Thursday, June 29, 2006

Panel studies county keg registration

Panel studies county keg registration

"Acknowledging that underage drinking is an integral part of Iowa City culture, Richard Dobyns, the co-director of a local alcohol-awareness group, said Wednesday the key is restricting access to alcohol."


How about someone "acknowledging" that the 21 year old drinking age is an unenforcable law that flies in the face of the concept of 18 as the age of majority? Until elected officials acknowledge that publicly, I'm not ready to sign on to anything.

Ooops, forgot; Dobyns ISN'T an elected official, he lost. In fact, if you look at the narrow margin and the numbers from the student precincts, he lost on this issue, or the 21 bar variant thereof. Maybe more of that needs to happen before this can be discussed rationally.

I'm not even saying keg registration is a bad thing. It's just that I see so much disingenuousness and hypocrisy around the issue. I'm not willing to listen to a word you have to say about the alleged "underage" problem till you acknowledge - publicly - the problems with the 21 year old drinking age. (I've had a lot of politicians admit this to me in private.)

Alcohol abuse and the drinking age are DIFFERENT THINGS. We need to address alcohol abuse but not by gutting principles of adult rights. Especially with a draft just around the corner. (And not a drinkable draft either...)

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