Let's face it, with nearly  three-fourths  of high school students consuming alcohol before they graduate, the possibility of a lower drinking age needs to be seriously considered (Main). With powerful countries in Europe keeping a drinking age at 18, the idea of a younger drinking age working better is attractive to young people everywhere (Lopez). In my perspective, I have grown up in a town where teenage drinking was endorsed by students and most students thought it was normal. From my personal experience, I have always thought that a lower drinking age would help the community in that kids would be exposed to drinking more casually and move past the idea that it is something you do just because you are not supposed to. I myself have seen many people introduced to alcohol by unexperienced drinkers and find themselves getting hurt because they do not know what they are doing. I find this topic interesting because I have always thought that a lower drinking age would do a country better, and I have always believed that the drinking age in the United States is unnecessary high. Being a youth who has experienced many situations where alcohol is present, my opinion on the matter is necessary when considering the argument in its entirety. Whether or not the drinking age is acceptable at 21 is something that impacts me as a youth as much as it impacts the rest of the country.

My first article, "The Age-21 Minimum Legal Drinking Age: A Case Study Linking past and Current Debates" discusses the history of the drinking age and how it came to be what it is today. The article provides support for both sides of the case, using many different sources which support both a lower and a higher drinking age. The evidence the author uses is obtained from many different articles and reports dating back to the 1970's. While the article pushes for a higher drinking age, it also examines in depth, the benefits of a lower drinking age. Although the article is very interested in the positive effects of a high drinking age, it also examines the beneficial aspects of a low drinking age. The article explains that a lower drinking age can give us more information about the effects of youth drinking but overall, argues that in order to save lives and keep our country safe, the drinking age should remain high (Toomey). The author, Traci L. Toomey, is an expert in alcohol policy with over 18 years of experience in the field. She has developed and implemented many alcohol and tobacco policy research projects (Toomey). This gives her a lot of credibility because she has so much experience with the topic. However, she also has a bias because she has seen so much information about the topic that she may be resistant to new information that opposes her findings.

My second article "Underage Drinking and The Drinking Age" is similar to the first in that the author is clearly against lowering the drinking age. A large majority of the article is about the negative effects of underage drinking, specifically college binge drinking. Although the article does talk about how 18 year olds are mature enough to have a drink, it focuses on the negative impacts of drinking under the age of 21 (Main). This article is strongly in support for the safety of the country, which in turn, means that she is against underage drinking. The article also touches on the impacts of underage alcohol abuse programs and how they work. Overall the article values the safety of college students as well the people around them who are so closely impacted by them. The authors name is Carla T. Main and she has a PhD and is a journalist and former editor for the National Law Journal (Main). She has a lot of knowledge of previous alcohol laws being an editor for a Law Journal. However, she may be biased in that she may dismiss other options for controlling underage alcohol because she has seen so much information about it.   

My last article is an article about the effects of a lower drinking age in Europe. This article talks about the idea that some Americans have that Europe's lower drinking age is somehow helping teens become more responsible drinkers. In Europe the drinking age is 18 which gives people the impression that if they are starting earlier, they will become more responsible earlier (Lopez). This article proves that to be wrong with many facts stating that teen alcohol abuse in Europe is much worse than in America (Lopez). This article values the peoples' ideas of youth drinking and tries to change the way people think about it. It also values the health of teenagers all around the world as it makes an effort to change the way people think about underage alcohol usage. The article is by German Lopez who is an author for Vox, a political journal (Lopez). He is not the most credible source because he is a journalist who does many different types of articles and does not have as good as a background as some of the other sources. This could mean he has a bias because he could be slightly skewing information in an effort to make it what the people want to hear. 

This research question is very easily debatable because there are facts on both the higher drinking age side and the lower drinking age side that have benefits to society. However, almost all of the resources I have found for this topic have all been leading me to believe that there it is much more beneficial to society to have a higher drinking age. Still, some sources have disagreed with each other slightly in how much these drinking age laws will benefit our country. When I started this research project, my view was that a lower drinking age is beneficial to our country. However after reading the information I have, I now believe that the drinking age is perfect where it is. These sources completely changed my opinion on the topic and I now am completely against a lower drinking age while prior to my research I was completely for it. I could possibly revise my research question to make it more specific because as of now this appears to be a once sided argument. Some possible topics I could dive further into are; What are the effects of a lower drinking age? Should alcohol be banned altogether?

