When does one officially become a “grown-up” in California? It’s not an easy question to answer. The envious businessman from Boston may, as he leans into a freezing wind coming off the Charles River, growl that no one really ever grows-up in the Land of Fruits and Nuts. Ironically, the beach combing guru in Santa Cruz may agree with the staid Boston businessman as he urges you to seek your “inner child.” Perhaps, we shouldn’t rely on these two for a good answer to our question.
I would guess that if one were to take a survey that asked the average guy and gal at the shopping mall the question “when does one legally become an adult in California?” most people would say either 18 or 21 years of age. And they would have good reasons for picking either of these milestone ages. At 18, one graduates (hopefully!) from high school, obtains the right to vote for the lesser of two evils, smoke cigarettes, pack up the Nova with all your worldly possessions and get an apartment, make contracts, and join the military. At 21, you obtain the freedom to go to a sports bar, eat stale pretzels, lose $25 betting on a favorite team, and have a beer.
Most of the time, legislators in the State Capitol decide, by enacting new laws, who is chronologically mature enough or not mature enough to make certain decisions. This is a legitimate duty. But we should also remember and take into account the fact that maturity doesn’t always arrive based on the number of birthday parties that one has under one’s hat. We all have examples of people who are adults in the legal sense but adolescents in fact. The Eagle Scout or the young musicians recently honored by the Auburn Symphony are in many ways more mature than the philandering guy who drives his sports car around his mid-life crisis or the society starlets who believe that they have finally found the Fountain of Youth through Botox injections.
When the Legislature decides that persons who have reached a certain age can make certain decisions it can effect large numbers of both mature and immature state residents. Such decisions can have long-term effects on our culture. Often it’s a judgment call between the just protection of innocent children and unnecessary paternalism.
To illustrate this point, let’s look at two controversial issues that are now being debated in the state legislature: raising the legal age of smoking and permitting anyone over 18 years of age to buy a needle.
AB 1453 (Koretz) would raise the minimum age to purchase and consume tobacco from 18 to 21 years of age. There is no doubt that teenage tobacco use should be discouraged. Current strategies of using education efforts, including advertising, and raising taxes on tobacco products have resulted in a 50% decline in tobacco consumption over the last decade. Teenage smoking is, on a per capita basis, 30% lower in California than in the rest of the nation.
Assemblyman Koretz argues that equating the age of 18 with adulthood is a product of the military draft of the Vietnam era and bears little relation to the maturity levels of adolescents. He points out that the levels of drug use, binge drinking, suicide, and multiple sex partners “provides strong evidence that the age of 18 is no indicator of the capacity to make reasonable decisions.”
Is Assemblyman Koretz right? Is the 18, 19, or 20 year old mature enough to select our elected representatives? California citizens who are 18 years of age and older have had the right to vote since 1972. Does Assemblyman Koretz favor a repeal of this right? Does the soldier or marine in Afghanistan or sailor in the Persian Gulf have the “capacity to make reasonable decisions?” Should those servicemen and women and a married 20 year-old that is caught smoking by the police be fined?
While some in the State Capitol believe that the under 21 crowd aren’t mature enough to make a decision to smoke or not, others have no problem with allowing 18 year olds to buy needles and syringes without a prescription from a physician. SB 1785 (Vasconcellos), which would permit any person 18 years and older to purchase a needle or syringe from a pharmacist without a prescription from a physician, may make it to the Governor’s desk by the end of August.
Senator Vasconcellos and many other legislators, including Assemblyman Koretz, think that all 18 year olds in our state are mature enough to make the decision as to whether they buy a needle or syringe. If SB 1785 is signed into law, will one or more troubled youths from our town, who just want to “experiment with heroin a few times” but who also know that one can contract the lifetime diseases HIV or Hepatitis from a dirty needle, be tempted to walk into the pharmacy, put a quarter on the counter, and a buy a brand new needle or syringe? Will these youth just “experiment with heroin a few times” or will they be unintentionally drawn down a road of criminal behavior, prostitution, suffering, and ultimate self-destruction?
Once again, the California Legislature will act on AB 1453 and SB 1785 and thereby attempt to answer the question “when does one legally become an adult in California?” But I don’t think that these efforts will decrease tobacco or heroin use, the crimes committed by drug addicts, or slow the spread of HIV and hepatitis. They are attacking these problems in the wrong way. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “foolish legislation is a rope of sand which perishes in the twisting.”
Copyright 2002 The Auburn Sentinel