(U-WIRE) LAWRENCE, Kan. – The University of Kansas Political Activist Club doesn’t think it is fair that 18-year-olds can vote but can’t sit at a counter in a bar and have an alcoholic beverage. According to law, you must be 21 to do so, but that’s a law this group wants to change.

The club’s goal is to get the drinking age lowered to 18.

The club will begin lobbying the Legislature in January 2005 but has already spoken with staff members for U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore (D-Kansas) and Ralph Nader, Reform Party presidential candidate.

Lowering the drinking age is not about going out and getting plastered, but about a balance in the adult responsibilities, said Krystal Werth, Wichita sophomore and vice president of the group.

If an 18-year-old can be given the responsibilities of an adult – including voting, marriage and military service – then he should be able to have a drink, Werth, 19, said.

Right now people younger than 21 face legal punishments for drinking underage, but that doesn’t keep some from drinking.

Werth said it was not really a matter of whether people were drinking, was a matter of whether that person was legally or illegally drinking.

The drinking age was changed from 18 to 19 on July 1, 1985. The next year, the age was raised to 20, and in 1987 it increased to 21. Before 1985, 18-year-olds could only drink 3.2 percent alcohol.

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 required all states to raise the minimum age to 21 for the purchase and public possession of alcohol.

States that do not comply with the Act face a reduction in federal highway and transportation funding.

More than likely, the proposal for lowering the drinking age would go through the transportation department before coming to the state senate or the Kansas House of Representatives, said Rachelle Colombo, communications director for Speaker of the House Doug Mays (D-Topeka).

– Stephanie Farley