I had a call from a newspaper the other day asking my opinion on the use of marijuana in children as in anyone under 21 years old, either for recreational purposes, or for medication purposes. I might have, if I had had the opportunity to think about it, countered with the question, how about “safe Johnny Walker for children?,” because we have been to this rodeo before.
The drinking laws in almost every state bar young people from consuming alcoholic beverages until they are 21 years old.
The reasons for that proscription date back many generations of young humans, back into prehistory, even before there were written records, probably, and most likely are based on empiric observations of youthful behavioral deficits continuing throughout the adult lives of the young people who began drinking heavily well before they were 21.
Let me make the point that it is critically important for a society that demands that as its young people mature, they be psychologically and physiologically prepared to move into leadership positions, to make informed and effective parenting decisions, and that they be unlikely to make uninformed, defective or damaging decisions. In societies that allowed drunken youngsters free reign, it was noted even that upon reaching “maturity” that these early experimenters were quite immature, and that their judgment was suspect, and that the tasks assigned to them were either poorly done, or not done at all, that lifetime damned foolishness was a clear and present hazard in early onset drinking populations.
