Drinking Age Should Be Lowered

Since 1987, it has been argued that the legal drinking age in the United States should be lowered to 18 so that young adults are allowed to drink in certain environments. This argument has many sides which can be argued. At 18, you are considered an adult. You can vote, charged with adult crimes, and even die for your country, but you cannot consume alcohol. To me that is discriminating against people in the age group of 18-20. As of now, adults over 21 years old are allowed to drink in places such as restaurants, bars, and some other controlled environments. Adults over the age of 21 could work to be seen as role models and promote responsible drinking. They could teach younger adults about the affects of alcohol and how it can affect your ability to function properly. Sensible drinking and responsibility would eventually be seen.

Even though you must be 21 years old to legally purchase alcohol, a large portion of college students under 21 consume alcohol on a regular basis. This is because drinking by underage adults is seen as a way to rebel against authority and is seen as a fun social activity where everyone can have fun. As a country, we have tried to pass prohibition legislation twice in the past trying to control irresponsibility with drinking. These two times were during the state prohibition in the 1850's and the National Prohibition during the 1920's. These laws were finally revoked because we were unable to enforce them and the public uproar towards them caused other social problems. We are repeating history today and making the same mistakes we made in the past. Prohibition did not work then and with as rebellious and as crazy as young adults are now prohibition will not work for people under the age of 21.

Underage drinking and disobedience of the current drinking laws is seen all over many university campuses. Adults that are under the age of 21 are more likely to drink heavily on a regular basis. For example, roughly 25% of all university students under the age of 21 are heavy drinkers. This compares to roughly 20% of adults over 21 years old. As for adults in general, 35% of under age adults are heavy drinkers, compared to 25% of legal age adults. Research from the 1980s until the present has shown a continuous decrease in drinking and driving related problems. However, these declines started in 1980 before the National 1987 law was passed that prohibited anyone under the age of 21 from purchasing alcohol. The decrease in drinking and driving problems has been the result of many things that were not related to the rise in the legal age of alcohol purchase or the decreased average amount of alcohol consumed by the average adult. Some of these factors included the introduction of the designated driver, increased use and awareness of seat belt and air bags, safer automobiles, lower speed limits, and free taxi services from places where drinking is allowed.

Even though there has been a decrease in the average consumption of alcohol and motor vehicle crashes, there has been an increase of other problems that go along with binge and irresponsible drinking. Most of the reported behaviors showed little to no change until after the legal drinking age was raised in 1987. To prove this, 45% of students reported vomiting after drinking from