at supermarkets and off-licences. Last year, a think tank even suggested making 18-21s carry 'smart cards' to record their evening's drinks (it would be a criminal offence to serve them if they had consumed more than three units).

So, official puritanism clashes with public drinking mores. For most young people, drinking is an accepted part of social life, and they often start before 18. A Facebook group campaigning against the raising of the booze-buying age to 21 has attracted 15,000 members, incredulous at this attempt to "discriminate against a group with full legal rights". Indeed - how absurd
that adults who can vote, buy a house and have children, can't buy a can of lager at the corner shop.

How did a few young people with a few cans of Fosters become a crime issue of the summer? Police statements invoke disorderly youth running rampant in the streets - they see alcohol as fuel for 'anti-social behaviour' and a host of other ills.

No doubt some unruly youth are roaming the streets, but this is partly because they

are now completely barred from pubs.

The truth is that pubs were great civilisers: it meant that you learnt to drink around adults, according to adult rules. You were there on special permission, so you didn't want to do anything stupid or make a fool of yourself. As a result, turning 18 wasn't a blast of fireworks with the overnight discovery of demon drink: by 18 you knew what to do.

Officials claim they want a French-style café-drinking culture, but they forget that in France young people drink earlier and more gradually, in a family or community context, as part of growing up and entering adult society. By contrast, in the United States, where they are barred from touching a drop till 21, they carry on like overgrown 16-year-olds through to their early twenties.

There is little the government can do about when teenagers start to experiment with alcohol. The question is where they do it, and on whose terms. Looking back, I cannot help but conclude that 'turning a blind eye' was a more civilised - and civilising - approach to the matter than the current summer crackdown.