Uncorking debate on the drinking age

Cow back again. This time on one of my favorite subjects: alcohol and underage drinking.

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How easy for the gray-haired editorial writers at our local paper The Times—whose most recent experience with illegal drinking involves speakeasies—to righteously declare that young people should “simply wait until consumption [becomes] legal” at age 21.

As if it were so simple.

Several times in college I faced the question of whether to take a passed-out underage friend to the hospital—with the associated risk of meeting Officer Unfriendly--or hope they recover with just a hangover. We always chose the latter.

All but one of my encounters with the cops from high school through the end of college involved their attempts to enforce Legal Age 21. The police became our collective enemy, doing whatever it takes to get our friends in trouble solely because of their age. Maybe we were immature, but it created a lasting impression.

Three years after finishing college, I sat on a jury weighing a cop’s word against a crook’s. I was the good guy in that jury room. I should have been the goody-two-shoes to stand up for law and order and argue that police officers under oath tell the truth. Not one of us was willing to. I reflected back to my experience in college, with cops barging into our parties with the singular goal of getting people in trouble because of our age. I couldn’t help but see the same fast-and-loose attitude in the cop in the witness box, and that was reasonable doubt enough for me. After going around the room to vent against cops, we returned with “not guilty.”

The drinking age is far too complex an issue to be boiled down to platitudes like “simply wait.” People under 21 will drink regardless of the law. Nobody can prove that either 18 or 21 is the best drinking age. But it is time for a public debate and discussion.

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For more, visit ChooseResponsibility.org. And George Will on the subject here.