18 Years of Aging Is Enough

The heat seems to be off now. But it was pretty uncomfortable for a while, what with Cronin's half-empty on Saturday night and the Casablanca equally devoid of its usual group of sociables. The ironic thing about it all was that the crackdown had nothing to do with college excesses or even with bars. A fourteen year-old boy was found in very bad shape due to the effects of a quart of Scotch from a local package store. The Alcoholic Beverage Commission moved in, everywhere, with a vengeance.

The idea of a fourteen year-old lying dead-drunk on a sidewalk is certainly disturbing. But the ABC has taken a somewhat ineffective means of preventing such occurrences, leaving the package stores comparatively untouched, while purging inoffensive bars. If the twenty-one year age limit were enforced along more sensible lines, public cooperation might increase accordingly.

Presumably, the age limit is intended to prevent activities offensive or dangerous to the public from taking place, in public, and to preserve the health of the young-both perfectly good intentions. It would be well to consider, however, that drunken driving endangers America's youth more than delirium tremens. Authorities, therefore, should crack down hard, not on drinking so much as on drunkenness, especially when driving. Fines for driving while intoxicated could be increased, or operator's license could be revoked frequently.

In cases like that of the fourteen year-old, the ABC must seek to secure greater social responsibility, both from liquor dealers and from the general public. Under existing practices, many people, antagonized by the ABC's behavior, sympathetically abet what they consider "oppressed" youth. The surest way of insuring public confidence is a more practical approach toward such minor matters as the eleven o'clock beer. Another measure which would secure greater public confidence would be to lower the age limit to eighteen, at least on relatively harmless wines and beers, if not on hard liquors.

Aside from the possibility that alcohol encourages expressions of love and sympathy and other Christian virtues, there are no very good moral arguments for drinking at a slightly earlier age. On the other hand, drinking is no more immoral at eighteen than at twenty-one. And there is little reason to believe that eighteen year-olds would have less self-control than a (hypothetical) inexperienced man of twenty-one. It seems strange that eighteen year-olds who drink without any observable harm in New York should acquire a more delicate constitution in Massachusetts.

Chronic heavy drinking can and does alter facial features; and it produces no Olympic winners, except in bobsledding. But an occasional beer is harmless. If legal restrictions were limited to heavy drinking, popular support might make effective enforcement more possible. If a large segment of bartenders' sales were made legal, they might join with the law in preserving the health of the beardless minor. And by robbing drinking of the romantic character given by its illegality, heavy consumption might decrease.

Undoubtedly, some sort of check is necessary, but it must be applied practically. That the eighteen year-old thinks, and will always think, that he is man enough to drink is one of those unquenchable facts. The purpose of the law should be merely to make sure that he is man enough.