Vending machines used to carry alcoholic beverages in the not so distant past. As a matter of fact, there are still many of them that still carry alcohol (perhaps more-so in the countryside).

If you talk to older people, you may come across some who have experienced drinking at a bar (with their school uniforms on!) when they were younger.

Nowadays, just like you said, they have an “are you 20″ button on the display screen of cash registers to help prevent underage drinking (etc.). In other words, you have to literally tell the person manning the cash register “no” by your own volition. That’s a joke.

At restaurants and bars, I have seen plenty of people who are under 20 (sometimes they’re people I’ve known). It seems like the workers serving alcohol aren’t even 20 sometimes.

Convenience stores seem to be the main pushers of a lot of society’s ills. They sell all of the junk you don’t need. I’ve come across some that had “sample” cigarettes on their counters (like, “try one, they’re great!”). I hear about kids being sent to convenient stores on their days off to do what is basically grocery shopping. They use their parent’s cell phone credit to pay for all of the junk they don’t need. And when they go to pay for it all– nothing but cigarettes in view from the cash register. Somehow advertisements of things kids are actually interested in some how creep in there. I don’t think that is an accident.

To be honest, I think things are getting better, though. I seem to see more older people rather than younger people getting completely wasted. Maybe that’s simply because it costs quite a bit of money to go out drinking. As far as smoking goes, I don’t see as many underage smokers as I used to (new vending machines probably have a lot to do with this), but I think plenty of people still choose to smoke.

BTW, here’s something interesting: At certain convenience stores, employees are trained to know the Chinese zodiac signs! In other words, they’ll ask the kids trying to buy alcohol or cigarettes what their sign is, and when they can’t answer (right away), or answer incorrectly it’s usually an indication of an underage individual.