[All_That_Chaz]

The drinking age is where it is because having high school students legally buying alcohol is a bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad idea. I can only imagine what the drive home from school would have been like knowing that more than likely some quarter of the students had a drink or two before they left and maybe a tenth were drunk.

It is of course the job of the conglomerate of the parents, the schools, and the media to teach children about drinking, but there just isn't a good enough reason to put it in their hands at such a dangerous time.

On the smoking age, it definitely shouldn't be available to developing children for the reasons stated above. It doesn't matter if a kid knows the dangers and still wants to smoke. This is why so many statutes are in place to keep kids in school at this age. In this stage of life even the most independant of children are more than likely better off being taken care of. I certainly don't think I was capable of making great decisions back then and still don't in some cases. This sounds like saying, "the government knows what's good for you," which sounds stupid, but protecting children from themselves is important enough that america would elect people to do it.