[CraigRo]

My recollection was that in NY, you could have,drink,and buy alcohol as a minor. You just couldn't SELL it to a minor, and, at least in my nbhd, that wasn't really enforced. I saw a couple guys drinking a six-pack at an AP exam in the morning in full view of a proctor. Colleges didn't seem to care much as long as you drank relatively low alcohol beer. What got scary was when I visited a more hard-drinking and yet repressive college where I saw 17 year olds with enough liquor under their beds to kill an elephant. I happen to think that we lost something when adults couldn't drink with college students -- underage drinking without adults easily goes overboard.