The Law Of Eristic Escalation Revisited (Re-post)

Or, "Politics In One Lesson"

There is an eternal law of nature that at once explains just about everything, and even makes politics possible to finally understand. It is called The Law of Eristic Escalation:

Imposition of Order = Escalation of Chaos

By that, it pertains to any arbitrary or coercive imposition of order, which at least in the long run, actually causes disorder (chaos) to escalate.  Fenderson's Amendment further adds that "the tighter the order in question is maintained, the longer the consequent chaos takes to escalate, BUT the more it does when it does."  Finally, the Thudthwacker Addendum still further adds that this relationship is nonlinear, thus rendering the resulting escalation of chaos completely unpredictable in terms of the original imposition of order.

We see the real world consequences of this in everything from Prohibition to the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs to zero tolerance policies to Covid lockdowns to sexual repression and so much more.  And, of course, especially in the ageist abomination that is the 21 drinking age.  Any short-term benefits that these arbitrary and coercive impositions of order may provide is entirely outweighed when they inevitably backfire in the long run.  Miron and Tetelbaum (2009), Asch and Levy (1987 and 1990), and Males (1986) illustrate this very nicely in the case of the 21 drinking age.

Perhaps that is why most bans on various things have historically had a track record that is quite lackluster at best.  Ironically, bans tend to give more power to the very things that they seek to ban.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, you finally understand politics.

P.S.  The Dutch seem to understand this better.  They even have a proverb:  "when you permit, you control", which is the antithesis of the American proverb, "when you permit, you promote".  Carl Jung would also likely have a field day with that as well.

It Bears Repeating: Vices Are NOT Crimes

One of the most important timeless lessons learned, then forgotten, then learned again, then forgotten again, and so on, is Lysander Spooner's famous maxim that "vices are not crimes".  And to forget this crucial distinction, is to ultimately lead to numerous evils, from 1) amoralism and nihilism on the one hand, and 2) the most egregiously tyrannical abuses and overreach of government power (from things like Prohibition, the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs, the 21 drinking age, tobacco bans, media censorship, restrictions on sexual activities between consenting adults, etc. all the way to slavery, eugenics, and sometimes even full-blown genocide) on the other, typically disguised as either protecting the nation's "moral fiber", and/or "progressive" social engineering for the "greater good".  In truth, it is anything but moral or progressive.  Thus, individual rights must be inalienable, and the government should never stray from its original mission of protecting life, liberty, and property.  Once the natural right to self-ownership becomes usurped by the state, the very foundation for individual rights ceases to exist, and of course that invites all kinds of trouble, as history has so painfully shown time and again.

To quote Spooner, from his Vices Are Not Crimes; A Vindication of Moral Liberty (1875):

"Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another…In vices, the very essence of crime—that is, the design to injure the person or property of another—is wanting." 

"Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be…no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property." 

"If these questions…are not to be left free and open for experiment by all, each person is deprived of the highest of all his rights as a human being, to wit: his right to…ascertain for himself, what is, to him, virtue, and what is, to him, vice…If this great right is not to be left free and open to all, then each man’s whole right, as a reasoning human being, to 'liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' is denied him." 

"What man, or what body of men, has the right to say, in regard to any particular action, or course of action, 'We have tried this experiment, and determined every question involved in it…not only for ourselves, but for all…And, as to all those who are weaker than we, we will coerce them to act in obedience to our conclusion?'" 

"[A] government, formed by voluntary association, would never have been thought of, if the object proposed had been the punishment of all vices…nobody…would voluntarily submit to it. But a government, formed by voluntary association, for the punishment of all crimes is a reasonable matter; because everybody wants protection for himself against all crimes by others." 

"It is a natural impossibility that a government should have a right to punish men for their vices; because it is impossible that a government should have any rights, except such as the individuals composing it had previously had, as individuals. They could not delegate to a government any rights which they did not themselves possess." 

"Nobody but a fool or an impostor pretends that he, as an individual, has a right to punish other men for their vices. But…everybody has a natural right…to defend his own person and property against aggressors…And government has no rightful existence, except in so far as it embodies, and is limited by, this natural right of individuals...It is only those who claim that government has some rightful power, which no individual or individuals ever did, or could, delegate to it, that claim that government has any rightful power to punish vices." 

"To punish men for their vices…is a sheer and utter absurdity for any government claiming to derive its power wholly from the grant of the governed…because it would be granting away their own right to seek their own happiness." 

"Everybody wishes to be protected, in his person and property, against the aggressions of other men. But nobody wishes to be protected… against himself…He only wishes to promote his own happiness, and to be his own judge as to what will promote, and does promote, his own happiness." 

"The object aimed at in the punishment of crimes is to secure, to each and every man alike, the fullest liberty he possibly can have—consistently with the equal rights of others—to pursue his own happiness, under the guidance of his own judgment, and by the use of his own property…the object aimed at in the punishment of vices is to deprive every man of his natural right and liberty to pursue his own happiness, under the guidance of his own judgment, and by the use of his own property."

"[People]…must be permitted to control themselves and their property… each man’s life is his own."

We ignore such sound advice at our own peril.

And we know that the late Peter McWilliams, author of Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do:  The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Society (1996), would certainly agree with Spooner 100%.

And to avoid any weaseling, dilution, or vitiation, via subjectivism, relativism, and/or denial of agency, of Spooner's (and McWilliams') basic maxim, we should clarify that only acts that objectively harm the person or property of nonconsenting others should be considered crimes in a free society. 

People will undoubtedly ask, so what about children, or young persons below the legal age of majority?  Well, as John Stuart Mill had famously noted, such a maxim would not apply directly to them, at least insofar as consent is concerned.  But even then, to impose criminal penalties on the children or young people themselves (as opposed to the adults involved) for acts that are otherwise legal for adults while simultaneously denying them any agency to consent to such acts is the very height of hypocrisy.  And regardless, whatever age we set as the age of majority, for anyone above that age the maxim would apply completely, full stop.  In other words, in a free society, once you are an adult, you are an adult.  That is something most of the world understands.

(Note that most countries currently set that age at 18, and some set it even lower than that.  And only a few radical outliers like the USA currently set any significant age limits higher.)

Also, as Emile Durkheim famously said, "When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable".  From another angle, that is a good argument against the other side's specious claim that our society is currently somehow too immoral, weak, fractured, spoiled, undisciplined, individualistic, heterogeneous, or whatever to trust people with personal liberty and bodily autonomy.

As for the unholy trinity of collective action problems, the prevention paradox, and the (strong) precautionary principle, well, those all dovetail with begging the question and other logical fallacies, and as we have seen, slopes are much slipperier than they appear.  If you give the prohibitionists and control freaks enough rope...

And finally, there is that classic Pigouvian argument from externalities.  The best response to that is that it is literally impossible for humans to exist at all without imposing both positive and negative externalities on others to one degree or another.  And to live in any society worthy of the name, we all must tolerate some inevitable baseline level of externalities.  "No man or woman is an island" kinda cuts both ways, after all.  So arbitrarily designating select vices as crimes is both over- and under-inclusive.  And externalities are generally better dealt with via education, persuasion, and mutual consent, or failing that, via targeted Pigouvian taxes and subsidies.  Prohibition is far too blunt an instrument to deal with most externalities, and typically does far more harm than good in practice. 

How To Solve The Big Tech Problem Without Violating Anyone's Rights

"Big Tech is the new Big Tobacco" is often bandied about these days.  And while that has a kernel of truth to it (a kernel the size of a cornfield, in fact), it is also used by authoritarian zealots with a very illiberal (and ageist) agenda.  Mandatory age verification, censorship, repealing Section 230, and other related illiberal restrictions would open up the door to many unintended consequences to privacy, cybersecurity, and civil rights and liberties in general.  Even those adults who don't support youth rights will eventually experience these consequences sooner or later.  Kafka, meet trap.  Pandora, meet box.  Albatross, meet neck.

And none of these things will actually solve the collective action problem of Big Tech and the "Social Dilemma".  But here are some things that will, in descending order of priority and effectiveness:

1. First and foremost, take a "Privacy First" approach as recommended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  Pass comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages that, at a minimum, would ban surveillance advertising.
2. Audit the algorithms and internal research of the Big Tech giants, and make the results publicly available for all to see.  Sunlight is truly the best disinfectant. 
3. Require the strictest and safest privacy settings to be the default settings for all users of all ages, which can then be adjusted more liberally by the users themselves.  For example, "friends only" sharing and "no DMs enabled from people whom one does not follow" by default.  And allow the option to turn off all DMs completely as well.
4. Require or incentivize the use of various "architectural" safety features on all social media, such as various nudges, #OneClickSafer ("stop at two hops") to reduce the pitfalls of frictionless sharing, and increase the use of CAPTCHAs to root out the pervasive toxic bots.
5. If after doing that, We the People feel that we must still get stricter in terms of age, then don't make things any stricter than current California standards (i.e. CCPA and CAADCA).

The first two items on the list in particular would of course be vehemently opposed by Big Tech.  That's because their whole business model depends on creepy surveillance advertising and creepy algorithms, and thus incentivizing addiction for profit.  They would thus have to switch to the (gasp!) DuckDuckGo model if these items were done.  (Plays world's smallest violin)

For another, related collective action problem, what about the emerging idea of phone-free schools?  Fine, but to be fair, how about phone-free workplaces for all ages as well?  In both cases, it should ONLY apply while "on the clock", which for school would be best defined as being from the opening bell to the final bell of the day, as well as during any after-school detention time.  And of course, in both cases, there would have to be medical exemptions for students and employees who need such devices for real-time medical monitoring (glucose for diabetes, for example).  Surely productivity would increase so much as a result that we could easily shorten the standard workweek to 30-32 hours per week (8 hours for 4 days, or 6 hours for 5 days) with no loss in profits? 

We must remember that, at the end of the day, Big Tech is NOT our friend.  But neither are the illiberal control freak zealots.  These measures will actually make both sides quite angry indeed.  But truly that's a feature, not a bug.

Big Tech can go EFF off!

America Is Still Drowning In The Bottle

Americans are still drowning in the bottle to this day.  While the pandemic and especially the lockdowns were gasoline on the fire, that fire has been burning for a very long time before that.  The ageist abomination that is 21 drinking age, and all of its illiberal ancillary laws, has clearly done NOTHING to stem that tide in the long run.  And it's truly no coincidence that alcohol (of all types, but especially hard liquor) is now the cheapest it has been in many, many decades relative to inflation and (especially) income.  That's largely because alcohol taxes have greatly lagged behind and were thus eroded by inflation in recent decades, with the tax on distilled spirits lagging the most of all.

Thus, as Twenty-One Debunked has long advocated, we need to raise the alcohol taxes across the board, and harmonize them all based on alcohol content.  To raise just the beer tax alone, for example, would result in drinkers simply switching to liquor, similar to how minimum unit pricing in Scotland disproportionately affected strong cider and perversely incentivized switching to liquor.  MADD has long heavily beaten the drum (though not so much recently) for raising the beer tax, but has also largely been strangely silent on the distilled spirits tax.  Perhaps some alleged palm-greasing from both the liquor industry and/or foreign beer industry may be at work here?  Things that (should) make you go, hmmmm.....

We advocate raising all federal alcohol taxes to about $30 per proof-gallon, equal to the inflation-adjusted value for the distilled spirits tax in 1991, the last time it was raised. That would add anywhere between one and two dollars (depending on alcohol content), to the price of a six-pack of beer, a gallon of wine, or a fifth of liquor, while also incentivizing reduced-alcohol beers and wines.  And while that may not be very much of a difference to a moderate drinker, for heavy drinkers it sure adds up, as it also does for the youngest drinkers as well.  And contrary to what some believe, the price elasticity of demand for alcohol is NOT zero or trivial, and the public health benefits of higher alcohol taxes and prices are well-known and established.

To sweeten the deal, we support a relatively reduced tax rate for the smallest producers, and we also support tax incentives for producers who fortify their beverages with thiamine (vitamin B1) and perhaps other vitamins as well.  And we would also support phasing in alcohol tax hikes a bit more gradually if that is the only way to get them passed.  But raise these taxes, we must.

(And, of course, we also also lower the drinking age to 18 yesterday, full stop.  We are still Twenty-One Debunked, after all.)

It is true that Thomas Jefferson once famously said, "no nation is drunken where wine is cheap".  Granted.  But the second half of that very same quote was, "and none sober when the dearness [expensiveness] of wine substitutes ardent [distilled] spirits as the common beverage.  It is, in truth, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey."  And now in 2024, it would seem that ALL categories of alcoholic beverages are too cheap for America's own good, and a fortiori for ardent (distilled) spirits today.

What Will Come Of 2024?

Happy New Year, everyone!  What will 2024 bring in regards to youth rights and drug and alcohol policy?  2023 was generally not great in that regard, especially in the Anglosphere overall, although New Zealand surprisingly seems to have wised up a bit in regards to tobacco policy.  What do you think will happen in 2024, everyone?

Science Finally Shows When (Cognitive) Adulthood Begins

No, this is NOT the usual "teen brain" junk science that we have quite frankly gotten tired of debunking.  This is the real deal, so listen up and pay very close attention. 

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh recently published a new, large, and groundbreaking study in Nature Communications that examined nearly two dozen laboratory measures of "executive function" of a whopping 10,000 participants (ages 8 through 35) across four different datasets.  And the results dovetail nicely with what we at Twenty-One Debunked have been generally saying all along, and we quote (emphasis added):

"The resulting analysis showed a common dynamic of executive function maturation that was shared between both sexes: a rapid burst of executive function development in late childhood to mid-adolescence (10-15 years old), followed by small but significant changes through mid-adolescence (15-18) that stabilized to adult-level performance by late adolescence (18-20)."

"Other important behavioral factors that complement executive function, such as the ability to control one's own emotions, can change with age. The ability to use executive function reliably improves with age and, at least in a laboratory setting, matures by 18 years of age."

In other words, 18-20 year olds are in fact adults, not only biologically, but also neurologically and cognitively as well.  And the data show that even 15-17 year olds are actually pretty darn close as well.  Thus, there is really no scientific reason to set the age of majority (or any related age limit for that matter) any higher than 18, period.  In fact, one can even justify setting some age limits a bit lower than that based on this research (after all, it's not binary like flicking a light switch, but rather a gradual process).

So why have so many other, flashier studies seemed to have suggested otherwise?  Well, the brain technically does continue developing to some extent well beyond 18, of course, but that apparent development has been known for over a decade now to continue well into the 30s, 40s, and likely even beyond that as well.  Clearly, any development that does occur from 18 to 21 or 25 is on the very same spectrum as the development that continues beyond that as well.  A brain that continues to change and develop throughout life does not lend itself to simplistic explanations of a magical age of neurological adulthood based on its superficial appearance on a brain scan.  Rather, the real question becomes when the brain is no longer developing on a critical or fundamental level, and when one can achieve an adult level cognitive capacity and performance.  And the University of Pittsburgh study above answers that question far better than just about any other study has so far to date.

So basically, we as a society have three choices on what to do given these findings:  1) radically redefine adulthood, 2) radically redefine adolescence, or 3) simply accept 18-20 year olds as adults, in every way, period.  Occam's Razor would clearly agree with the third option, as would any serious consideration of liberty and justice for all.

To argue otherwise is, at this point, nothing short of warmed-over phrenology at best, if not full-blown political Lysenkoism that will ultimately go down in history as the epitome of bigoted crank science.

UPDATE:  Much to the chagrin of some purists, this study is also the strongest hard evidence to date that adolescence does in fact exist as a distinct life stage that is not entirely socially constructed.  Adolescence appears to be no more socially constructed than adulthood is, in fact.  And to that we say, so what?  Glibly denying all group differences and/or attempting to erase adolescence entirely does not do young people any favors either, and it plays right into the hands of the biological determinist bigots and cranks.  That said, the study finds no scientific support for the specious idea of "emerging adulthood" as a life stage somehow distinct from young adulthood, and we really should simply jettison the term "emerging adulthood" from our collective vocabulary. 

In any case, there is nothing magical about turning 21, 25, or any other age north of 18 for that matter.  And while even 18 is hardly magical either, it is arguably the least arbitrary place to draw the default line where once you are an adult, you are an adult, period.

Have A Safe And Happy Holiday Season

 (This is a public service announcement)

It is that time of year again when the holidays are upon us, and many of us Americans (and around the world) will be celebrating with alcohol and/or other substances, pretty much back to normal now.  We at Twenty-One Debunked would like to remind everyone to be safe and celebrate responsibly.  There is absolutely no excuse for drunk driving at any age, period.  We cannot stress this enough.  It's very simple--if you plan to drive, don't drink, and if you plan to drink, don't drive.  It's really not rocket science, folks.  And there are numerous ways to avoid mixing the two.  Designate a sober driver, take a cab, use public transportation, crash on the couch, or even walk if you have to.  Or stay home and celebrate there.  Or simply don't drink--nobody's got a gun to your head.  Seriously, don't be stupid about it!  And the same goes for other psychoactive substances as well, and a fortiori when combined with alcohol.

ARRIVE ALIVE, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!!!   If you plan to drink, don't forget to think!  The life you save may very well be your own.

Why Banning Tobacco Is A Dumb Idea

The stupid literally burns like, well, cigarettes.  It's apparently hard to keep a bad idea down.  While New Zealand's new government is backing off from the previous government's phased tobacco ban and plans to reverse it, as Malaysia already did as well, the UK government under Rishi Sunak now wants to implement such a phased ban for anyone born after 2008.  Even Bhutan lifted their tobacco ban in 2021, as it was such a massive failure due to the massive black market it created.  (Hey, somebody answer the Clue Phone, as it is ringing loud and clear now!)  So should they go through with it, the UK now stands alone in the modern (or even semi-modern) world, leaving them in the good company of...wait for it...the Taliban and ISIL in that regard.  Only difference being that the UK is simply taking the scenic route there instead of simply making a beeline for it.  Gee, how very enlightened and progressive of them.

Hey, don't go getting any ideas, California, or any other state for that matter!  Seriously. 

Smoking tobacco, especially in this day and age, is dumb, but banning it is even dumber.  People who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  Prohibition didn't work then, and it doesn't work now.

Safety Third

We live in a culture where "Safety First" is increasingly taken for granted, and has been since roughly the mid-1980s following a series of moral panics and zealotry in general.  While it is generally a good thing that safety has largely improved since then (prior to that, Americans were really quite cavalier overall, and it really showed in the statistics across multiple domains), there can also be too much of a good thing as well.  

Most people at least intuitively know this on some level, and that's why even the most die-hard safety zealots seldom (if ever) practice what they preach in all areas of life all of the time, at least not for very long.  Even they still conveniently carve out selective and arbitrary exceptions for themselves and their own chosen "guilty" pleasures and activites.  

From the abomination that is the 21 drinking age to the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs to increasingly stringent rules and heavy monitoring of youth to lack of free play among children to prison-like schools to actual mass incarceration to the sexual counterrevolution dressed up as "culture wars" to the ever-encroaching nanny state to finally the ultimate culmination of safety zealotry, the pandemic lockdowns and related restrictions, we have clearly been sold a bill of goods in that regard.  And yet paradoxically, actual health safety statistics from life expectancy to violent deaths to traffic casualties have in the USA actually lagged behind peer nations, often well behind.  Thus, it's long past time to take a fresh approach.

We call that approach "Safety Third".  And it's really not an entirely novel idea, having been promoted in some form by diverse folks from "Dirty Jobs" pundit Mike Rowe (largely right-wing) all the way to contemporary philosopher Charles Eisenstein (largely left-wing).  That does NOT at all mean that safety is trivial or should be disregarded as such, far from it.  We do value safety as important, of course, but not THE most important thing, let alone the ultimate end-all-be-all of human flourishing.  

So if safety is third on the list of priorities, what are first and second then?  For example, Charles Eisenstein says "giving and receiving", not necessarily in that order.  That makes sense, if a bit vague perhaps, but we at the TSAP and Twenty-One Debunked would alternatively answer, "liberty and justice for all", not necessarily in that order.  Anything short of that is un-American.

It was indeed one of our Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, who said, "Whoever gives up essential liberty for a little temporary safety, deserves neither and loses both."  After all, safety is a great servant, but a terrible master.  We would be wise to recognize that, in all areas of life.

Should The Drinking Age Be Abolished?

In a nod to Wayland Ellis, Will Wilkinson, and the late Mark Kleiman, the question sometimes comes up:  Should we not only lower the drinking age to 18, but abolish it entirely?  That may sound radical in 21st century America, but that's precisely the point:  the Overton window has shifted way too far in the ageist and neoprohibitionist direction, and to pull it back towards rationality, all options need to be on the table.  And we must resist the urge to make ANY sort of concessions to MADD-type zealots.

Never, ever, start out with a compromised position, as one will inevitably have to compromise further.  Just look at the success, or lack thereof, of Choose Responsibility.  The pro-21 crowd ate them for lunch.

For the record, Twenty-One Debunked does not officially endorse abolishing the drinking age entirely, though we really would not oppose it either.  Currently the idea is a largely academic thought experiment since it is exceedingly unlikely to occur in the USA, at least in the next few years.  We really only officially endorse lowering the drinking age to 18, but the abolition idea, on principle, is a great way to go on offense rather than be stuck playing defense.  After all, the best defense is a good offense, and vice-versa.   And by basing the argument purely on liberty and civil rights rather than utilitarianism, it also escapes the "Neanderthal Trap" where on defense we are stuck in the utterly unenviable position of having to justify to the naysayers that Americans are not in fact Neanderthals who cannot be trusted with freedom when compared to the ostensibly more mature and cultured Europeans, Canadians, etc, and also have to show that it wasn't the chicken or the egg, but rather the dinosaur, that really came first.  

Put the pro-21 side on defense, for a change.  Have the burden of proof fall on THEM to show that the alleged benefits to setting the drinking age so unrealistically high are so incredibly large for both the individual and society that it somehow overrides the basic civil rights of millions of young adults.  Because they can't prove that.  And none of their itty-bitty effect sizes in their specious studies can change that.

"If it saves one life, it's worth it," right?  Well, then.  Making the speed limit 21 and the drinking age 55 would save even more lives by their very own logic, so why don't they do that?  They can take as long as they like with their mealy-mouthed answers.  (And if they inevitably cry "pragmatism!", they have already lost the argument without even realizing it.)

It is also worth noting that many countries, especially in Europe, don't even really have a true drinking age at all, but rather just a purchase age.  And still others only have a drinking age in public but not in private.  Much like how in the USA, many states don't have a true smoking age for tobacco either, but rather only a purchase age, and even those that prohibit underage possession/consumption generally only enforce it in public places when done flagrantly or when enforced secondarily.  (And until just a few short years ago, it was 18 in nearly every state.)  So not having a true drinking age, while retaining a purchase age (which in any case, should still not be any higher than 18), is actually not nearly as radical as one may think. 

And the worst case scenario for abolishing the drinking age (but retaining a purchase age) would be....Denmark.  You know, one of the happiest countries in the world.  The horrors, right?

So what to do about drunk driving then?  Simply crack down harder on actual drunk driving:  increase enforcement, close loopholes, and toughen the penalties for such reckless and dangerous behavior for all ages.  Do the same for drunk violence, drunk vandalism, and drunk and disorderly conduct.  As for excessive drinking in general, which is a problem for all ages, we should do the one thing that is unambiguously proven to work at least at the margin:  raise the excise taxes on alcoholic beverages significantly.  It's really not rocket science.  Other than that, hands off for the most part.

If you're still worried about drunk driving, tackling the driving side of the equation would clearly save far more lives than focusing laser-like on the drinking side.  But that would make too much sense, right?

Another Kleiman-inspired idea would be to effectively deny alcohol to known problem drinkers via something like South Dakota's 24/7 Program, or perhaps the Banned Drinker Register currently used in some local parts of Australia.  Ditto for voluntary exclusion (one could perhaps call it "86 Me")  like some states do for problem gamblers as well.

But collective punishment via utterly illiberal and ageist laws like the 21 drinking age?  That has no place in a free society, period.  If we must have some flavor of a drinking age, it should be no higher than 18.  Seriously.  And not a day later!

QED

UPDATE:  To clarify, if for whatever reason we somehow must have a true drinking age, it should not be any stricter than that found in Alberta, Canada.