Lowering the drinking age?

I just heard of a few state proposals to lower the legal age of drinking alcohol in bars and restaurants to 18 from 21. The proposals would leave the age for purchasing alcohol from a liqour store at 21. I can't decide if I think the former is:

• A Good Idea, to bring college-age consumption into the open. "Better to have them do it in public than hiding in a dorm."
• A Bad Idea, given that alcohol impairs healthy brain development all the way into your 20s (and thus we should want kids to drink less).
  

Thoughts? Reactions?

Liquor advertising: a note from a cynic

Jim Beam recently announced a plan to only advertise in establishments (or publications) where 75% of the audience is above the legal drinking age. This ups the ante on the two liquor trade groups, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and the Beer Council, whose benchmark is only 70%.

Of course, neither item is particularly impressive when 70% of the total population is above the legal drinking age. This means that the liquor folks have committed only to advertise to minors relative to their proportion of the population.

Of course, there's an old study (from 1980) that suggests that advertising does little to change overall consumption patterns. Another working paper suggests the same, but notes that making alcohol harder to actually obtain (by increasing prices) could have beneficial social outcomes.

Conclusion: it's a token gesture in a completely useless direction. But it gets you in the papers....