Last Friday I had the pleasure of celebrating my 21st birthday, and in true Canadian fashion some buddies and I went out for a beer. This was nothing terribly novel, but if I’d been celebrating south of the border, that casual outing would have been a milestone in social achievement. Americans look upon drinking age laws a little differently than we do, and their policy isn’t doing their young people or society at large any favours.

In wonderfully contradictory American legalese, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 prohibits “the purchase and public possession of alcoholic beverages” by “underage persons,” though “the law does not prohibit persons under 21 (also called youth or minors) from drinking.” So, south of the border, you can have your cake, but can’t actually eat it.

This law reads like a neo-Puritan edict banning “immoral” rock’n’roll music in order to suppress hooliganism in “those darn kids.” It is insulting to say to a young person who has the legal opportunity to drive, be tried in an adult court, and pay off a mortgage, that the powers that be do not trust him to consume alcohol responsibly until he is 21.

It’s never productive to generalize, and many studies have concluded that the vast majority of university-aged kids in Canada and the US are level-headed students who enjoy alcohol in moderation, if at all. But the legendary tales of American collegiate shenanigans-always featuring booze as a cheap catalyst-seem to me at least partly inspired by this repressive drinking age policy.

A study by Drs. Ruth C. Engs and David J. Hanson from Indiana University’s psychology department found that the higher drinking age, instituted federally in 1987, actually led to an increase in collegiate drinking. While acknowledging that “drinking among college students has been traditional for decades regardless of the legal status of their alcohol consumption,” the authors found that raising the minimum age created a reverse psychology effect, in which students reacted by asserting their self-control and flouting the law.

The cat-and-mouse enforcement game between students and police seems to be a waste of time. Imagine trying to sell the American policy in Europe; the 19-year-old cop having a drink at the corner café would laugh at you.

Naturally, the drinking age is in some ways artificial. Kids can get alcohol, and the gifted thespians among us can, with a half-decent fake, consume it in public places. But setting the drinking age at 19 assures that when students hit their academic stride in their senior years, alcohol is a regular part of life, in whatever quantity, and not a magic elixir to be finally consumed in a pent-up frenzy, as it can be in the States.

But everyone will eventually be able to imbibe anyway, so why not get young people learning how to do so early? A tolerant attitude towards drinking ultimately produces more mature adults, since the sense of responsibility needed to choose a designated driver, pre-arrange sleepovers and take care of those who’ve over-indulged-considerations that come second-nature to Canadian students-is one that can be applied to all areas of life.

A friendly word to Congress from your sauced-up northern buddies: just take it easy, eh?