Edinburgh — This past weekend, I finally reached the age of 21, the all-so-important milestone of my college career. However, I have been quite indifferent about this myself. Now do not get me wrong, I enjoy a good drink; it is just that studying abroad in Scotland, I can already legally do that since the drinking age is 18.

In writing about this, I certainly was not going to compose the typical collegiate opinion piece whining about the drinking age with age-old arguments repeated in the billion prior articles. And while I recall and respect former columnist Mark Coombs’ defense of the teetotaler in “Turning Wine Into Water” (April 19, 2007), I do not fall into that category.

Personally, I do not claim perfection on the issue, especially in regard to that magic number 21, but I certainly have kept myself within limits. No hard rules or magical lines have defined these limits per se, but I have always remembered everything the next day, have never thrown up and have always walked home unassisted.

And while I have shown ambivalence towards that hard line of 21, at the same time I feel I should not actively promote underage drinking. This advice is how I can best resolve the two sides: do not use me as an excuse to drink underage. You are responsible for the choices you make and any consequences that result from those choices.

Looking back to myself, though, since I lived in the family of a church worker, the religious influence probably prevented me from drinking for quite some time and probably also restrained my drinking once I started. In fact, many religions, not just Christianity, play a powerful role, though not the only role, in forming these perceptions.

(Though there are many Christians who act just as belligerent as if not more than the worst of us.)

Now, many of you will inevitably conceive this image of the angry evangelical declaring alcohol to be the great spawn of Satan. Initially I had a similar image, albeit a bit less dramatic. But I found that this image drove my views more than the actual words of the Bible. In short, the Bible actually does not ban having a drink, but it does not look kindly upon 10 drinks in one hour.

As for the question of underage drinking, I found that the Bible does not approve of it, but not for the reasons most think. Nothing in there explicitly states that “Thou shalt not drink until thy twenty-first year of thee’s existence,” but laws are laws, and the drinking age is law. But should the law be repealed, the Bible would not object to one drinking.

Nothing in the Bible in regard to drinking is conditioned on some sort of hard age limit, including debauchery. I will never quite understand those who proclaim the evil vice of underage drinking with the utmost Biblical purity but have nothing against getting wasted once they turn 21.

So in that respect, one can see how religion has influenced my views on the matter. And one can easily discern which principle I did not obey all that well. Reflecting on these principles, though, I would argue that one could reasonably arrive on these same ideas without the use of the Bible.

Now at the same time, please do not make me your hero for restraint. If you ask for my advice, you will receive it, but I will not walk your journey for you. Likewise, if you ever see me drinking too much, feel free to rebuke me in wisdom, but do not call me out for the point of making me look like a hypocrite to the world. I do not plan to arbitrarily abandon my principles one day, and I would bet against it happening, but I still remain humbly aware that I am human, and humans make mistakes.

But anyway, by now the astute reader will have deduced that I could indeed favor lowering the drinking age. I most definitely sympathize with the idea, but at the same time, if MADD even could be right about the drinking age and drunk driving, I would not want to butt heads with them. Additionally, I have not perceived any significant difference in drinking patterns in Scotland, where alcohol is not a forbidden fruit. In fact, the BBC just reported that alcohol consumption per person in Scotland has exceeded both consumption levels in the United States as well as heart disease for hospital admissions.

Nonetheless, having considered all the facts and all the sides, I do find that, ultimately, I must concede in all fairness … The Canadians may have gotten it right.

As tough as it may be, I do have to give them some credit. The drinking age is 19 in most of Canada, which probably is a wise lower bound.

At 18, high school seniors could easily provide all the alcohol needed for a party. Now in college, most parties tend to be within walking distance, and for longer distances a mix of buses and taxis make the use of a car unnecessary. But in high school, students do not have that luxury, and often rely on cars. Add in some alcohol, and out comes a formula for disaster.

But on a more practical note, from my personal experience in drinking establishments in Scotland, I have noticed that those on the lower end of the legal age spectrum can be a bit too young and certainly too immature. Everyone in the States always clamors for a drinking of 18, but I do not think they have truly considered all the consequences. Do you really want a bunch of freshmen crashing all the bars on Orientation Week? Or how about pre-frosh on Cornell Days, or maybe even some high-school seniors?

Like I said, before you emphatically write the one billion and first column in favor of the lowering the drinking age, you may want to consider all the angles and show a little restraint yourself.

Mike Wacker can be reached at mwacker@cornellsun.com.