Ballots and beer — at 18?

It was when Eric Paine of Newport Beach became an acronym at Boston College about a year ago, that he decided enough was enough.

“Cops came into my house and gave me a MIP,” said the 21-year-old Paine, who was 20 at the time. “That means ‘minor in possession’ of alcohol. That’s when I thought, ‘Boy, I’m older than 18. I can vote, I can go off to war and die for my country, but I can’t enjoy a cold one?’”

Add to that list, Paine says, the ability to serve on a jury, buy guns and cigarettes and “smoke yourself to death” — all at 18.

So, to Paine, the legal drinking age of 21 doesn’t match up logically to the rest of the freedoms and civic duties that come with turning 18.

Which is why he’s on a one-man quest to lower the drinking age nationwide to 18. And he’s got hundreds of followers on his relatively new national website, drinkat18.com., which cost him upward of $8,000 to launch in January.

So far, 85 people have signed the petition to lower the drinking age and more than 500 have joined the site’s Facebook page. Paine estimates that he’ll easily have 1,000 friends by the end of April, because it’s averaging at least 100 newcomers a day.

Others are adamantly opposed to lowering the age and don’t like what Paine advocates.

They say lowering the legal age would only cause more DUI-related deaths on the highways — and it would put alcohol into the hands of an even younger age group.

Costa Mesa Police Sgt. David Makiyama, who often mans DUI checkpoints, sums it up from the gut: “I don’t think they [18-year-olds] have the maturity. There’s a lot of older people who don’t have the maturity and the smarts to not drink and drive. So why would an 18-year-old be any different?”

Yet Makiyama is willing to keep an open mind on the subject.

“If you were to come and show me statistics that show me otherwise,” he said. “I just don’t know the pros and cons.”

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, however, are unbending and furious about Paine’s movement.