Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Friday, February 22, 2019

Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Samantha Goldstein

Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram

Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Lucas Maiman

Magdalena Mihaylova

Ellery Rosenzweig

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Alex Satola
Ali Safawi

 Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

Erin White

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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

I

t’s a Friday night in Ann 
Arbor and the promise of 
the weekend has students 

flocking to Main Street bars 
and clubs to engage in the great 
American pastime of intoxication. 
But 
with 
an 
undergraduate 

population of more than 29,000, 
some of these revelers are bound to 
be underage. In line, Zach, aged 18, 
fumbles for something in his pocket 
when he reaches the bouncer.

Thirty minutes later, Zach is 

at the bar ordering his fifth shot 
of tequila before stumbling home. 
This scenario is made possible 
by a simple invention: the fake 
ID. Couple this technology with 
a tendency for underage binge-
drinking and you have a potentially 
dangerous cocktail for the social 
landscape of American college 
towns.

As a freshman new to the 

social scene of Ann Arbor, I set off 
across campus to talk to students. 
First, I wanted to learn more about 
fake IDs and how they texture 
the experiences of students at 
the 
University 
of 
Michigan. 

Second, I wanted to examine the 
particularly American brand of 
binge-drinking that these fake IDs 
afford to underage drinkers and the 
alternative drinking cultures found 
around the world. I was convinced 
these trends were two symptoms 
of the same disease, and that by 
finding the heart of the issue, young 
Americans could begin to develop 
a culture with more safe and 
responsible drinking habits.

The fake ID is an expanding 

American personality (touted in 
popular songs and joked about 
in blockbuster movies) with an 
entire 
underground 
economy. 

The 
Northwestern 
Business 

Review writes, “The quality of 
the product varies due to minute 
changes in the polyvinyl chloride, 
spectrophotometer 
matched 

ink and luminescent holograms. 
Up-front 
costs 
including 
the 

printer and templates can run up 
to $2000 alone.” I spoke to some 
students on campus to see if these 
popular anecdotes were consistent 
with their experiences. First, I 
interviewed a student who had just 
ordered their first fake ID ever:

MILES: How did you get in 

contact with the maker?

STUDENT 1: My friend asked 

me if I needed one and I said, “Yes, 
I do.”

MILES: How much did you 

pay?

STUDENT 1: $80. I estimate 

there are about 30 people in my 
order, which makes it cheaper.

MILES: Why are you getting it 

now?

STUDENT 1: In high school, 

the local liquor store would sell us 
alcohol even if we didn’t have a fake. 
In Ann Arbor, you need one to go 
out with friends to bars.

MILES: Are you nervous about 

purchasing it and using it?

STUDENT 1: Normally I would 

be, but the guy who I’m buying it 
from does them very routinely and I 
know people who have gotten fakes 
from him before. Using it, yeah … it 
seems kind of sketch.

Next, I spoke to a student 

from the undergraduate class of 
2020 who told me a story about 

purchasing a fake ID:

“When we were in high school, 

you couldn’t get IDs online. You 
had to get them from people. 
We had a car to go get it and we 
texted this shady-ass dude all our 
personal info. It was $150 an ID. 
We brought $300 cash and met this 
dude at midnight in an abandoned 
warehouse parking lot near (San 
Francisco Bay Area). Dude rolls up 
in a black Suburban, pulls in behind 
us, blocks us in and gets out of the 
car with a pit bull.”

After an initial frightening 

episode, the high schoolers gave 
him an envelope with money and 
drove home. Phony Tony, the 
maker of the IDs, remains a local 
legend in the Bay Area, but this 
story articulates the potentially 
dangerous situations students are 
involving themselves in to bypass 
21+ American drinking laws.

Finally, I spoke to not a supplier 

of fake IDs, but a liaison between 
customers and makers. This person 
characterized their position as 
“organizing orders (of fake IDs)” 
and said that they had about 10 
customers in Ann Arbor at one 
point. Most of their fake IDs were 
modeled off of real East Coast IDs.

So, what’s the solution to this 

potentially dangerous scheme? 
An article in the U.S. National 
Library of Medicine titled, “Will 
Increasing Alcohol Availability 
By Lowering the Minimum Legal 
Drinking Age Decrease Drinking 
and 
Related 
Consequences 

Among Youths?” questions the 
theory that drinking laws should 
be made more lenient to cultivate 
responsible 
drinking 
culture. 

Proponents of this idea argue 
that the 21-and-over drinking age 
stigmatizes alcohol consumption 
to such a degree that young 
Americans are learning to drink 
in unsupervised spaces and that 
more permissive legislation would 
allow these underage drinkers 
to learn from more responsible, 
societally-normalized 
sources. 

After all, Europe has a safer 
drinking culture with its younger 
age drinking laws, right? In the 
popular 
imagination, 
French 

12-year-olds are sipping wine 
with their parents at dinner and 
are learning to drink responsibly 
— it’s America that’s obsessed 
with taking shots and “blacking 
out.”

This, however, is not the case. 

“If you look at the data, there’s no 
evidence to support the idea that 
Europe, in general, has a safer 
drinking culture than the US … 
European teens ages 15 to 19 tend 
to report greater levels of binge 
drinking than American teens,” 
writes German Lopez of Vox. 
When looking at the percent of 

15 and 16-year-olds who report 
being drunk in the last month, 
Denmark, the U.K. and Austria 
are the most severe with 49, 33 and 
31 percent respectively. The U.S. 
by contrast, is on par with Latvia 
at 18 percent. Furthermore, nearly 
all available evidence suggests 
that stricter alcohol policies can 
reduce deaths, and another article 
by the U.S. National Library of 
Medicine titled “Case closed: 
research evidence on the positive 
public health impact of the age 
21 minimum legal drinking age 
in the United States” puts this 
misconception to rest.

So it seems that a 21-and-over 

drinking age is safer, but maybe 
it’s less about the actual age and 
more about the cultural attitudes 
and behaviors toward drinking. 
There’s an unspoken acceptance 
that 
underage 
drinking 
will 

happen, especially in colleges, 
and yet the legal angle doesn’t 
reflect this. “Drinking alcohol has 
become a rite of passage for some 
young people in this country, and 
many students come to college 
having learned to drink during 
their high school years,” says the 
University Health Service.

And yet, besides special cases 

of medical amnesty, the looming 
threat of receiving a Minor in 
Possession violation, which entails 
a $250 fine to the 15th District 
Court, 
often 
disincentivizes 

underage drinkers to seek help 
from authorities. Here, perhaps, 
is where the opportunity to learn 
from international practices truly 
lies.

Canadian universities have 

begun 
to 
implement 
“drunk 

tanks,” or spaces for intoxicated 
underage drinkers to recover 
safely and without the threat of 
punishment. The University of 
Guelph’s campus alcohol recovery 
room and the University of 
Calgary’s post-alcohol support 
space solve the stigma issue and 
potentially save lives. CARR 
is a “six-bed space equipped 
with buckets that opened last 
year inside a campus residence 
building,” while PASS is “staffed 
by 
both 
volunteers 
and 
a 

registered nurse.”

A 
coupling 
of 
America’s 

safer, 
21-and-over 
drinking 

laws and Canada’s more lenient 
enforcement 
could 
decrease 

avoidable 
underage 
drinking 

accidents and save the lives of 
young college students. As for the 
prevalence of fake IDs, it’s likely 
that an underground industry 
like this will continue to thrive, 
especially as new technology 
develops that further blurs the line 
between real and fake for alcohol-
serving establishments. And their 
readiness 
proves 
dangerous, 

as it enables students to more 
easily engage in binge drinking. 
If something’s to be done, it’s 
to ensure young Americans are 
protected by the safest laws and 
they have the proper resources to 
reach out when someone pushes 
them too far.

Miles Stephenson can be reached at 

mvsteph@umich.edu.

Soccer : The geopolitical game

O

n 
May 
13, 
2012, 

Manchester City Football 
Club won the English 

Premier League title in one of the 
most dramatic finishes in sports 
history. Down 2-1 to Queens Park 
Rangers on the final day of the 
season, Manchester City needed a 
win to overtake crosstown rivals 
Manchester 
United, 
something 

that they accomplished through 
goals in the 92nd and 94th minutes. 
For City fans, the championship 
represented 
the 
glorious 

conclusion to a momentous rise 
from irrelevance to stardom — the 
club had spent years bouncing 
between the top two divisions of 
English soccer, and hadn’t won 
England’s top league title since 
1968. While City fans were ecstatic, 
for club owner Mansour bin 
Zayed Al Nahyan, this was just the 
beginning.

Four years earlier, in 2008, 

Manchester City was coming off 
a decent — but unremarkable — 
campaign, having finished 9th in 
the Premier League. However, the 
club’s owner, former Thai Prime 
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, had 
become embroiled in a series of 
political scandals, which had led to 
the freezing of his bank accounts. 
Shinawatra, desperately needing to 
offload the team, sold it to Mansour, 
deputy prime minister of the 
United Arab Emirates and Emirati 
businessman, and his private equity 
company, Abu Dhabi United Group.

Mansour, whose family has an 

estimated net worth of well over $1 
billion, made it clear immediately 
he wasn’t there just for show — 
he intended to build an elite club, 
whatever the cost might be. Since 
taking ownership of the club, 
Mansour has followed through: 
City has spent £1.4 billion, won 
three Premier League titles, and 
has become one of the biggest clubs 

in Europe. But this begs a question 
— why would a Middle Eastern 
investor sink billions of pounds 
into a soccer club based thousands 
of miles away from Abu Dhabi in 
Manchester, England?

Historically, sports have served 

as a valuable asset for promoting 
“soft power” — a mechanism by 
which countries gain international 
standing not through brute force 
or economic might, but rather 
by seeming attractive to foreign 
states and citizens through cultural 
appeals. Traditionally, this was 
done through hosting or doing well 
in either the Olympic Games or the 

World Cup — the two truly global 
sporting events. However, as the 
Premier League developed into a 
worldwide phenomenon, Mansour 
has been able to harness it as a tool 
for soft power.

For Mansour and his nation, 

the United Arab Emirates, club 
ownership isn’t only a financial 
investment, but also a cultural and 
political one. Mansour is a member 
of the UAE’s elite economic and 
political class, which are highly 
intertwined thanks to the UAE’s 
oligarchical 
government. 
In 

addition to being the owner of 
Abu Dhabi United, Mansour is the 
half-brother of the UAE’s current 
president and is the chair of the 
ministerial council for services and 

Emirates Investment Authority.

Historically, the UAE has not 

been a particularly powerful nation 
— it only gained independence 
in 1971. However, thanks to the 
discovery of (some) oil, the creation 
of favorable incentives for foreign 
corporations, and an increase in 
tourism, the country — especially 
the cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai 
— has enticed the blossoming 
of glamorous metropolises over 
the past 15 years. In coordination 
with the UAE’s sudden increase 
in wealth, it makes sense the 
country would want to promote 
itself internationally and sports 
ownership is an excellent way to 
accomplish that.

Mansour and Abu Dhabi United 

Group are, in many ways, the UAE’s 
representatives to the West. Their 
philosophy seems quite simple: In 
order to create a positive reputation 
in the West, they must associate 
themselves with elite teams in the 
world’s most popular sport. 

However, the UAE’s sports-

based rebranding project is far 
from the wholesome, educational 
endeavor it claims to be. Rather, 
it 
is 
highly 
problematic 
and 

disingenuous. 
Mansour 
may 

promote the UAE as a glamorous, 
exotic country whose ownership 
represents the nation’s own success 
and positivity, but that simply isn’t 
true. As City’s obscenely expensive 
squad runs circles around their 
Premier League opponents, there 
are many things going on back 
in the UAE that Mansour would 
probably prefer weren’t mentioned.

MILES STEPHENSON | COLUMN

Solve dangerous drinking 

N

one of us will forget 
the polar vortex that 
passed through Ann 

Arbor in January 2019. Almost 
everything was shut down 
and almost everyone spent 
time taking advantage of the 
curiosities this rare weather 
phenomenon 
offered. 
We 

joked about how long we 
would last outside, willingly 
threw water only to watch 
it instantly freeze in the 
air before drifting to the 
ground and counted how 
many seconds would pass 
before our shower hair froze 
when we stepped outside. 
We 
watched 
it 
happen 

through the windows of our 
rooms, felt utter joy when all 
academic obligations were 
called off and the rest was 
history to us.

Meanwhile, 
at 
least 
21 

deaths, as well as dozens of 
frostbite injuries occurred 
across the Midwest due to 
weather-related 
incidents 

brought upon by the polar 
vortex. 
These 
tragedies 

were most common for the 
homeless, 
senior 
citizens 

and 
people 
whose 
access 

to heat was not consistent 
or 
reliable. 
Though 
not 

necessarily a bloody, graphic 
disaster, it’s clear that the 
brief displacement of Arctic 
temperatures to our region 
of the country was enough 
to punish those who were 
unprepared. What remains 
in question is whether their 
incapability 
to 
prepare 

was their fault or not, and 
what could have been done 
if they were not in such 
disadvantaged positions to 
begin with.

I vividly remember the 

late fall of 2018. It was a ripe 
part in my first semester at 
the University of Michigan, 
a 
blend 
of 
addressing 

academic responsibilities and 
responding to the desires I 
had to explore this campus 
and to explore myself. The 
energy of the campus was 
refreshing and vibrant. Our 
football team had achieved a 
massive victory against our 
rivals and would go on to 
defeat another on one of the 
colder days of the season. We 
stressed about exams and 
de-stressed over the weekend, 
tuning into the fluctuations 
of our student lives and living 
in what would come to feel 

like the only world we knew.

During this time, at least 77 

deaths, as well as hundreds 
of missing persons reports, 
occurred as a result of the 
blazing wildfires that passed 
through regions of California. 
The 
slow 
obliteration 
of 

residences and commercial 
buildings continued by the 
thousands, not to mention the 
destruction of 240,000 acres 
of land among various regions, 
including Los Angeles and 
Malibu. In the end, not even 
the wealthy were safe from 
the 
physical 
damage 
and 

emotional trauma that our 
environment brought upon us 
as its behaviors momentarily 
became different than what 

we were used to. While these 
wildfires have emulated what 
the end of times could be 
like on a microscopic scale, 
I know this is not yet the 
true end. The end will have 
infinite power against all of 
us, but we have to recognize 
that there is still some power 
that remains in our hands.

What 
concerned 
me 

the most at the end of last 
summer was starting classes 
at the University. The end of 
August was both a swell of 
excitement and a melancholy 
farewell to my childhood. It 
felt like an onward push into 
the new world — whether 
I was prepared for it or 
not. This time marked the 
beginning of my quest to 
find my people, to be who 
I wanted to be, to connect 
with those who had similar 
interests to mine and to 
enjoy myself in the process. I 
embraced the big change and 
was swept away by the uproar 
of excitement that came with 
the new school year, relishing 
in the newfound freedom.

In 
the 
meantime, 
the 

news was acknowledging the 
anniversary 
of 
Hurricane 

Maria, 
a 
natural 
disaster 

that caused a total of 2,975 
deaths in the U.S. territory 
Puerto Rico in September 
2017. While this hurricane 
was considered as the worst 
recorded natural disaster in 
the Caribbean, it’s also worth 
noting that the American 
citizens in Puerto Rico lived 
in disadvantaged conditions 
with a stigma that prevented 
any significant benefits from 
coming their way even before 
they were tormented by this 
natural disaster. Our nation’s 
response to this disaster was 
a disgrace, but why?

I 
believe 
that 
our 

government’s response was 
disgraceful 
because 
what 

people in power today lack 
is compassion; what modern 
society lacks is compassion. 
As college students, we are 
too invested in our own lives 
and self-fulfillment, thinking 
about where we are going to 
go without thinking about if 
there will even be a place to go 
as a result of our actions — or 
lack thereof. We don’t think 
enough about the people who 
are suffering as a result of our 
prospering, who are living in 
conditions that we can’t even 
imagine and who recognize 
that privilege is a gift while 
we complain ungratefully. It 
pains me when some don’t 
realize that it doesn’t have 
to be this way, that some are 
reluctant to help others out 
of fear of causing their own 
disadvantage and that some 
are unwilling to recognize 
the 
humanity 
in 
shared 

prosperity.

In our defense, we are 

almost required to be fully 
invested in our own lives. 
We carry our own futures 
by addressing the countless 
responsibilities that are set 
upon us every day. Even so, I 
think we all need an attitude 
check. The way that we feel 
around people who are not 
like us is something that we 
can control and something 
that more people have to be 
aware of. In the same way, 
we have to recognize that our 
environment 
suffers 
from 

our apathy just as people do 
and that we have to act in 
consideration 
of 
everyone 

and everything if we don’t 
want to bring the end upon 
ourselves.

KIANNA MARQUEZ | COLUMN

How compassion can save our environmental future

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION

Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. 
Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 
to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to 

tothedaily@michigandaily.com.
 Kianna Marquez can be reached at 

kmarquez@umich.edu.

Zack Blumberg can be reached at 

zblumber@umich.edu.

ZACK BLUMBERG | COLUMN

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Historically, 

sports have served 
as a valuable asset 

for promoting 
“soft power” 

We don’t think 
enough about 
the people who 
are suffering as 
a result of our 

prospering

There’s an 
unspoken 

acceptance that 

underage drinking 

will happen