The thing about aggressive age-verification procedures is that they're a sign of a low-trust society. It's the sign of a society that expects people to be lying a lot. That's not a good thing for a society to be, even absent other factors.
I've spent the past few months living in Austria, and one of the things that has really impressed me about this country is how much it... trusts me. Transit works via the honour system. Nobody tries to card me when I buy beer. When I explained my usual prescription to my doctor here, she didn't try to persuade me I wanted something else instead. You can buy a vibrator from a vending machine.
And it all just works. The transit system is well-funded, the ERs are not full of dead drunk teens (it's hard to do too much damage to yourself with the weak-ass beer here, especially if comparatively few people drive), and nobody seems particularly fussed about it. This is the safest, cleanest, and happiest city I've ever seen. I live in what is broadly considered to be the worst part of town, and it's miles more pleasant than the nice parts of some North American cities I've lived in.
Nothing destroys trust more than enforcement. And if you have enough trust, you don't need enforcement. Isn't that better?
