Watching a live video feed of people filing out of the House Chamber, where Obama just finished delivering his first State of the Union address. It’s causing me to question whether I picked the right week to discuss the topic at hand. The earthquake in Haiti, health care reform, the state of the economy, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan all seem more apropos, but Obama just covered all that. Plus, today is my final opportunity to address you, dear reader, so I think I’ll take a swing at something more my speed: the drinking age.

Twenty-one is an arbitrary number, let’s get that out of the way first. After a century of constitutional amendments and lobbying campaigns, it’s easy to lose sight of that. In 1919, the 18th Amendment began the period known as Prohibition. You knew that, right? A notable exception to the ban was, “consumption,” but hey, you can’t expect lawmakers to prohibit themselves from engaging in a vice. Besides, the period gave the country a lot of great things, including a rise in organized crime (and the subsequent genre of the gangster movie), the death of a fledgling American wine industry and NASCAR (someone had to drive fast enough to run the rum, what were they supposed to do on the weekends?). In 1933, the 21st Amendment was passed, repealing the 18th, and many a future liquor-store-owner got a great idea for a name.

The drinking age then was 21, but why? Regulating alcohol has always been a state controlled issue, hence the tactic of amending the Constitution–you know, how they freed slaves–being necessary to do it. Each state was now left with a question: what age to set as the legal limit for alcohol purchases? Most chose 21 because it was the, “age of majority,” though Kansas was notably reluctant to sell the stuff at all. The right to drink came to a person along with their right to vote, making it an outward symbol of adulthood, of citizenship. Later, in the midst of the Vietnam War, Congress and the states saw fit to pass another Amendment, the 26th. Ratified in 1971, it shifted the age of majority down to 18, guaranteeing that those “old enough to fight” were “old enough to vote,” as the slogan of the day went. The drinking age crept down with it, and by the mid-1970s most states had dropped it to 18. Of course it’s more complicated than that. Just look up 3.2 percent and beer Oklahoma on Wikipedia.

Then another contender entered the ring: Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). It’s hard to argue with the chosen cause of the organization. Founded in 1980 by a mother whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver, the group sought to deal with the issue of drunk driving in the U.S. Largely through their lobbying efforts, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 was passed and signed into law by Ronald Reagan, linking federal highway funds to the drinking age. If a state didn’t raise its minimum age to 21, it risked losing a large amount of money from the federal government. Although the constitutionality of such the approach was challenged, it was upheld, and it has since been used to further force states to adapt their laws on alcohol consumption (passing so-called “zero tolerance” laws on drunk driving under 21 is one example).

So, what’s it to me? Isn’t this column supposed to be a space where I mix three parts Anecdote, one part Insight and a dash of Humor to create an enjoyable cocktail of journalistic hoo-hah? Well, sadly I can’t buy a cocktail, unless it’s a Shirley Temple, because I’m 20. I could smoke, something clearly linked to health concerns for both the smoker and those around me, but I cannot drink. I take issue with that fact, because, out of a right-minded desire to stop people from driving drunk, we as a country have ended up with a policy that makes many a college student guilty of many a misdemeanor.

The obvious rebuttal to my point? It worked. Drunk-driving fatalities are down since 1984. I’d respond, yes, but seatbelt use is up, from 14 percent to 84 percent if you listen to the NHTSA. Let’s not pretend that we really solved the problem. You want to stop “kids” from drinking and driving? Let them have the opportunity to do it in the open, to be adults when they’re supposed to be.

Plus, it’s harder to get stupidly intoxicated when you’re paying 12 euro for a pitcher of beer, instead of $16 for a case. Europe taught me that much.

Thanks for reading, folks–it’s been a blast.