Some think alcohol the stuff of poetry; others the devil's brew. We humans have a complicated relationship to a substance that most of us down on a regular basis. It's an accompaniment to meals, the centerpiece of gatherings, and a constant presence at sporting events. But those who drink still feel somewhat guilty about it; it's something we do, but not something of which we are proud. Such is the complexity of our relationship with alcohol, a complexity enshrined in our laws.
Excepting a handful of theocratic nations, the United States is perhaps the most uptight when it comes to booze. Our mandatory drinking age of 21 is shared with but four others (Fiji, Pakistan, Palau, and Sri Lanka). We are the only Western nation ever to have instituted outright Prohibition, and the hangover from that echoes in almost every state's own rules - some of the most restrictive of which are to be found right here in Massachusetts.
You might attribute this to the remnants of old-time blue laws or a nanny-state mentality foisted on us by overbearing politicians, but the truth is, the problem is us. Remember Question 1, the 2006 ballot measure that modestly proposed allowing grocery stores to sell wine? It was seemingly a no-brainer for consumers, but liquor store owners (obviously motivated by a threat to their quasi-monopoly) teamed up with anti-alcohol advocates to argue that making wine more available would cause people to quaff more cabs and chardonnays. Horrified by that prospect, voters turned down the measure by a wide margin of 56 to 44 percent.
The motivation for all of these rules is a belief that restricting availability and keeping prices high will reduce consumption. Yet according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Massachusetts has one of the higher rates of alcohol consumption (on a per capita basis) in the nation. Meanwhile, New York - where happy hours literally are hours, beer is sold by anyone who wishes to, and licenses to serve alcohol are handed out with abandon - is near the bottom.There are more contradictions. New Hampshire has the highest rate of alcohol consumption in the nation. But its rate of alcohol-related auto fatalities is actually below that of Massachusetts. Our northern neighbor Canada, whose laws are far more lax and where the drinking age is (depending on the province) 18 or 19, annually consumes less than us: 7.8 liters of pure alcohol per capita versus our 8.5. Indeed, tough restrictions backfire. That certainly appears to have been the case during Prohibition and it seems again to be the situation today, a point strongly argued by John McCardell Jr., former president of Middlebury College, who believes our prohibition on college-age drinking ends up encouraging bingeing and prevents us from teaching kids how to drink moderately.
The lesson here is an old one: The law is a poor way to regulate private human behavior. So what to do? First, we should rethink our rules. Make the drinking age 18. Let the standard for issuing a liquor license be the character of the license holder, not the number of licenses in a town. Bring back price competition - including happy hours - and allow the market for alcohol to be the same as it is for any other foodstuff, which is to say, largely free and unfettered. But we also need to change our attitudes. At the heart of our problem with alcohol is that we think it something evil when it is not. Sure, misuse and overindulgence are bad, with sometimes terrible consequences. But this is true of many things; a car careening into a crowd does not make the car itself evil. I'm with the poets. What we really need is a culture that celebrates the wise use of alcohol rather than a body of laws whose aim is to make us feel guilty.
Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, August 1, 2010.