Legal Drinking Age

Eighteen-year-old Americans should be allowed to drinking. Restricting drinking alcohol to the age of 21 is contrary to drinking laws in other countries. In addition, it is contrary to other American laws which clearly establish adulthood at eighteen. The legal age for drinking must be set at 18; that establishes parity with other nations and with this own nation’s body of law. This paper looks at the minimum drinking age in the United States and the reasons that this age has been deemed appropriate by authorities. It then presents several reasons why the present minimum drinking age should be lowered and looks at statistical evidence that supports this contention. It concludes by making the point that at 18 years of age, a citizen can die for

his/her country, get married and divorced, apply for credit, and move out of his/her parent’s

home; therefore he/she should be able to drink.

In America, when a person reaches the age of 18, he can die for his country, obtain credit,

get married, get divorced and be charged in criminal court. By all appearances the age of 18 sets

the stage for adulthood, and all that is entails. In a curious contradiction to that, however,

America insists on maintaining a drinking age of 21 years old. Individual states, under the threat

of reduced federal interstate funding, keep the legal drinking age at 21 years of age.

The minimum legal drinking age should be lowered to 18 because it (age) is not a contributing factor in the number of accidents/deaths that involve young people between 18-21 in the United States.

Lowering the legal drinking age to eighteen would be very beneficial to our ever growing

nation. At age eighteen, young people are formally categorized as adults. There are many reasons

why the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen. Less criminal activity, age of initiation, and

better production plus creation of more money sources are three of the more important reasons

for lowering the legal drinking age. Many political figures have argued over this policy for

numerous years. It wasn’t until July 1, 1998 that all 50 states agreed to make 21 the legal age

to drink. This was only done because the federal government said