South Dakotans love their right to initiate ballot issues, but we see no good reason for this state to put the legal drinking age, now at 21, to the test at the voting booth.

N. Bob Pesall of Flandreau is considering collecting enough signatures to put a measure on the ballot that would allow 19- and 20-year olds to drink low-point alcohol. Sen. Bill Napoli, a Republican legislator from Rapid City, also got on the bandwagon to lower the drinking age recently.

This is one grassroots campaign that shouldn't take place. It's bad fiscal policy, bad public safety policy and bad social policy.

If it lowered the drinking age from 21, South Dakota would pay a stiff penalty in federal highway dollars that help maintain its road system. Lowering the age limit would have cost the state an estimated $15 million in federal tax dollars in 2006. We have to ask, what's the benefit?

We can't find one.

That 1984 federal mandate is just one piece of a larger puzzle that has slowly but steadily lowered highway fatalities in this state. Public education campaigns in favor of seatbelt usage and against drunk driving have both helped reduce the number of young people who die in automobile accidents, but we suspect setting the legal drinking age at 21 has played a significant role in it, too.

Napoli and Pesall cite military service during war time as one reason to lower the drinking age. But the truth is that 18, 19 and 20 year olds who return from a combat zone have absolutely no trouble accessing alcohol, despite a law against it. We think encouraging the use of alcohol in young combat veterans by making it legal and socially-sanctioned is a bad idea.

Given the readjustment issues to civilian life that many of them are experiencing, adding easy access to alcohol to the mix is unwise.

A recent Army study of 88,235 soldiers who served in Iraq found that 20 percent of active duty soldiers and 40 percent of reservists and National Guardsmen needed some kind of mental health treatment several months after returning home from war. Fifteen percent of the latter group reported abusing alcohol.

With a significant minority of combat veterans experiencing psychological problems that range from depression and family conflict to post-traumatic stress disorder, why add more alcohol use to the mix?

We see a large downside to lowering the drinking age in South Dakota, and very little upside.

We shouldn't do it, and we shouldn't waste the state's time or money putting it to a vote, either.