Readers Quiz: Why Are Americans So Kooky About Drugs, Sex, and Rock & Roll?

I asked a British man what struck him about the United States. The thing he found most amazing about America was how many towns didn't allow restaurants to sell alcohol, and that some towns allowed no alcohol sales at all. I asked if this didn't occur in many places in Europe. He replied: "Nowhere in Europe!"

Question Set #1: Why is the United States infiltrated with dry towns and counties, with Sunday "blue" laws, and with the highest abstinence rate (more than half of Americans drink less than once a month) in the Western world?

My daughter, who turns 21 in February, celebrated the 21st birthday of her high-school friend, whose Greek-born parents return to Greece every summer. At dinner, while serving everyone wine, her friend's parents joked they were breaking the law by giving my daughter alcohol. My daughter laughed, "You first gave me wine when I visited you in Greece when I was 15!" They retorted, "Don't tell anyone here - they'll arrest us!"

Question Set #2: Why is the United States the only country in the Western world with a 21-year-old drinking age? Why is it a crime to serve children alcohol here? Why do Americans react with horror when they learn the drinking age is 16 throughout Southern Europe, but that in countries like Italy, Spain, and Greece, children of any age are served in restaurants? And why do all of these Southern countries have lower teen drunkenness rates than the U.S.? (Sorry, Arianna, you can't enter the contest.)

At a water park when my kids were young, I noticed a family speaking French. The daughter, who was about 11, was only wearing a bottom to her swim suit. The family was mortified as they realized this was totally verboten in the American context, where all females other than small toddlers must cover their tops.

Questions Set #3: Why are Americans shocked by the Freudian concept of childhood sexuality and scandalized when even small children don't exhibit adult prudishness in their dress and behavior? Why, do prepubescent American children nonetheless wear sexually-oriented clothing, and why do parents enter young children (remember JonBenet Ramsey) in adult-like beauty contests?

After initially attacking mainly gay males, HIV spread primarily to intravenous drug users. The United Kingdom immediately institutionalized needle exchanges and other clean injection programs and largely avoided the second wave of AIDS. They were joined by nearly every Western nation, with the notable exception of the United States, where HIV infections continued to climb.

Question Set #4: Why do Americans think that giving any assistance to drug users is the equivalent of encouraging drug use, at the same time as it ranks among the highest illicit-drug-using Western nations? Why does the U.S. imprison its citizens at a higher rate than any other country in the world and why is drug use a primary source of criminal convictions here?

The British are shocked by how frequently Americans diagnose children with psychiatric disorders - including ADHD, OCD, bipolar disorder, conduct disorders, and depression - and by how willing Americans are to prescribe psychiatric medications to adolescents and even younger children. Americans, of course, believe they are preserving children's mental health and keeping many young people alive this way.

Question Set #5: Why are Americans, who value sobriety so highly and who treat more substance abusers than any country in the world (utilizing only the goal of complete abstinence), so quick to treat themselves and their children with mood-altering drugs?

The reader with the best answers becomes Drug Czar!

Comments

[Pavel Somov, Ph.D. - Huffpost Blogger]

Stanton: thanks for thought-provoking thought-provocations... you always take it to a meta level...
Pavel

[jillsond]

#1. Because self-righteous people like to frequent these joints and feel superior while eating their white trash food.

#2. This law could be contributed to alcohol poisoning among teens and college students. Keep it verboten, and the thrill becomes more intensified. Ever been in a house that allows cussing? The kids rarely speak the words because the thrill is gone.

#3 I have two daughters, and this one drives me nuts! The same parents who allow their girls to dress in victoria's secret clothing are the very same who ignore their kids' sexuality. Listen, I tried to talk to my 45 yr. old sister about mas turbation(sorry, that word won't make it by the censors!) and she was so disturbed that she refuses to speak to me again. We are so in the dark ages in the US when it comes to sexuality, it's frightening.

#4. Again, take away the illicit aspect of illegal drugs, and the problem basically fixes itself. Why do people dealing prescription drugs given less punishment than those growing and selling herbs?

#5. I don't know about this one. The parents I know who put their kids on rit alin are seriously addicted to either alcohol or their own mood-altering drugs. They don't call it attention-deficit for nothing..those parents are so stung out on whatever that they pay no attention to their kid's needs.

[SeriousBlack]

The answer to #5 is, at least, pretty simple - because it makes the big pharma companies billions of dollars.

[cayuse]

I was what would be called a late bloomer in the mid 60's until I was 19. So bad my only interacts at time was to be a designated driver at the term was not invented. My dad was the town drunk, until years later I learned he was the only one who drank and provided for his family, while the rest of my class and school parents were in and out of Alcohol Rehabs then and know one talked about that. Trust me I made up for that later, I got my share. Now the early starters are stand office, because I drink and they don't

My theory is all those kid to were early starters simply had the knowledge of how much fun it was. Having power over their own childred and knowing to hide the fun from their parents and now kids. They passed laws to aid their desires. They had the power of cash too.

America is obsessed with loving their neighbor so much, they do not want their neighbors and children to have all the fun they have or had, but cannot do anymore. Especially for a cheaper price.

[ouroborous]

Black-or-white thinking leads us to believe kooky things. We think that people fall cleanly into divisions: good guys versus bad guys, criminals versus law abiding citizens (ever driven over the speed limit? technically, you're a criminal), liars versus honest people (ever told a little white lie? technically, you're a liar), perverts versus normal people (ever had anal intercourse? according to some, you're a pervert), and so on.

The need to see ourselves in the best possible light means that we need to see OTHERS in a negative light. Every group needs someone to look down on, which is why, for instance, child molesters are often beaten or killed in prison -- everyone needs a group to feel superior over, so even a granny-killer can feel morally superior while he beats a child molester. Even "criminals" feel this deep-seated need to feel "superior" to someone else, and thus we end up with a "hierarchy" of heinous crimes.

The truth is that we maintain our self-esteem, for the most part, through a carefully constructed tissue of self-delusion and maintaining appearances. Who we are -- who we project ourselves to be, to "society at large" -- is a construct that requires artful maintenance and balance. Things like drugs, alcohol, and sexuality show our true faces and threaten those carefully polished masks.

[BBackSoon]

Enforcing Morality is Big Money.

When we prosecute and incarcerate non violent drug users the corporate owners of the prisons make more money. Why is it that a drug conviction is 10 years mandatory and murder is 1 to 3?

Somewhere along the way we came to believe natural drugs be they illicit or not are not nearly as safe as those created in the lab. This is why "Good" citizens cringe at people smoking marijuana while they head to the medicine cabinet for a Valium, Ambien or Darvocet. Plus there is big money in pharmaceuticals.

And finally my views on Alcohol are about the same. As a kid I got to drink a little when my parents went to parties. It was enough to know my limits when I went out later in life. Ok I still crossed lines, but the idea that a kid that has never drank will be sensible at 21 is a myth. This is I believe how we get kids dying of alcohol poisoning.

We cling to some kind of Victorian morality that never existed. All of our Sex, Drug and Alcohol laws have been enacted or reinforced in the last 50 years. We Americans seem to like whatever our sin is to be enjoyed behind closed doors so the neighbors don"t know.

[LADawson]

I've long thought the drinking age in the US is absurd. If someone is old enough and responsible to enlist in the military and fight for our country, or careen around public in a 2,000lb automobile, they're old enough and responsible enough to drink a beer. The idea that we're protecting them from something is ridiculous. If we'd take the time to educate our children about drugs, alcohol and sexuality, instead of trying to scare them about how bad it is, and how only bad the people are who do it (hidden behind a huge veil of hypocrisy) we might actually get somewhere.

[gymbunnybee]

I can add a few more:

- How are the words s*** and f*** still bleeped out on regular grown-up tv after the watershed (9pm?)
- Why aren't there mass awareness campaigns for domestic violence?
- Why is there a nationwide denial about teenage sex, STDs and pregnancies?

[HeevenSteven]

Calvinist ideology, on the alcohol, sexuality, and drug imprisonment questions, and Big-Pharma's profits on the kiddie drugs.

[dave-f]

I word answer: religion

[saami]

dave-f is absolutely correct. Religion and our Puritan history. Funny there are lots of reliable stories about women fleeing their Puritan community to "marry" Native indian men in the early colonies.

[LeftRight]

It's not the Puritans. They started out that way, but by the time of the Revolution we had moved way beyond that ideal. What got us, instead, was the Victorian era, which is the time that all the bad stuff really started!

[LeftRight]

I cannot answer with any certainty, but I can give my best idea. I think that Americans are so kooky about it because we took the ideals of the Victorian era to heart. When Europe was able to overcome such foolish ideals, recognizing that knowledge was power, Americans stuck to it, thinking that if they could keep such "dangers" as drinking, drugs, and sex away from the kids, then they wouldn't do it.

Of course, they are WRONG about that, since the fastest way to make your kids want to drink, do drugs, and have sex is to keep them ignorant about them and then forbid them from trying any of it!