If you’re considered old enough to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law, you’re an adult.

If you’re considered old enough to be sent to war so you can die for your country, you’re an adult.

If you’re considered old enough to help decide the future president of the United States, you’re an adult.

So why then, if you’re an adult, can you not legally purchase and consume alcohol?

I bring this up only because the legal drinking age once again rages at the forefront of the nation’s communal discussion.

I’ve always felt that anyone old enough to vote, to face adult prosecution and to be drafted should likewise be old enough to procure and consume alcohol.

Why?

I’m glad you asked.

Don’t assume I can die for you if I can’t drink with you.

Don’t assume I should be held to a higher legal standard than is befit to the consumption standard of our nation.

Don’t assume I can decide the fate of this country by voting—and most certainly, therefore, decide America’s influence on world events—if I can’t enjoy a shot of whiskey with you at the local pub or a glass of wine with you at a fancy restaurant.

Truth be told, I’m well beyond this being a worry for me personally.  That time came and went in my life almost 20 years ago.

Yet still it bothers me, pinches at my social nerves with continuous discomfort.

Statistics be damned, at least according to our own government, for otherwise, if such things mattered, the War on Drugs^™ would have ended long ago (the statistics show alcohol and tobacco kill more people than the whole of all illegal drugs put together).

Yes, those same statistics contravene all declarations by those who passionately spew them in favor of a higher drinking age.

In truth, the drinking age limit appears to increase binge consumption by those not yet legally allowed to consume or purchase such things.

Can you legally enter into a contract?

Can you be put to death for a crime—deplorable though that idea might be?

Can you be sent to face possible death on a foreign battlefield at the behest of your country?

Can you vote?

Then you should be able to purchase and consume alcohol with the rest of us.

Period.