In (of all places) Reason, Steve Chapman argues that we shouldn’t let 18-year-olds drink. I couldn’t disagree more, being as libertarian as I am on victimless crimes in general, but his empirical analysis strikes me as solid.

His basic point is that when you make something illegal, you have less of it. Thus, drinking and drug laws “work” insofar as they force adults to behave the way the government wants them to.

Another of his points is that a lower drinking age decreases drunk driving in the 18-21 age group. This is probably true, and I could see an argument for allowing home drinking (and up to, say, two drinks with a restaurant dinner), but not bar drinking, at 18. But I’d much prefer a three-step strategy for dealing with drunk driving: 1) Get the federal government out of mandating blood-alcohol-content levels; 2) at the state level, reverse the trend of pushing the BAC limit lower and lower, and instead give police better tools for determining whether some drivers, though under the now-higher BAC limit, were intoxicated; 3) punish the heck out of real drunk drivers.