http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aKPKbE6wOeYE&refer=home

ok

Wine can't be shipped into Texas to private citizens directly from the winery. Texas has some ridiculous alcohol restrictions. Like, you can't buy liqour on Sunday, or any alcohol before noon on Sunday (it's the goddam Baptists). Alcohol cannot be sold in an establishment that is located within, I believe, 1000 feet of a church (which is asinine seeing as how wine is served IN many churches... but not Baptist churches of course...). The most ridiculous law of them all: one must be at least 21 years of age to buy or consume alcohol. Well, let me share something with those who may not know it. Almost nobody fully co-operates with this law. I just turned twenty quite recently, and I've been consuming alcoholic beverages since I was about 15... pretty much whenever I intended to. For this ability, I would like to thank the expansive network of older adults who obviously see the ridiculousness of this law, and have purchased alcohol on my behalf and/or served me alchohol at my request.

Any reason why a responsible adult, 18, 19, or 20 years of age should not be able to consume alcohol, but still be expected to adhere to all other responsibilities of "adulthood" (e.g. voting, military service, employment, economics, parenting, etc...)? I think that 19 is fair age instead of 21. By 19 years of age, one is out of high school and in pursuit of the rest of their adult life, and therefore should be allowed all the benefits of being a legal adult, including but not limited to the right to consume a substance which has been a constant element of human cultures for thousands of years, and the duty to do so in a responsible fashion.

The most ridiculous law of them all: one must be at least 21 years of age to buy or consume alcohol.


I'll agree with you on the sale of alcohol when you're 18.  When I was 18 living in Tennessee back in the late 70's, alcohol was legal for people who were 18.  But then federal government threatened to cut 5% of federal highway funds for any state that doesn't make their drinking age at least 21 and the US Supreme Court upheld it when the state of South Dakota sued.  So now every state I think has a drinking age of 21, go figure.

Beer at 18 is bad, but fighting for your country after being drafted is okay.

I'll agree with you on the sale of alcohol when you're 18.  When I was 18 living in Tennessee back in the late 70's, alcohol was legal for people who were 18.  But then federal government threatened to cut 5% of federal highway funds for any state that doesn't make their drinking age at least 21 and the US Supreme Court upheld it when, I think it was the state of Montana, sued.  So now every state I think has a drinking age of 21, go figure.

Beer at 18 is bad, but fighting for your country after being drafted is okay.


::jaw drops::

GW, this marks the second occasion you and I have seen eye to eye on something. The first time, if you remember, was the right to hunt.

the US Supreme Court upheld it when the state of South Dakota sued. 


In case anyone is interested:

U.S. Supreme Court
SOUTH DAKOTA v. DOLE, 483 U.S. 203 (1987)
483 U.S. 203
SOUTH DAKOTA v. DOLE, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

No. 86-260.

Argued April 28, 1987
Decided June 23, 1987

Title 23 U.S.C. 158 (1982 ed., Supp. III) directs the Secretary of Transportation to withhold a percentage of otherwise allocable federal highway funds from States "in which the purchase or public possession . . . of any alcoholic beverage by a person who is less than twenty-one years of age is lawful." South Dakota, which permits persons 19 years old or older to purchase beer containing up to 3.2% alcohol, sued in Federal District Court for a declaratory judgment that 158 violates the constitutional limitations on congressional exercise of the spending power under Art. I, 8, cl. 1, of the Constitution and violates the Twenty-first Amendment. The District Court rejected the State's claims, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held:

Even if Congress, in view of the Twenty-first Amendment, might lack the power to impose directly a national minimum drinking age (a question not decided here), 158's indirect encouragement of state action to obtain uniformity in the States' drinking ages is a valid use of the spending power. Pp. 206-212.

(a) Incident to the spending power, Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds. However, exercise of the power is subject to certain restrictions, including that it must be in pursuit of "the general welfare." Section 158 is consistent with such restriction, since the means chosen by Congress to address a dangerous situation - the interstate problem resulting from the incentive, created by differing state drinking ages, for young persons to combine drinking and driving - were reasonably calculated to advance the general welfare. Section 158 also is consistent with the spending power restrictions that, if Congress desires to condition the States' receipt of federal funds, it must do so unambiguously, enabling the States to exercise their choice knowingly, cognizant of the consequences of their participation; and that conditions on federal grants must be related to a national concern (safe interstate travel here). Pp. 206-209.

(b) Nor is 158 invalidated by the spending power limitation that the conditional grant of federal funds must not be independently barred by other constitutional provisions (the Twenty-first Amendment here). Such limitation is not a prohibition on the indirect achievement of objectives    which Congress is not empowered to achieve directly, but, instead, means that the power may not be used to induce the States to engage in activities that would themselves be unconstitutional. Here, if South Dakota were to succumb to Congress' blandishments and raise its drinking age to 21, its action would not violate anyone's constitutional rights. Moreover, the relatively small financial inducement offered by Congress here - resulting from the State's loss of only 5% of federal funds otherwise obtainable under certain highway grant programs - is not so coercive as to pass the point at which pressure turns into compulsion. Pp. 209-212.

791 F.2d 628, affirmed.
REHNQUIST, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, POWELL, STEVENS, and SCALIA, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., post, p. 212, and O'CONNOR, J., post, p. 212, filed dissenting opinions.

Full story: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=483&invol=203