This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, October 9th, 2008. I'm Caleb Brown.

The rights and responsibilities of adulthood come at age 18, except in the case of drinking.

But why?

And why does the federal government get to ultimately dictate to states

at what age young people may consume alcohol?

John McCartal Jr. a former president of Middlebury College and current professor of history there

is the director of Choose Responsibility.

The group dedicated to finding credible ways to ease restrictions on drinking for people under the age of 21.

McCardell visited the Cato Institute yesterday.

Every other adult privilege and responsibility had been conferred upon you several months before that

when you turned 18.

This is the single exception.

That is one of the reasons and maybe the principal reason why, young adults age 18, 19, and 20 find the current

law incomprehensible. They don't know where 21 comes from. They don't realize that once upon a time that was the age of majority.

And so the choice of that age seems utterly arbitrary. The explanation given to them about why this single exception continues to exist on the books, I think they find condescending, if not downright insulting.

You lack maturity. you lack judgment, your brain is not fully enough

developed and they look around and they can do all of these other things right?

Yes and I look at my parents generation when the age was

18 and I don't see evidence of massive brain impairment. I look at most of the

rest of the countries in the world where the age is 18 or younger and I don't see

evidence of dependency or brain impairment. So why should I simply accept the

arguments you're giving me when there's so much evidence to the contrary. Well the response as well

...