I was at a local market recently buying a bottle of wine for dinner. The clerk said I needed to produce an ID, as the legal age for purchase of alcohol in Maine is 21.

I refused, telling the store manager that 50 years ago, when I was 18 – under the draft for probable service in Vietnam – the legal age was 18. It was considered that if I was able to be drafted and sent to war to die for my country, then I should be able to buy a beer. No one was going to check my ID for such an asinine reason, and if he was so blind as to not see that I was obviously older than that, then I did not need to buy anything from them, ever. He sold me the wine. (Apparently Maine law has getting 68-year-olds to prove they are over 21 down pat.)

Today, although there is no draft, an 18-year-old can still enlist and die for his country but cannot buy a beer in this state – and he can be arrested for having it. All this law does is drive young people to the other alternative, drugs, which they can purchase on any street corner and no one asks for an ID.

Opioids were legally developed by Purdue Pharma for profit in this country and are readily available without ID, which allowed legalized drug addiction. How many have died in this state because of that? My older brother died because of that.

Lawrence Everett

West Paris