Three years ago, I hit legal drinking age.
Being posted in Poland, this was one thing that I, and many other young Americans who live there, had to look forward to. Being able to legally get a drink with teachers after graduation or being able to buy alcohol were things we certainly took advantage of during our senior year.
The only downside would have to be the change when I came back to the States. After having such freedom, I found drinking age here more backward than some of my friends.
Now, three years later, I’m hitting legal age again.
After this weekend, something in me will be drastically changed, and it will be safe for me to purchase and consume alcohol. At least this is how the law makes it seem, but I guess it would be the case for most drinking-age laws.
However ridiculous these drinking-age laws, they are not without their place. We don’t have the public transport to make a lower drinking age reasonable.
In a country as large as ours, with such a heavy reliance on cars, there will be kids who drive drunk. In Poland, there were a myriad of ways we could get around when we could hardly even walk — by bus, cab or metro.
It wasn’t hard to get home.
So before we push for a lower drinking age, transportation is something we need to address.
But there are other drinking laws in the U.S. that are more ridiculous, like “dry county” laws, which prevent or limit stores from alcohol sales.
The laws vary from state to state and from county to county, making it an absolute mess to figure out.
Because many of these laws still allow people to drink, they seem pointless. Existing primarily in the South, the laws stem from religious backgrounds, which in itself is problematic.
I find nothing wrong with someone having religious motivation to abstain from alcohol, but community-wide ordinances are insulting. Inconveniencing people based on your beliefs is not the way to get people to warm up to you.
Thankfully, though, these laws may not be around for much longer.
Georgia, which had previously prohibited Sunday sales of alcohol, recently voted overwhelmingly to change said law. With 81 percent of voters in support, it’s hard to argue this was an unwanted change.
With Georgia’s dry laws now gone, there are still states that remain dry based on morality with laws called “blue laws.” One such state, not surprisingly, is Utah.
Despite the separation of church and state in our country, states like Utah blur the already fuzzy lines between the two.
How else could one explain the ludicrous alcohol laws based in that state?
For instance, Utah has restrictions on the sale hours of alcohol. Booze can only be sold by state-run stores and only between the hours of 10 a.m. and 1 a.m., at least if you want anything other than beer with less than 4 percent alcohol content.
While this does translate to increased state revenue, and I have nothing against sin taxes and the like, it causes too much inconvenience for most people and only exists due to religious customs.
When I look at it, we have it pretty easy here in Louisiana. While we cannot buy alcohol before noon on Sunday, at least it’s not the whole day.
We may like to complain about the drinking age being 21 but we could have to deal with worse alcohol laws. It might seem a while away for those of you a few years off from legality, but time really does fly.
As someone who’s finally hitting the legal use for the second time, I can say the wait isn’t too bad.
Zachary Davis is a 20-year-old history junior from Warsaw, Poland. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_zdavis.