Alcohol

Within Indiana, there is talk about allowing the retail sale of alcohol on Sundays. This makes sense. If Sunday is reserved as a day of rest, then it makes sense to allow people to purchase alcohol to aid in their resting. If Sunday is just another day of the week, then there is no reason for special restrictions for that particular day of the week.

Nationwide there is a debate about lowering the drinking age to 18. The argument against this is that 18, 19, and 20 year-olds lack the maturity level to make the decision of whether or not to drink. There are of course 30, 40, and 50 year-olds that lack that same maturity; the irresponsibility of these folks is no reason to spoil the fun for everyone else.

People do mature at different rates, yet there is no objective means of determining maturity. Eighteen is the age a person can vote, smoke, sign a contract, and join the military. If you’re old enough for an M-16, you’re old enough for MD 20/20. If 21 is the threshold for making your own decisions, every soldier, sailor, and airman under the age of 21 should be honorably discharged on the grounds that they did not know what they were doing when they signed up.

There are problems associated with college drinking, though. These are more due to lack of experience than it is to lack of maturity, although both are factors. If you never had a drink before, you do not know the extent of the effects that alcohol has on your body. For that matter, turning 21 does not automatically endow you with that information. The key to responsible drinking is education, experience, and experimentation. Colleges should be allowed to permit students to drink under the supervision of campus officials.