Should the Drinking Age be Lowered To 18?

Photo By: Ell Brown

Is lowering the drinking age a good idea? Many believe the drinking age should stay 21 and should not be lowered to 18. Some say, why ``fix`` what isn`t broken? These people believe that lowering the drinking age would cause more bad than good. Others on the other hand, want to lower the drinking age to 18 but only with a drinking permit. They believe that if you learn about all the harm binge drinking can do to you, young people will not consume as much alcohol. I believe the drinking age should stay at 21.

The first reason I believe the drinking age should be kept to 21 is because it saves lives. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that raising the drinking age to 21 saves about 800 lives per year. Most public health groups-including the Centers for Desease Control and Prevention and American Medical Assn.-favor keeping the drinking age to 21. Back in he 1970`s, a number of states lowered the drinking age from 21 to 18, and we saw an increase in alcohol consumption by youth. When it was raised again in 1984 back to 21, we saw lower consumption of alcohol and we`ve kept those low rates.

Underage drinking is also a big issue. When you start drinking you have look 21. A 16-year-old and 14-year-old don`t look 21 but they can easily pass for the age of 18. Studies also show that kids under 14 are more likely to get addicted to alcohol and get into fights and crashes than kids who don1t drink.When you see younger people starting to drink, if they combine that with driving it results in a lot of fatalities. There is also an issue that states that since the drinking age is lower in Europe, there is a lesser problem. But if you look at the surveys that have been done, most European countries have a mudh higher rate of binge drinking for 15 and 16 year olds that we fo in the U.S.

People who want to lower the drinking age to 18 say, what we have been doing to prevent underage drinking so far hasn`t worked. The DARE [Drug Abuse Resistance Education] program, for instance, which is used in about 70% of the schools in the country, is basically a scare tactic. If it was just a ``scare tactic`` then why would the government waste money on these types of programs. The government would have passed the law to lower the drinking age to 18, ages ago. In other words these programs about drug abuse and all that do work. The out come migh be slow but atleast you are getting somthing out of it. Like my mom always says, ``The car might be moving slowly but atleast its moving forward.``