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<p>Ya think?!?!? :D</p>
<p>Just came across this on another message board and thought it was interesting. A little off topic at this point in the discussion, but thought I’d throw it in.
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<p>"Im having a beer right now at a coffee shop after working on finaid forms and listening to Wishbone Ash live dates that I have not heard for 30 years-</p>
<p>I deserve it- I had to do our tax forms before I could do the FAFSA and the PROFILE-
Lucky for me I can’t read the calorie count "</p>
<p>oh man…
OP here…
Taxes then FAFSA?</p>
<p>shoot. Glad it’s legal to drink at 47.</p>
<p>All of y’all who are saying that it’s against the law need to really get over yourselves. Have you never ran a stop sign or sped? They’re the same things. I personally have gotten arrested for underage drinking. It was stupid on my part to be walking around a college campus completely wasted and I accept that. My mom accepted the fact that I was going to drink because I was a normal high schooler and I did so at home sometimes. I don’t ever recall her drinking at home but wine occasionally at a family’s house. I see drinking the same as traffic violations. I really don’t care if someone speeds but if they’re dumb enough to get caught, than it sucks for them.
To the Original poster: I’m sure your son already drinks. Let him do it at home and don’t be ridiculous. It’s not a bad example for your younger son, it’s showing him that there is such thing as responsible drinking, not just getting ****ed up which a lot of your children are already doing, most people just don’t accept that.</p>
<p>well I just did the taxes enough to get an idea of what they would look like without our extra D deduction</p>
<p>I have a tax program & it says all the forms aren’t ready yet- it also said that my H employer took too much out for medicare and social security tax & so then I tried to decipher the forms that were “supposed” to explain how to tell how much should be taken out.
:p</p>
<p>Re alcohol
I realize that there are some who abuse substances- many in fact, I think our society has a real issue with alcohol. But I also don’t think it is the devil and as someone who appreciates its ability to allow me to relax- I’m happy that I can find coffee shops that serve espresso * and* beer :D</p>
<p>But we also have a culture that believes if a little is good- more is better.
We take antibiotics for colds- if we use $60 a jar face cream, we think slathering it on is going to get rid of our wrinkles quicker & when we notice a pleasant buzz from one or two drinks, we think that four or six will make us feel * really* good. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>^I’ve heard tax forms have not incorporated the change regarding AMT yet. I will wait til April.</p>
<p>1of42, I am a libertarian (small “l”) and I definitely think that prohibition should not be enacted again. It doesn’t work. But that doesn’t make alcohol anything better than I have said it is. This thing about alcohol is that it isn’t really a choice to many people. We live in a society where it is very difficult for many people to say no to alcohol. It takes someone of immense stubborness, resolve, or strenth of character to say no to it during high school and college. Many people have alcohol imposed upon them by peers. Please keep this in mind when you are defending it.</p>
<p>The effects of alcohol definitely impact others. Anyone who has had friends or family who drink excessively can tell you that it can make people change in ways that harm those around them, even if it doesn’t lead them to drink and drive.</p>
<p>For all of these reasons and more, I think personal temperence is a goal that we should look to as a society. Temperence has a much better track record than prohibition- in the early 1800’s it nearly cut alcohol consumption in half in the United States. </p>
<p>Drinking will (unfortunately) survive without you defending it. I don’t think anyone on this board is trying to take away your precious chemical escape, so relax. We are trying to show the side of drinking that too many young people in America have to learn the hard way. Why propagate something that already has tremendous support on virtually every college campus around the globe? I am very curious- are you defending alcohol to defend your own consumption, or because you genuinely believe in civil liberties (a non-issue in this discussion, as I said before) or the health “benefits” of alcohol?</p>
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<p>True indeed. But the fact that alcohol is forced upon people shows a problem with their friends, not with the substance itself.</p>
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<p>Temperance is certainly not as bad as some alternatives, but I would rather see a call for moderation than a call for temperance.</p>
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<p>I am not defending alcohol in general. I am attacking the drinking age of 21, as I think it is an undue imposition on civil liberties (it’s one thing to disallow minors from doing things like drinking, driving, signing contracts, etc. and quite another to disallow adults from doing it) and also as a practical matter unhelpful.</p>
<p>The rest of my argument was argument against untrue assertions. The assertion that alcohol is inherently immoral, for example. And, in another large exchange, the false assertions spideygirl made about marijuana. I don’t attack these falsehoods out of personal interest, I attack them because they are wrong, and my personality is such that when somebody says something wrong around me, I argue it.</p>
<p>As I see it, drinking is an institution, not just a substance. The temperence ideal hopes to lower use of the substance by replacing the institution of drinking with something more beneficial. I sincerely hope that my generation does not grow up thinking that they need to approve of alcohol to be normal or social. </p>
<p>I like the drinking age right where it is because the societal pressure to drink is such that few at age 18 can refuse it. The drinking age of 21 is a great shield for many who don’t want to drink to say “I don’t drink because I’m not 21 yet” when they are pressured, and that usually goes over much better than, “Sorry, I’m an anti-alcohol crusader” or something like that. I believe that drinking is such a pull for young people that they either have to have a decided and public opposition to the entire institution or they need a legal excuse. I am part of the former group, but many others are of the latter type. I certainly understand your point about infringement of civil liberties, though. I just see drinking as a small liberties issue compared to the suspension of habeas corpus, massive surveillence by government, and excessive spending.</p>
<p>Can we agree on those ideas? I dislike drinking, maybe I even loathe it, but I see where you are coming from. You dislike infringement of liberties and untrue assertions, but I hope you see where I’m coming from on the drinking age and I’m not sure about untrue assertions (?). Basically, I am not going to push to remove your alcohol, but I really do hope that you will limit your consumption, be safe, and most of all, never EVER pressure someone into drinking. It has been a pleasure discussing this issue, and I hope many others will think carefully about it before they act spontaneously.</p>
<p>So I hate to drag this up again, but this was brought up in class today…</p>
<p>Sure alcohol can be a good thing for boosting HDL levels when used properly. My question is how many college and high school students would fit into the “properly” category when it comes to alcohol? I’m thinking a very small amount…</p>
<p>Probably none.</p>
<p>I have very low HDL levels, a heart attack, and a heart condition. Based on the latest research, my doc has taken me OFF my 2-ounces a day of wine to deal with low HDL. </p>
<p>“From a methodological standpoint, our study illustrates that is possible and important to examine drinking behavior in real-world settings,” Clapp said. “It is more difficult than doing Web surveys and the like but provides a much richer data set. Secondly, environmental factors are important. Much of the current research on drinking behavior focuses on individual characteristics and ignores contextual factors. Yet both are important to our understanding of drinking behavior and problems.”</p>
<p>Yes, that’s in fact how we know that reported estimates of binge and heavy drinking are in fact too low. At one school, students will filmed to see how many drinks they actually had in a two-hour period (i.e. binge drinking). It was found that students consistently underestimated by approximately 25%. What that means is that a four-drink-in-two-hours drinker on average actually had 5, but is not classed in the binge drinking category in the data.</p>
<p>A second study conducted at two schools in North Carolina asked students to pour the average size “drink”. It was found that the median size student drink was 1.8X the size of a standard drink, with half the samples being even larger.</p>
<p>What that means is this - the average self-reported four-drink-in-two-hours drinker (hence classified as a non-binger) actually had 5 drinks, with the average size being 1.8X the standard - or NINE DRINKS, and half had more! This is how we know from experimental data that most of the college-based self-reporting estimates are well underestimating the extent of binge and heavy drinking.</p>
<p>mini, that is some hefty underestimation :eek: but I do not think it was intentional. How many of these students actually remebered what they were doing when they were drunk? Thanks for sharing the data.</p>
<p>On another note, I’m always skeptical about research showing benefits of (fill in your choice of foodstuffs, your favorite beverage or herbal supplement) since many of them are sponsored by manufacturers. Would Ocean Spray say that cranberry juice is bad for ya? ;)</p>
<p>“mini, that is some hefty underestimation but I do not think it was intentional.”</p>
<p>No, it was clearly unintentional, which is what makes it even more scary.</p>
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<p>Thank you for making my point:)</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t think anyone has ever argued that college students were drinking alcohol for the incremental health benefits. ;)</p>
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<p>Only if one is taking coumadin/warfarin ;)</p>
<p>I’m sure the only reason either of my kids would touch alcohol is for the health benefits! Aren’t there benefits in drinking such massive quantities of beer that all germs are killed? :)</p>
<p>^XD.</p>
<p>I’ll admit I’m biased against alcohol because I have known so many alcoholics (my dad was in fact an alcoholic before I was born). I don’t like what it can do to people and their families.</p>
<p>Haven’t looked at this thread in months, so here is a belated response to 1of42…</p>
<p>1of42: “First: yes, some strains of marijuana have been bred to have higher THC content. These are generally found in coffee shops in Amsterdam, or in government medical marijuana cannabis clubs, where breeders spend a great deal of time breeding more potent and pure strains of marijuana”.</p>
<p>You are wrong. It is commonly accepted that THC levels are dramatically higher in pot today, particularly when it is grown here. Not only have I heard this from many professionals in the addiction field, including medical doctors (who I am more inclined to believe than an undergrad), but I have also heard it from people who smoke weed today AND smoked weed 25 years ago (and find today’s version REMARKABLY more potent).</p>
<p>1of42: “Cut with heroin or cocaine? Are you serious? Do you understand what a ridiculous assertion that is? Cocaine and heroin are both white powders. You can’t “cut” a plant with a powder. Cutting refers to the process of scamming buyers buy impurifying the product, creating a lower-concentration drug. This is done with cocaine and other powdered drugs widely, since to the eye baking soda, for example, is indistinguishable from coke. But it doesn’t work with marijuana - seriously, you think no one’s going to notice white powder all of their weed? Give me a break…More importantly, cutting is used to decrease the per-unit worth of a drug, and thus make the dealer higher profits. Cutting marijuana with heroin or coke, both of which are far more expensive, makes absolutely no sense. None.”</p>
<p>Well, I am relieved to see that you do not know a lot about cocaine and heroin, about their street costs, and about the various forms they can take.</p>