Quote: "In a way i agree with Jeku that it is based on age but i think its more to do with the experiences you get in life, rather than just growing up naturally."
I agree completely. Life experience and age sort of go together. If two people are adults and one has lived a sheltered life and the other has done many things, their life experience can be taken into account.
Quote: "If a child is offered the choice to say, take cocaine, and they don't, but an adult does, I'd probably say that child is more mature than the adult."
Not at all. Believe me, when I was 16 I thought I knew how the world worked. I would see some seemingly stupid decisions adults in my life made and would often think I never would make the same mistakes. Now that I'm 28 I realize my 16 year old self was still very immature. Maturity is all about age and life experiences. When you're 14 years old, no matter what you think, you are not more mature than any normally developed adult (i.e. not a vegetable or mentally disabled), regardless of the bad decisions they may have made.