Question Responsibility, Not Age: Regulation and Maturity Regarding Alcohol Consumption
The essence of issues surrounding alcohol is not age. What should be questioned is whether a person possesses the self-awareness of an "adult." The self-awareness referred to here is self-control: not losing oneself, not causing trouble for others, and taking responsibility for one's own desires and the consequences of one's actions. Simply turning twenty does not automatically grant that qualification. Conversely, discussing the pros and cons of drinking solely based on age lines misses the core of the problem.
In that sense, advertisements like "STOP! Underage Drinking" and "Absolutely NO until 20!" are extremely impoverished. They reduce the issue of alcohol to a formal condition of whether or not a birthday has passed. Originally, teaching about alcohol should involve making people think about what moderation is, what self-control is, and what it means not to cause trouble for others. In reality, however, such educational language has been lost, leaving only the command that "it is forbidden because of your age." This is not language that encourages maturity, but rather language of control that merely demands obedience.
In the first place, there is no inherent moral evil in the act of drinking itself. What is bad is getting drunk, losing oneself, and actually causing public danger or harm to others. Drunk driving, violence, property damage, coercion of others, and breakdowns leading to emergency transport—the issues that should be addressed are these objective failures, not the mere fact that one "drank." Therefore, the issue of alcohol should fundamentally be grasped through the principle of responsibility, not the principle of age. Even if one is over twenty, a fool who is consumed by alcohol has no right to drink. If necessary, that qualification should be revoked.
From this perspective, the idea of a "drinking license" also has a certain rationality. It is not merely a competency test. Rather, it is a concept that imposes a pledge of self-awareness and responsibility on those who drink, and strips the qualification from those who break that pledge in a serious manner. What is important is not to expand the targets of punishment to vague misconduct or character assessments. The targets should be limited strictly to serious failures that can be confirmed from the outside. Otherwise, the system will become a tool for lynching or informing. Conversely, if the criteria are narrowed down to the level of drunk driving, violence, property damage, coercion, and emergency transport, it can consistently stand not as a character assessment, but as the pursuit of responsibility for those who have created real danger through alcohol.
Also, what is important here is that we must not blame everything on "alcohol." For example, serious crimes like rape are no longer just an alcohol problem. Alcohol is not a reason for exemption; at most, it is an aggravating factor. Serious crimes should be handled as serious crimes in their own right.
On the other hand, the situation is reversed when someone is forced to drink. The problem there is not the self-awareness of the person who was made to drink, but the harm caused by the person who made them drink. The person who made them drunk and deprived them of their judgment, or the person who took advantage of that state, is the one who should bear the responsibility; the responsibility should not be shifted to the victim.
In short, the problem of alcohol is not a problem of age, but a problem of self-control and responsibility. The idea that "you can drink because you are twenty" or "it is absolutely forbidden because you are under twenty" is far too shallow. What we should really be asking is whether that person can avoid being consumed by alcohol, avoid harming others, and take responsibility for their own actions. A uniform ban based on age may be useful for the convenience of management, but it does not reach the essence of maturity. Therefore, what is needed is a shift from the principle of age to the principle of responsibility. Do not question the freedom to drink alcohol, but the qualification to drink it—that is the language that captures this issue most directly.