedly cool, all-American events, like car races and the Super Bowl. It’s acceptable for every class in our society to drink, to get drunk, and to joke and tell stories about someone’s drunken escapades.
So then, the question becomes, do we 1) simply raise or lower the legal drinking age in what I feel is a one-armed attempt to solve the problems that arise from irresponsible use of alcohol or 2) look for ways to change societal views and expectations around this issue?
Just for fun, consider how we teach kids to drive. First, they have experience as a passenger almost from birth, they observe their parents’ driving habits, and gain first-hand experience of the positive or negative consequences of their parents’ driving habits (How many children feel safe with a parent behind the wheel? How many have been frightened or injured while riding with a parent?) Then, when they reach an age where the parent feels they’re mature enough to start learning themselves, the kids get driver’s ed. classes. They practice, at first in a simulation, then behind the wheel, with guidance before finally being let loose on the road. And while this doesn’t guarantee a life-long safe driving record, the process goes a long way in preparing kids for the awesome responsibility that comes with propelling several hundred pounds of machine at 50 or 60 miles an hour in close proximity to others. How do we prepare our kids for the awesome responsibility of being able to consume something that, when misused, can cause them to harm/kill/destroy property, themselves or others? Unfortunately for some, that “preparation” consists of nothing more than reaching a particular age.
Mr. Hanstein hits the mark with his comment regarding the need for “discussion with young adults about responsibility, and looking after each other, and being open about the lives they lead.” Changing the perspecive of a society seems like an impossible task, but think about how that begins – it happens one role model, one conversation, one small change at a time…and every one of us is capable of being that role model, having that one conversation, making that one small change.
I guess I haven’t seen too many 19 year olds ‘enjoy’ a glass of wine here in rural maine. Unless they are of white collar decent.
I really don’t see the relevance of all the fight-and-die, and voting age arguments. The voting age was lowered at a time when we still had a draft. “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote,” was the slogan — this with the Vietnam War still raging. At 18 people were being drafted and legally required to fight. Letting them vote certainly seemed logical. We have no draft, and no one is requiring 19-year olds to do much of anything.
I wonder how hard it is for UMF PD to catch underage drinkers on campus when they are out patrolling the streets of Farmington with the maroon cruiser? Is this what UMF pays public safety to do? Does Farmongton PD have a new branch? 21 is a good number.
Woody: Re yr 5:37 pm: As with gun-control, it’s not the responsible people who are causing trouble. We need to control the irresponsible, immature, or impaired ones, not punish everybody. Hey, we have a driver’s license, maybe we could have a “drinking license!” Abuse it, you lose it! Prohibition failed because people felt responsible adults should be able to drink responsibly, but most people don’t think <21 is old enough to be drinking, for the safety of all concerned. Personally, I'd much rather see them smoke pot (and I don't use it, grow it, or sell it.)
Joanne: You said: “As a young person I found that more drank before they were 18 than after when adult responsibilities kicked in.” Excellent point! Great reason not to lower the drinking age! Irresponsibility! How about, if we DID draft any 18-20 year-olds (not likely) and sent them into combat we let THEM drink?
So if these 2 young women were men, would the charges have been dropped? Justice should be equal regardless of gender or education. I think these 2 deserve their consequences- an unemployed 19yo male would have had to! Way to set a precedent! I guess we can let all good 19 yr old college girls off the hook… as long as they have no prior history.
Instead of messing with legal consumption age how about a mandatory 18 month sevice contract for all youth after High School. Not nessasarily military but social service to learn and experience the results of actons and responsibilties adulthood has in store.
Common sense insn’t so common, it is said but self respect and respect of life and property can be taught. All adults are roll models, you don’t have a choice in that. Some young pair of eyes are always watching.
We have enough laws and confusion in our time, so we really don’t need to rehash the failures we have made.
. Ultimately the enforcement folks have to make a snap decision of how much harm people are doing to themselves and potentially others, my opinion is that they get it right most of the time.
Dialogue is a great start to a change and try to leave the sour grapes in the field.
well do you all remember growing up? here is what i found out about maines drinking laws so be it why not 18 again
Maine ? 21 Lowered to 20 in 1969
Lowered to 18 in 1972 [7]
Raised to 20 in 1977 [4][25] Raised to 21 in 1985 [4]
Same old, same old.At 18 one is old enough to make the moral decision to take anothers’ life per order from persons barely associated with them.In Europe, where the age of consent is much lower they have a more diminished problem with alcohol.Up the age to 23 and make that the minimum to join the military if maturity is the prerequisite
At 16 or younger with court permission you can get married and raise kids, but forget having a drink. We have some funny rules here in America.