I'll add my birthday wishes.

MAN how time flies...

This aspect of US law has always puzzled me slightly.

"Yes, we think you are now old and responsible enough to be entrusted with the governance of the country, several tons of metal travelling at 65 miles an hour, your own body and future, and lethal weapons. But no intoxicants".

Is it a holdover from the prohibition era?

were involved in serious alcohol-related traffic accidents at an above average rate, the federal government threatened to withhold highway funds from any state that didn't raise the drinking age to 21, so of course all states complied.

Since the prefrontal cortex, and thus the brain's "executive function," doesn't fully develop until around age 25, it is true that young people are more impulsive, less able to consider the longterm consequences of their behavior, etc. Nut ironically, it isn't the 18-21 year olds who do the most drunk driving.

Another deadly demographic, a group with a higher than average tendency to drink and drive and thus get into accidents, including fatal accidents, would be men between the ages of 25 and 45, but since they are the ones who make the laws, they would not deprive themselves of the right to have a drink. The reason they do that to 18-21 year olds, even though 18-21 year olds are in every other way legal adults, is because they can.

Politicians know perfectly well that people in the 18-21 age group are not going to band together into an effective voting bloc that will kick them out of office over the drinking age.

I'd be for moving the voting age to 16 in exchange for moving the smoking age to 21... I'm dead serious. (That includes e-cigs.)

Happy bday Malia!

Happy Birthday Malia