Young: Days of Prohibition Lite

WACO, Texas — Varied benefits aside, fermentation of the grape and descendants has caused more suffering and loss than any chemical process we know.

Cannabis and its cousins? Pikers. Cocaine? It barely sniffs at alcohol's swath. LSD? Not even in the running for a medal.

Remove alcohol from the picture entirely, and what a better world this would be.

Just try. Oh, yes. I think we did that once.

Unfortunately, we continue to order a police pursuit of otherwise law-abiding adults who do what other adults can: drink.

Those between 18 and the magic age of 21 have every other privilege of other adults, plus some of the obligations, like registering with the Selective Service.

How amazing it is that this nation could trust such an individual to tote an M-16 and fly a gunship but would not allow him to lift a beer to his lips.

That discrepancy alone should cause anyone to join the discussion a group of college presidents is urging, about lowering the national drinking age.

In 1984 Congress, with Ronald Reagan's signature, forced this matter. States could do what they wanted, said Washington, but it would withhold federal highway funds if they didn't implement 21 as the legal drinking age.

Organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving oppose any change and claim that it makes highways safer, which very well may be so.

But the college presidents point to something that is painfully obvious: When drinking is illegal, some young people will go to surreptitious extremes.

The college presidents have seen the forbidden-fruit status of booze lead to orgiastic behavior — binge drinking — in places where bar bouncers, cops or private security will have no say in the matter.

All one has to do to understand the dimensions of banning alcohol is to drive through Indian reservations which ban liquor. On the outskirts, just beyond the reservation line, will be abominable displays of discarded bottles and cans, testaments to the fact that people so disposed will find a way to drink.

In this instance, each of these people will have utilized a vehicle to carry out the forbidden act. Most likely, the drivers buzzed home with a buzz on.

If one drinks, we should at least hope that he or she isn't behind a wheel. If one has to take his or her drinking impulses off campus, he or she likely will drive back drunk.

Observing the cat-and-mouse game between cops and under-age collegians who drink, one wonders if campus police couldn't be better utilized. The same for law enforcement in general.

Some of the "mice" in this game, after all, are old enough to be in the police academy. In Waco you can't be a cop at 20, but you can be training for it.

Let's admit that the biggest reason for the tragedy of alcohol abuse is that beer has become an all-encompassing symbol of socializing, of fun, of adulthood.

Because of this conditioning, young people who become legal adults naturally think about the one adult privilege they are denied, and too many seek it with abandon.

Within a national discussion about the drinking age, we need a discussion about the destructive symbolism underlying drinking.

Let's have statesmen, celebrities and athletic heroes talk about choosing one's own symbols of maturity, and rejecting the notion that the only way to have fun is sloshed.

Of course, then we'll return to our sponsors, casting beer as the secret to youth, fun and sex appeal.

We've made major strides in driving home the stakes of driving drunk. We need to do the same with drinking, period. Americans need to step outside the mentality that makes alcohol such a social staple.

But as for the legal drinking age, let's set it at 18 and let adults be adults.

John Young writes for the Waco Tribune-Herald.