A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

23 January 2017

Constitutional amendment could allow
lower legal age to drink, smoke, or toke

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Rep. Dave Fern (D-Whitefish) has released a draft bill, LC1139, to amend Montana’s constitution to allow the legislature or a citizen’s initiative to set the minimum age for using tobacco and marijuana as well as alcohol. As written, the amendment allows the minimum age for drinking, smoking, and toking, to be set below the official adult age of 18:

Section 1. Article II, section 14, of The Constitution of the State of Montana is amended to read:

Section 14. Adult rights. A person 18 years of age or older is an adult for all purposes, except that the legislature or the people by initiative may establish the legal age for purchasing, consuming, or possessing alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, and recreational marijuana.

I think the intent of Section 14 is to allow the legislature to set the drinking age higher than age 18 — but nothing in Section 14 forbids the legislature or a citizen’s initiative from lowering the drinking age to, for example, 16, perhaps for 3.2 percent beer and watered down table wines.

Here’s how to fix it:

Section 14. Adult rights. A person 18 years of age or older is an adult for all purposes, except that the legislature or the people by initiative may establish the a legal age greater than 18 years of age for purchasing, consuming, or possessing alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, and recreational marijuana.

If this amendment is put on the 2018 general election ballot, and I think it should be put on the ballot, provided it’s amended as I recommend, it should be accompanied by a constitutional amendment mandating that the minimum age for serving in the legislature shall be no lower than the highest 18+ minimum age for drinking, smoking, or toking. If 18-year-olds are not sufficiently mature to ingest whiskey, cigar smoke, or let’s have a good time cannabis fumes, they’re not sufficiently mature to pass judgment on legislation.