MINIMUM DRINKING AGE THE REAL FAKE ID PROBLEM

In regard to Alan Wechsler's article "In Study of Fake IDs, Students Learn
Fast'' (Nov. 8), one finds little more than superficialities that beg the
question. What is at issue is not the "problem'' of false identification
used by students and other underage drinkers. As the article does manage to
note, human resourcefulness is always one step ahead of authoritarian
rigidity. Nor is the "problem'' a matter of what steps are being or may be
taken by police agencies or local tavern owners.

The real problem, as should be obvious, is the state's minimum drinking
age. We find in our society today a perverse trend: the ongoing lowering of
the threshold of social responsibility, where even early teens are assumed
to be culpable for the crimes they commit, and sentenced accordingly as
"adults,'' coupled with an ongoing heightening of the threshold of what it
is to be a "minor,'' thereby denying certain rights of adulthood, with
state drinking ages being a prime example.

The hypocrisy of this still-intensifying development is there for all to
see: A teen can work at 15, drive at 16, even smoke at 18, yet cannot drink
until 21. Will we see any reversal of this development in the near future?
Don't bet on it. The sad truth is that politics is often the art of the
organized, monied and powerful legislating the lives of the unorganized,
poor and powerless.

Young adults aged 18 to 21 fall almost exclusively in the latter category.
Until they can prove theirs is a voice the political process must listen to
every bit as much as the puritanical zealots who currently dominate the
issue, both statewide and nationally, young adults will take the risks
necessary to obtain the same alcohol I could legally purchase when I was
the same age.

MICHAEL A. RINELLA

Albany