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YES!! OF COURSE!!! Because of new technologies, (seat belts and air bags), we should lower the age limit for drinking so that when the kids get blasted out of thier stupid minds, THEN, they can get into a 2000 pound MISSLE and aim it where ever they want and blow someone off the road because "WE ARE SAFE NOW"!!

Talk to the many families that are DESTROYED because of you binge drinkers, weekend warriors, party animals, and plain old drunks that want your RIGHTS!

Go and help them bury THIER DEAD, while you recuperate in the hospital with only a broken bone or contusions and lacerations while thier vehicle is demolished into something that a scrap pile would only accept!

If YOU have a family member killed by a drunk driver, then you will 'KNOW' the pain associated with underage teenage drinking. You will suffer the pain and agony of someone not coming home to dinner, and being there for the kids, or the kids who will never grow up to give Parents Grand kids!

Don't give me that pity party that "YOUR RIGHTS ARE BEING VIOLATED" because YOU CANT DRINK! Grow up and become and adult. LIVE to become and adult, and have your own kids and wait up at nights, hoping they will make it home, that some teenage drunk didn't kill them or run them off the road.

Be a Parent for once and you will have a whole different attitude!

I wish you well...

Jesse Merino

Mr. Merino, read the article before you explode. Mr. McCardell is not talking about drunk driving; as he said in his original NYT piece, "This has nothing to do with drunken driving. If it did, we'd raise the driving age to 21. That would surely solve the problem."

What he's talking about is the problem of high-risk drinking, not underage drinking. Take a look at what you wrote. If you're being honest, you'll realize that everything you said applies as fully to a 21-year-old drunk as it does to a 20-year-old drunk. But it's okay if they're drunk legally?

That's nonsense. The REAL problem is how some people drink in America: solely to get drunk. I don't: I'm a moderate drinker, like most people. I had a beer with dinner tonight. One beer. It was really good, and I enjoyed it.

But some people don't stop there. Why don't they? The problem may be that they learn to binge drink from a law that creates an atmosphere of getting in as much as you can when you get a chance.

We've told kids for years that alcohol is a drug; why are we surprised when they use it like one? Instead, McCardell is saying, why not tell the kids the truth: alcohol is part of society, it has been for thousands of years, and moderate use can be a pleasant part of life. Then make the drinking age 18, so they are encouraged to drink in the moderated settings where adults drink -- in bars, at family homes, in restaurants -- and where adults can let them know when they've had too much.

McCardell proposes the equivalent of a "drinking license," something you'd have to earn by taking courses and being tested. It's easy to make fun of such a thing, but is the system we have so great? We forbid any drinking of alcohol, we tell them it's bad for them, we arrest them if they drink or buy or even just possess it, we lie to them about what it does and how it works...and at midnight of their 21st birthday, we hand them the keys to the liquor cabinet and walk away. Oh, that's BRILLIANT.

Mr. Merino, I'm a parent. I'm 48 years old, you can Google me and see a picture. I've got two teenaged kids, and I'm with John McCardell on this because I believe that the 21 LDA is dangerous for my kids and everyone else's. Like Mr. McCardell, I think it's bad policy.

Take the emotion out of it. What we're doing ISN'T WORKING. McCardell's seen it not working. Consider the possibility that teaching young adults how to handle alcohol, how to treat it with respect, might be better than telling them nothing but NO.

I respect your pain. I do. But I find your response to be disrespectful. Let's try to discuss this as if we were face to face, not raving lunatics on talk radio.

Regards,

Lew Bryson