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stvltvslast Thursday at 5:06 PM1 replyview on HN

Isn't that day today?

The CDC says 4,000 underage drinkers die in the US every year. Maybe we could reduce that with stricter controls, but at what point does that become too burdensome to the rights of legal drinkers?

It's even harder to get the balance right when it comes to free speech issues like online pornography.


Replies

tzslast Thursday at 11:51 PM

> The CDC says 4,000 underage drinkers die in the US every year

That's not quite correct. They count both deaths where the decedent had a high blood alcohol level and deaths where someone else who was responsible for the death had a high blood alcohol level. Because of this many of those in the count were underage but were not drinkers.

For example if I'm driving drunk and you are my sober passenger and I drive us off a tall cliff killing you your death will be included in their count because I was drunk and responsible for it. It also works the other way. If I'm sober and you are drunk, and I drive us off the cliff and you die it counts because you died drunk.