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Beer was an integral part of their religious ceremonies and mythology. Early civilizations found the mood-altering properties of beer supernatural, and the newfound state of intoxication was considered divine. Beer, it was thought, must contain a spirit or god, since drinking the liquid so possessed the spirit of the drinker. Remnants of this belief persist to modern times. We still refer to alcohol and alcoholic beverages as “spirits”. “The mouth of a perfectly happy man is filled with beer”, is an ancient Egyptian proverb. Indeed, numerous ancient Egyptian inscriptions and documents show that beer, together with bread, was a daily food. Beer was an important offering to the gods, and was placed in tombs for the afterlife. An inscription in the tomb of Ramses II (c. 1200 B.C.) reads: “And thou shall give me to eat until I am satisfied, and thou shalt give to me beer until I am drunk.” The ancient Greeks called beer “zythos”, which was derived from the Egyptian word “zythum”. The Romans brewed and drank “cerevisia”, named after Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. The Romans had a god Dionysus, or Bacchus, the god of wine, who they worshipped in bouts of alcoholic frenzy. The hangover plagued mankind. It was a top
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It was also at this time that the voting age was lowered to 18. In short, what happened at this time is that college students demanded, and received, the same constitutional rights as adults — e.g. to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, rights to privacy (including access to contraception, and abortion), etc. This consensus was challenged by the College Alcohol Study started by a group of researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, led by social psychologist Henry Wechsler, who began exploring the problem of college drinking in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their work in part led to the passage of the National Minimum Drinking Age act of 1984. It also led to the construction of “binge drinking” as a disease and social problem particular to young adults in higher education settings. I was an undergraduate at the University of Vermont while all this was going on — the state was a holdout on keeping the drinking age at 18 but was eventually forced to raise the drinking age to get those federal highway funds. More recently still, the abstinence approach bolstered by the College Alcohol Study has been challenged by research conducted by the Social Norms Institute, who argue that the “health terrorism” perpetuated by the
It was also at this time that the voting age was lowered to 18. In short, what happened at this time is that college students demanded, and received, the same constitutional rights as adults — e.g. to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, rights to privacy (including access to contraception, and abortion), etc. This consensus was challenged by the College Alcohol Study started by a group of researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, led by social psychologist Henry Wechsler, who began exploring the problem of college drinking in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their work in part led to the passage of the National Minimum Drinking Age act of 1984. It also led to the construction of “binge drinking” as a disease and social problem particular to young adults in higher education settings. I was an undergraduate at the University of Vermont while all this was going on — the state was a holdout on keeping the drinking age at 18 but was eventually forced to raise the drinking age to get those federal highway funds. More recently still, the abstinence approach bolstered by the College Alcohol Study has been challenged by research conducted by the Social Norms Institute, who argue that the “health terrorism” perpetuated by the