Drinking Age to Back to 18?

An item in this morning's news: A group of college presidents are advocating a national debate on the merits of lowering the drinking age to 18. You might think that we'd be all in favor of this, as it would add hundreds of new potential Top Dogs to the marketplace. You might also think that we'd recoil in horror at the idea, so as not to offend the Puritans. The smarter money says that we should just shut up and see how it pans out.

However, this is a complex issue that deserves some debate. Proponents of lowering the drinking age are correct when they argue that since the law starts assigning adult responsibilities to us at 18, it should also convey adult rights. That's a good point. If 20-year old corporals climbing out of foxholes in Afghanistan don't deserve a beer, who does?

Proponents also argue that in most of the rest of the world - where the drinking age is 18 or even lower - youth alcohol abuse is not as big a problem as it is here. Another good point. By demonizing alcohol, it's possible that our society makes it more desireable to those to whom it is forbidden, sort of like getting some chemical strange.

On the other hand, we've got kids. We know how reckless they can be at 18, and that they're less so at 21. As a society, we're probably doing them a favor by asking them to wait until they're 21 to drink alcohol. While fake IDs and older friends certainly lead to a significant amount of underage drinking on college campuses, lowering the drinking age to 18 means that this action shifts from colleges to high schools, and that's just not a good thing.

So what's our position? As with any political issue, we'd be idiots to take one. We're a business, and the customers of many political stripes who buy from us are the ones enabling us to send our own kids to college. However, we'd like to see some consistency in how our society defines adulthood. Does it occur at 18, or at 21?

If it's 18, then let those young adults buy alcohol. If it's 21, then let's not let them sign up to climb into foxholes in Afghanistan until they're old enough both to appreciate the risk they're taking, and to have a beer when they climb out.

And while we're having the debate, can someone please explain to me why we allow 18-year olds to buy tobacco?