Some laws in society are considered by many to be more of a nuisance than harmful per se.

Jaywalking often comes to mind. And in the state of Wisconsin, one better not think of making cheese without a license.

But one crime should not be added to the list — the brandishing of a fake ID for the purposes of procuring alcohol underage.

Last semester, I was proctoring an exam, and a freshman didn't have his student ID with him. In a tongue-and-cheek manner, I asked him to show me his fake ID. Though he had no problem flaunting his supposed ticket to fun, this is obviously a problem plaguing college campuses across the nation.

Students who use fake IDs are endangering not only themselves but also others by their deception.

Wisconsin unfortunately does not have a strong dram shop law — which allows one to hold an establishment financially liable for damage a patron may cause after becoming heavily intoxicated. Yet bartenders can still be held liable for providing underage drinkers with alcohol. And taverns can also be held civilly liable for the damage caused by an underage patron if it is found that they have not checked identification with a "good faith effort."

So much for a victimless crime.

Not only is the practice of using a fake ID deceitful, the engagement in underage drinking is a drain on the nation's economy. According to a widely cited study by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, the costs of underage drinking are estimated at more than $58 billion annually. And this amount does not include the cost of enforcement or prevention of underage drinking.

The typical college student response to this problem would be to lower the drinking age to 18 so they can cease to engage in this deceitful behavior. But the reasoning behind this argument is about as illogical as a young child telling their parent not to ask who pilfered the cookie jar so they don't have to lie.

Though many believe the age of 21 was arbitrarily chosen by a group of legislators concerned with re-election (this has been the legal drinking age in Wisconsin since 1866 with a brief hiatus from 1971 to 1986), there is a logical explanation for the legislation.

Often, a person's prefrontal cortex portion of their brain — which controls such functions as providing a person with the ability to use judgment and reason — does not completely develop until they reach their early 20s. This helps to explain why college students do not always make the smartest decisions. Alcohol does nothing more than retard the ability to use sound judgment and reason even more.

Come on. There is a reason most car rental companies won't let people under the age of 25 rent a car. Hertz and Enterprise are not stupid.

In addition to the physiological effects alcohol has on a young person, there are also the staggering statistics. During the 1960s and 1970s, many states lowered their drinking ages from 21 to 18. Consequently, the number of deaths of people involved in alcohol-related crashes in this age group increased significantly in these states. This figure decreased dramatically when these states eventually increased the drinking age again.

Police officers were also making fewer house calls in the middle of the night to tell parents their son or daughter had been killed by a drunk driver.

It is patently obvious underage drinking is not a victimless crime.

Finally, there are those who incorrectly believe the drinking age impedes on a state's Tenth Amendment rights. Yet a perusal of South Dakota v. Dole would do those who doubt the constitutionality of such legislation some good — a sound understanding of federalism would also be beneficial. The federal government is well within their constitutional rights under Congress' spending powers in Article 1 of the Constitution to regulate the distribution of the federal purse.

The Court in Dole was correct in asserting that withholding five percent of federal highway funds from states that did not increase their drinking age to 21 was not compulsion, but rather only "mild encouragement."

States can take the carrot — but by no means are they forced to eat it.

Conversely, the states' rights thinkers among us who argue the law violates the Tenth Amendment and an individual state's autonomy should be more concerned with asking why states are even taking federal money in the first place.

Often, underage students feel they need a fake ID to get them into bars so they can hang out with their older friends. It is unfortunate, though, that socializing on this campus needs to revolve around beer and the retched stench of fermenting yeast.

Darryn Beckstrom ([email protected]) is a doctoral student in the department of political science and a second-year MPA candidate in the La Follette School of Public Affairs.