Festivals and fraternities–the life source of the average college-bound American teenager–hounded the first family as Malia Obama challenged the roles of acceptable teenage behavior.

President Barack Obama’s 18-year-old daughter graduated from the prestigious Sidwell Friends School earlier this year and unexpectedly decided to take a gap year before attending Harvard. In recent months, Malia’s achievements have been overshadowed by a slew of leaks depicting the recent graduate playing beer pong and smoking at festivals.

In July, Malia skipped the Democratic National Convention to enjoy numerous artists and setlists at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago. Concert-goers photographed and filmed Malia dancing against the tide of crowds–her secret service in tow. Unfortunately, the extra security couldn’t stop the national spotlight from pointing directly at the teen, after cameras caught her allegedly smoking pot and twerking during the concert lineup.

Radar Online released the viral snapshot and in minutes, numerous online outlets exploded criticizing the partying teen’s behavior.

Twitter users strongly opposed online outlets overanalyzing Malia’s actions, and the children of politicians followed suit by showing support. Meghan McCain, daughter of U.S. Sen. John McCain, lashed out against the media for its portrayal of the teen with a tweet reading: “leave Malia Obama alone!”

.@connortryan @PageSix leave Malia Obama alone!

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) August 10, 2016

If Malia was in fact smoking marijuana, her behavior wouldn’t be atypical. In fact, one in every 17 college students is smoking marijuana on a daily or near-daily basis, defined as use on 20 or more occasions in the prior 30 days, according to a 2015 study from the University of Michigan.

“It’s clear that for the past seven or eight years there has been an increase in marijuana use among the nation’s college students,” said Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator of the study.

Malia’s alleged marijuana use isn’t the only thing she’s been criticized for. She once again made headlines after a snapchat depicting her playing beer pong at a party in Maryland on August 23 surfaced. The picture released by the Daily Mail shows Malia surrounded by a patriotic table covered in red, white, and blue confetti and a sprawl of Bud Light and Miller Lights cans. The infamous red solo cup was also fully present.

The president’s daughter helps contribute to the number of students her age who drink underage. A Villanova study shows, nationally, about 80 percent of college students consume alcohol. 

This is not the first time presidential kids and the children of candidates have made headlines due to their antics–from Bristol Palin’s teenage pregnancy out of wedlock to George W. Bush’s 19-year-old twins Barbara and Jenna underage drinking in Texas–and it surely won’t be the last.

The White House has opted to remain silent in the wake of the media firestorm surrounding Malia. The eldest Obama daughter, however, subtly responded to her critics at Philadelphia’s Labor Day weekend Made In America Music Festival. Malia was caught sporting a Harvard cap and a tee with the befitting hand-written words “Smoking Kills” scrawled across.

Bryan White

Bryan is an editorial intern at Law Street Media from Stratford, NJ. He is a sophomore at American University, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism. When he is not reading up on the news, you can find him curled up with an iced chai and a good book. Contact Bryan at BWhite@LawStreetMedia.com.

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There’s a new product floating around that is threatening to be a big game-changer for the alcohol industry. It’s called “Palcohol” and it’s powdered alcohol. Since the idea of powdered alcohol began being floated around, regulators have been worried about its potential for abuse–despite that Palcohol just received federal approval this week.

Read more: Schumer’s Crusades Against Weird Alcohol Help Build His War Chest

Palcohol is a patented product, so exactly how it works is proprietary to the company that owns it, Lipsmark, but essentially powdered alcohol is a lot like powdered milk. You have to add water to make it liquid again. In Palcohol’s case, a one ounce package needs to be mixed with six ounces of water. That one ounce ends up equivalent to a shot. Palcohol will be sold in five “flavors”–vodka, rum, cosmopolitan, powderita (a riff on margarita), and lemon drop. Now that the product has been approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, we should expect to see “Palcohol” on our shelves sometime within the next few months.

Advocates for Palcohol cite its convenience, and how easy it will be to transport. Palcohol’s site uses its founder, Mark Phillips, as an example:

Mark is an active guy…hiking, biking, camping, kayaking, etc. After hours of an activity, he sometimes wanted to relax and enjoy a refreshing adult beverage. But those activities, and many others, don’t lend themselves to lugging heavy bottles of wine, beer or spirits. The only liquid he wanted to carry was water.

Palcohol also might have pretty cool future uses besides just a convenient, light way to throw one back. For example, it could be used as an antiseptic, particularly because of how lightweight the pouches will be.

However, there are many who are worried about Palcohol. First of all, because of Palcohol’s smaller size and weight, it would probably be easier for underage drinkers to sneak somewhere–whether that be into an event or just concealed within their own home. In that vein, not only could it be easier for underage drinkers to utilize, it could be rendered particularly potent. Technically Palcohol could be mixed with any sort of liquid to create a drink. So, if you really wanted, you could mix it with another type of alcohol to make a very strong drink. There’s also a concern that it could be used in food, whether to get drunk yourself or to spike someone else.

This is probably a pretty legitimate concern as, to be fair, teens aren’t always exemplary when it comes to making smart decisions with regard to alcohol consumption. Remember Four Loko? The caffeinated adult beverage was thought to be responsible for quite a few college and high school binge drinking injuries.

One of the more high-profile figures to come forward with concerns about Palcohol was Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who included in a statement:

I am in total disbelief that our federal government has approved such an obviously dangerous product, and so, Congress must take matters into its own hands and make powdered alcohol illegal. Underage alcohol abuse is a growing epidemic with tragic consequences and powdered alcohol could exacerbate this. We simply can’t sit back and wait for powdered alcohol to hit store shelves across the country, potentially causing more alcohol-related hospitalizations and God forbid, deaths. This legislation will make illegal the production and sale of this Kool-Aid for underage drinking.

While many new products have the potential to be abused, drinking fads also tend to die out pretty quickly. Yet all of these concerns aside, the federal government did give Palcohol the go-ahead, so we’ll probably see it on shelves eventually. Changes for the alcohol industry are ahead, that’s for certain.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The National Minimum Drinking Age Act, passed in 1984, is turning 30 this year. The law, meant to curb teen drunk driving, has been the topic of debate since it was passed. Read on to learn more about what inspired the law, whether or not it works, and a few unintended consequences.

What is the National Minimum Drinking Age Act

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 set the drinking age of every state at 21.

Well, not exactly– congress is not allowed to tell states that they have to make their drinking age a certain number. However, Congress does have power to control spending, including the allocations of funds to states. That’s why this act threatened to cut ten percent of federal highway funding to any state that did not change their drinking age to 21. By 1988, every state had changed their drinking age to 21.

Critics of the law had two main arguments. Some complained that the law was was an intrusion on states’ rights. Others argued that it was not fair that the federal government could call 18 year olds adults when they fight for their country, but not when they want a beer.

Watch the late Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), author of the National Minimum Wage Drinking Age Act Late, respond to these criticisms on PBS NewsHour.

Why was it passed?

This bill was the end result of a massive campaign by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to lower the drinking age.

MADD was started in 1980 by Candy Lightner when her daughter was killed by a repeat drunk driver. The group aggressively lobbied President Reagan and Congress to combat the issue of drunk driving, in part by increasing the drinking age to 21. The problem, in MADD’s eyes, had started a decade earlier. In the 1970s, as a result of the Vietnam War drafting 18-year-olds, some states decided to lower their drinking ages to 18. It only seemed fair; if you could be forced to fight, you should be allowed to drink. However, this led to a sharp spike in drunk driving fatalities.

One major cause was the phenomenon of “blood borders.” These were the borders between states with high drinking ages and states with low drinking ages. Historically, 18 years olds would drive to neighboring states to drink, then while driving back, crash and die. The hope was that raising the drinking age to 21 would lower drunk driving rates.

Has it worked?

Sort of — a Boston University study has shown that, since the drinking age was raised, there have been significantly fewer drunk driving accidents, and a strong majority, 89 percent, of drunk drivers today are between the ages of 21 and 44.

But, lower drunk driving rates are not just limited to those who are banned from drinking. Drunk driving in general has reduced across almost every age group.

Courtesy of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

As you can see, the most dramatic drop was in the 21-29 age group. The minimum drinking age did not impact them. Admittedly, there was also a notable drop in the 16-20 age group.

This decrease in drunk driving rates for all ages could still be the result of a lower drinking age if young people had stopped drinking. However, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), 39 percent of high school students still say they drink. The statistics from the National Institute of Health are even more eye-opening. It states 72 percent of 12 graders have tried alcohol and 85 percent of college students drink, even though they are not 21.

So, if young people are still drinking, why did drunk driving decrease so dramatically? Choose Responsibly, an organization that sparks debate about alcohol laws and supports lowering the drinking age, argues that a mix of seatbelt laws, a lower legal BAC, and public awareness all explain the drop in drunk driving fatalities. They also argue that the drop in alcohol-related fatalities actually started in the 1970s, well before the drinking age was raised to 21.

Have there been any unintended consequences?

Different sources have come to different conclusions. While some say that the higher drinking age has definitely saved lives, others argue that unintended consequences have led to a binge drinking crisis.

According to the earlier mentioned NIH report, “underage drinkers consume, on average, four to five drinks per occasion about five times a month. By comparison, drinkers age 26 and older consume two to three drinks per occasion, about nine times a month.” So, while an adult might have a couple glasses of wine a few times a week, a young person will instead have double that amount once a week. Young people are drinking more alcohol in a shorter timeframe.

Watch this clip to learn about why this trend is so dangerous:

Binge drinking can also indirectly cause dangerous behavior in college students. This includes violence, unprotected sex, and even sexual assault. Choose Responsibly argues that this is a consequence of a high drinking age. If these young people were allowed to drink with adult supervision, they would learn how to drink safely and responsibly. Since drinking is illegal, they have been pushed into the shadows. It’s a lot easier to get dangerously drunk in your friend’s basement than it is at a bar.

The binge drinking trend has led some to call for a repeal, or at least a discussion, of the minimum drinking age. A 137 college presidents are signatories on a statement from the Amethyst Initiative, a group dedicated to lowering the drinking age. The presidents argue that they have seen the negative impact of a high drinking age on their own campuses, including high amount of binge drinking amongst their students.

On this point, the presidents are wrong and right. For one, Americans are binge drinking less than they used to as a whole. However, college students are the only group of Americans that are binge drinking as much as they used to. With this in mind, it makes sense the college presidents would be so concerned about this issue. Their point of view is shaped by their experience with a group that represents an outlier in drinking attitudes nationwide. College students are still binge drinking at higher rates than the rest of the country, but raising the drinking age to 21 seems to have lowered the amount of binge drinking amongst young people who are not in college.

Still, Amethyst presidents are concerned about a culture where college drinkers move from bars, where someone can cut them off, to basements and pre-games that are unregulated and unchecked.

Signatories to the Amethyst Initiative have other reasons to lower the drinking age, mostly philosophical. For one, they believe that forcing young people to drink in secret and violate the law fosters a disrespect for all laws. They also believe that a person who can vote, smoke, marry, and fight for their country should be given all of the responsibilities of adulthood, including drinking.

Conclusion

It’s been 30 years since the National Minimum Drinking Age Act became a law, and it is still hard to measure the act’s impact. It’s difficult to tell how many lives it saved from drunk driving accidents because there are so many other factors. It’s also challenging to figure out if it has really curbed underage and binge drinking. More research needs to be done on the issue before the act can be defined as a success or failure.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Congress: The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984

Additional

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Impaired Driving: Get the Facts

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism: Epidemiology and Consequences of Drinking and Driving

Mothers Against Drunk Driving: No More Victims

Fox News: When Drunk Driving Deterrence Becomes Neo-Prohibition

Mental Floss: Why is the Drinking Age 21?

CNN: Drinking Age of 21 Does Not Work

Amethyst Initative: Rethink the Drinking Age

Washington Post: Drinking Age Paradox

Washington University in St. Louis: Higher Drinking Age Linked to Less Binge Drinking…Except in College Students

Boston University: New Report on Minimum Drinking Age Makes Strong Case for Existing Laws

National Institutes of Health: Underage Drinking Fact Sheet

Choose Responibility: Those Who Choose to Drink Are Drinking More

Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Binge Drinking Fact Sheet

Eric Essagof

Eric Essagof attended The George Washington University majoring in Political Science. He writes about how decisions made in DC impact the rest of the country. He is a Twitter addict, hip-hop fan, and intramural sports referee in his spare time. Contact Eric at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Turn Down for What: Does the Minimum Drinking Age Act Work? appeared first on Law Street.

College students are kind of stupid. As this groundbreaking and Pulitzer worthy (LOL, just kidding) Fox News piece showed us recently, they like to get drunk and high and occasionally both.

Because, you know, Spring Break is a new thing. No one has ever done this exact piece before. Never.

And apparently we are constantly finding new ways to get messed up. Every couple years there are new, crazy trends to get all screwed up. Now these trends that media outlets inevitably have a mental breakdown over are rarely legitimate or widespread. Instead, they tend to be the product of one or two weird and unfortunate hospitalizations or arrests.

One recent particularly disturbing/amusing/curious trend is “butt chugging.” For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s exactly what it sounds like. This is much too civilized of a forum for me to go into too much depth, but if you’d like more information, you can read an account of some brave soul attempting butt chugging here. A kid at University of Tennessee was hospitalized with a BAC of .4 after supposedly butt chugging at a Pi Kappa Alpha party. The frat was eventually suspended from campus. If you need a quick laugh, please watch the press conference their lawyer held. It’s hilarious. This poor man with a law degree had to say the word butt chug about 398792 times.

In a similar vein, apparently vodka tampons are a thing. I will not describe the process of this trend, because again, I would assume it’s self-explanatory. Again, also probably not a widespread trend, but it’s still something for our concerned news outlets to get their panties in a proverbial bunch about.

And most recently, teens are apparently smoking coffee, although why anyone would demean my beautiful and vivacious friend coffee that way is unknown. Here’s a first hand account of someone trying it. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t go well because smoking coffee is incredibly stupid.

OK, so some Americans, particularly some young Americans, are incredibly stupid. They make reckless decisions and experiment with dangerous ways to do drugs and drink alcohol. OK. But my question is, does this happen in other countries? Because here’s my logic — you would think this happens in the countries that are similar to us. Canada, right? The UK? Australia? France? Spain? Anywhere?? Does anyone else butt chug?

From what I can tell the answer is no. Now don’t get me wrong, European kids party. They party hard, probably harder in some cases. But they don’t appear to butt chug, or use vodka tampons, or smoke coffee grounds — maybe because they have more respect for the glorious caffeinated mecca that is coffee.

Brb, Starbucks run.

So why are we so stupid? Well, there are a few possible reasons. Let’s start with the least probable.

Possibility #1: We’re dumber than kids in other countries. 

I highly doubt that this could be true. The United States has only been around a couple of centuries, and we’re a melting pot. I don’t think there’s any sort of gene, or lack thereof, that makes American kids look at a beer and say, hey, maybe I’ll shove that up my ass in an attempt to get drunk more quickly.

And if that is the case, Americans are going extinct anyway, so this article is for naught.

Possibility #2: The American culture of consumption. 

As Americans, we consume things. A lot. We are 5 percent of the world’s population, but use 24 percent of its energy. On average, Americans have larger house sizes than Europeans by quite a bit — we average about 2,300 sq. ft.; the French are at about 1,216 sq. ft.; and British houses average 818 sq. ft. We also consume a lot more food than our European friends. In general, we have a culture of consumption in the United States, that isn’t absent from other countries, but is certainly not quite as pervasive.

And that culture of consumption kind of tells that moderation is bad. Think back to that Fox News “expose” on Spring Break goers. Those kids were unabashedly telling the camera that they wanted to get as messed up as physically possible. They were drinking cheap alcohol, obviously not for the taste, but for the pure and unadulterated purpose of getting hammered. They were consuming to excess, because that’s the culture of those Spring Break trips.

But that still doesn’t answer my question. Why does this happen here, but not evidently, other places? I mean obviously Europe has Ibiza, and giant music festivals, but in searching, I can’t find a single example of butt chugging, or vodka tampons, or anything else that ridiculous. I also can’t seem to find any concerned media exposes on young drinking culture.

And that brings to me to my most likely theory:

Possibility #3: It’s a product of the US drinking age. 

Anyone who’s been to Europe can see that drinking is, for the most part, a facet of the culture. Depending on where you are, having a beer or glass of wine with dinner is not uncommon, even if you’re a teen. Teens are eased into it, and allowed to test their limits. Unlike in the US, there’s no awkward period of time between 18-21 when you’re a full adult in every way, except for the ability to order a glass of wine with dinner. Drinking isn’t treated like some secret exclusive club.

I think that’s why ridiculously stupid things like butt chugging happen. Drinking underage in the US emphasizes getting drunk as cheaply and quickly as possible, because there are limited resources. If an underage kid is going to a bar and wants to drink, they know that they will have no access to alcohol there, so they take as many shots as physically possible before going to make sure that they’ll be on the same level as others. There’s no emphasis on learning what you actually enjoy, or learning limits.

Now there is danger in lowering the drinking age, of course. But I think the issue we have is one that resides in the murky intersection between law and culture. Our culture teaches us to consume as much as possible, but our law restricts said consumption until a seemingly arbitrary birthday. I think there’s value in the European approach.

So next time you meet a European, please ask, “Have you ever butt chugged?” I bet you 5 bucks they’ll just look at you like a crazy person, and probably file a restraining order.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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After a young woman in North Andover, Massachusetts named Erin Cox was punished for picking up an intoxicated friend from a party, her story is receiving national attention. Formerly the varsity volleyball captain, she has been stripped of her captainship and suspended for five games.

The story of what happened that night shows that Cox is a strong, independent, and compassionate young woman. On a weekend evening early in October, she received a text from a friend who was at a party and intoxicated. Being a good friend, Cox decided to go pick her up. However she arrived there at the same time as the police, who had come to break up the rowdy underage party. About a dozen students were arrested, and another dozen or so were warned that they could be summoned to court for drinking underage.

Cox was one of the students who received that warning, despite the fact that she had just arrived and had not been drinking. In fact, a police officer at the scene who performed sobriety tests vouched for Cox’s claim that she had not had even a sip of alcohol.

Cox explained in an interview with the Boston Herald that she truly felt as though she was doing the right thing. “But I wasn’t drinking,” she told me. “And I felt like going to get her was the right thing to do. Saving her from getting in the car when she was intoxicated and hurt herself or getting in the car with someone else who was drinking. I’d give her a ride home.”

After the police reported the party break-up to the school, many students faced various punishments for breaking the school’s zero tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol. Cox was one of them. The school has claimed that simply because she was at the party when the police arrived, regardless of her purpose or sobriety, that she was in the wrong. They also claim that being a student athlete, moreover a student athlete with a leadership position, is a privilege that can be revoked for inappropriate behavior. Cox’s family is standing behind her, stating that they’re proud of their daughter’s attempt to be a good friend and responsible young adult. Her mother attempted to sue the school district, but was told that the district court did not have the appropriate jurisdiction. They are now expected to move onto a federal claim.

I have a few different issues with the punishment of Erin Cox. First, this sends a horrible message to students. Seniors in high school are taught to weight their worth on what they plan on doing after graduation. For some, the attempt to get into a college of their choice becomes all-consuming. The message that North Andover High School sent to its students preached selfishness—essentially Cox’s punishment indicated that helping your friends is not worth it because it may get you in trouble. That’s not the lesson that young people should be learning as they go out into college or the real world. High school isn’t just about algebra and AP Tests; it’s about teaching you how to be a decent human being. Furthermore, the school implicitly told Cox that she should have let her friend drive drunk, or get into a car with someone who had been drinking. Did that friend make a mistake? Yes. Did that mean she was unworthy of Cox’s help? Absolutely not.

This news story reminded me of another instance in which young high school athletes were present at a crazy, unruly party rife with underage drinking. The Steubenville case took the nation by storm, and raised important questions about appropriate behavior in teens. But Cox’s story is the flipside.

Let’s compare the two situations: Here, a young woman in Massachusetts who serves as the captain of her volleyball team is caught by the police, sober, picking up a drunk friend from a party. Her captain title is stripped, and she is suspended for five games. In Steubenville, two young men who are on the football team in non-leadership capacities are drunken underage at a party and sexually assault another teenager. Multiple partygoers take pictures, talk about the incident on social media, and harass this young woman. As recent grand jury indictments show, the high school these young men attend help them cover up the whole thing.

Now my comparison probably falls into the category of apples and oranges, but it is fair to ask: why the enormous disparity in the way these two incidents were treated? I’m not sure. It could be because of different policies at the schools. It could be because high school volleyball in Massachusetts is probably lucky to draw a 10^th of the crowd as high school football in Ohio. It could be because Ma’Lik Richmond and Trent Mays were young men, but Erin Cox was a young woman. There are any number of reasons to explain why these two stories are so divergent, but none of them are particularly comforting. High schools are supposed to teach their students to be adults who are capable of acting appropriately, making good decisions, and determining right from wrong. Then these institutions of education are supposed to hold their students accountable to these standards. In my book, Stuebenville and North Andover, different as the cases may be, both failed.

[Huffington Post]

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Featured image courtesy of [bankbryan via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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