Theodore Casparian of Princeton
Patrick Walsh suggests (The Princeton Packet, Sept. 9) that the national drinking age be lowered to 18 to match some other options currently available to minors, such as fighting a war, marrying and having a child. While there may be some minors who are capable of handling these responsibilities in a mature fashion, experience suggests otherwise for most. The binge-drinking problem of minors in this country has become an epidemic.
The success rate of marriages among minors is much lower than that of all marriages and the likelihood that a child born to minors will finish high school and stay out of jail is slim.
Mr. Walsh goes on at length about the fact that minors have the opportunity to kill and die in war, but not the opportunity to drink.
Perhaps he is inadvertently onto something. The American Academy of Pediatrics says that adolescence continues through age 26. In addition to keeping the drinking age at 21, I suggest that we raise the killing and dying age to 27. If only adults were permitted to enlist, rather than adolescents, the dearth of not-mature-enough-to-recognize-the-futility-of-war kids would starve the armed forces of its fodder and our leaders would be forced to find different ways of resolving differing viewpoints.
Food for thought.
Theodore Casparian

