At midnight, Oct. 25, 2002, I celebrated the start of my 21st year of existence. The official change brought with it a new sense of maturity, a new sense of entitlement and a burgeoning air of responsibility that comes with becoming a full-fledged adult. The United States now trusts me to drink alcohol sensibly, and I didn't want to disappoint it.

Naturally, I celebrated. After all, it's not every day you cross the boundary into mature adulthood. So in keeping with tradition, my friends and I observed the occasion accordingly.

We sat about the local tavern, brandy snifters in hand and engaged in titillating political discourse on the historical antecedents that led to the Franco-Prussian war. That conversation progressed to an analysis of whether the financial panic of 1873 could have been avoided with the institution of Milton Friedman's ideals on fiscal policy. As the evening wore on, it got really wild: An offhanded remark dismissing Vivaldi's integration of solo and ritornello material in his concertos as derivative instigated a classical-music battle royale.

But in the end, we parted as friends. The overall merriment of the occasion carried the day.

OK, so I am stretching things a bit. I did celebrate my 21st birthday this weekend. But I celebrated it in dank establishments with more smoke than a crowded bowling alley. I wasn't drinking cognac or brandy -- or rather if I did, I don't recall. Your drinks tend to blur together as the shot glasses pile up. And as for Vivaldi, everyone knows his vigorous rhythmic patterns were truly influential in establishing a new style of concerto, and I would never say otherwise.

But the point in all this, and surprisingly I've got one, is that at 21, I'm still the same person I was at 20. There was no magical transition that transformed me into a mature adult. Nothing has made me particularly more well-suited to consume alcohol or gamble.

I doubt there is anyone who has undergone such an instantaneous progression from definitively incapable of drinking to definitively responsible for his or her regular alcoholic intake.

The basic tenets behind a minimum drinking age are seriously flawed. The idea that age makes a person more responsible simply is laughable. The enduring popularity of Adam Sandler exemplifies this perfectly. Now, I love Mr. Sandler and his gibberish-speaking, penguin-hallucinating, public-urinating antics, but his audience (consisting of many adult men) could never be considered mature.

There is no factor that makes someone who's 7,670 days old more mature than someone only 7,669 days old. Some people will be capable of good judgment and others never will. In a perfect world, each individual would realize his or her own capabilities and would be responsible enough to monitor his or her own behavior.

Of course, in a perfect world, the Flyers would also win the Stanley Cup every year, and men and women would understand each other.

For a country that loves to celebrate its undying commitment to freedom, it's somewhat surprising we have one of the highest drinking ages in the developed world. A nation that allows its citizens access to deadly automatic weapons hypocritically refuses access to deadly malted hops.

It's somehow perfectly all right for an 18-year-old to own a shotgun, but we have to keep them far from alcohol, because that would be really dangerous.

That's why in the past I've been forced to travel to Canada, a nation that offers its younger citizens unfettered access to vices for drunken gambling misadventures.

Maybe the reasoning here is based on our long proud tradition of shooting things like buffalo, deer and Native Americans; but doesn't it seem misguided to anyone else? In some states, you can even buy guns before you turn 18: a handgun -- yes, a hand of blackjack -- no.

This is something that isn't likely to change anytime soon. For now, it seems that those in the under-21 set are still going to have to continue to refrain from drinking, or at least continue doing it quietly. Not me though, I can finally do almost whatever I please. I can buy case after case of alcohol, drink as much as I want, pass out on my floor, wake up and do it all over again. Because I'm 21, and that makes me responsible.