Since 1984, drinking alcohol in the United States was made illegal for anyone under the age of twenty-one. Prior to this, drinking was legal for all ages eighteen and up. In 1984, the US quickly raised the drinking age due to a high number of alcohol related fatalities, and other alcohol related accidents. At the same time, we live in a country where in the eyes of our government, you are legally considered an adult by the age of eighteen. This includes voting, registering for the draft, tobacco purchase in some states, as well as being tried as an adult in a court of law. In many other countries, legislation has allowed eighteen year olds to drink and there have not seen a drastic exponential increase in alcohol related accidents due to the drinking age (Faulders). 

People also argue that drinking before twenty-one heightens chances of alcohol related car accidents and is dangerous for developing minds, yet several more benefits from lowering the age outweigh the negatives. By introducing alcohol at an earlier age, people can better understand its effects to more safely consume it as well as understand the dangers of drinking and driving. Governments could also benefit from this change with an increase of consumers paying the tax on alcohol. The benefits of this drop in age would drastically overshadow the negatives that led to why it was originally changed. With proper legislation, enforcement, and education lowering this the drinking age from twenty-one would benefit several parties. Lowering the drinking age back down should be highly reconsidered in this day and age where so many legal responsibilities fall on kids' shoulders at eighteen. 

When a citizen of the United States turns eighteen, they are considered to be in adulthood under the law. A criminal charge is heightened because they are believed to be of age where they have the tools to make smart decisions. They can defend their country, buy tobacco in most states, vote for a president, and even live on their own fully supporting themselves. All these laws suggest that the government believes someone who is eighteen can make their own decisions, so why would they make an acceptation for alcohol? This is in part to alcoholism that has been seen in many people who start drinking while their brain is still not fully developed. Research has shown that, in many cases, people who drank earlier have had a significantly higher chance of developing alcoholism problems (Faulders). Despite this, many countries with a lower drinking age have not documented alcohol abuse problems from the lower drinking ages (Faulders). If an individual can be an adult in every other aspect of our country, why limit their ability to buy or consume alcohol if they're considered wise enough to make every other decision. 

Before the drinking age had been raised to twenty-one, more than 50% of the States in the US had set the bar for the drinking age at eighteen, not twenty-one. These states experienced a slight increase in traffic fatalities due to alcohol and other alcohol induced accidents. This went on throughout most of the 1970's and into the 80's before federal legislation changed the drinking age from eighteen and up to twenty-one in all fifty states in the US (Glaser). This obviously creates a major argument against the idea of lowering the drinking age, yet there are ways of creating and implementing legislation for a lower drinking age that also doesn't increase the rate of alcohol-induced accidents. These include stricter DUI and seat belt laws that have proven effective. A study shows that on average around 820 lives were saved per year between 2004 to 2008 because of the minimum drinking age (National). These values are estimates that are calculated using the effectiveness of the minimum drinking age. However, this has no comparison to the amount of lives seatbelts and airbags have saved. Seatbelts have saved roughly 14,400 lives per year while airbags have saved about 2,700 lives per year between 2004 and 2008 (National). Therefore, this exemplifies that maybe the current drinking age is not actually the cause for the decrease of traffic fatalities but rather a series of laws and proper enforcement is responsible.

Accidents could be reduced not only by legislation, but with better education. If an individual understood alcohol's effects better, they would be less inclined to drive while intoxicated. In many European countries, teens that legally drink alcohol don't really consider it to be exciting or out of the ordinary; it's just a part of life. It isn't causing an increase in alcohol related accidents either because many teens easily control their intake of alcohol (Griggs). When the drinking age was again increased to twenty-one in 1984, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported the significant decrease in drunk driving statistics. A study looked at traffic deaths of people between the ages of sixteen and twenty in 1982 and 1995. In 1982, around sixty-one percent of all traffic deaths included positive blood alcohol levels in the drivers. Later on in 1995, this percentage was almost cut in half, down to thirty-one percent (Griggs). This suggests that with more and more education as well as law enforcement, D.U.I's could be drastically cut down, possibly among those under twenty-one as well if the law were to change. There's also been data from tougher seat belt and D.U.I. legislation that lowers these death rates. By properly educating and enforcing legislation, the drinking age can be lowered while cutting back on alcohol related accidents. Proper education and early introduction to alcohol would also have benefits that stretch beyond auto-related accidents.

Dwight Heath, an anthropology professor at Brown University, makes the dramatic statement that the drinking age should be lowered to eight or maybe even six. Heath claims that if you were to model it into culture earlier, kids would handle it more maturely and we'd see less of the rebellious teens that want to abuse alcohol in the teenage years. "In general, the younger people start to drink the safer they are," said Heath (Griggs). Although Heath's theory may seem a bit exaggerated, another article titled "A comparison of the responsible drinking dimensions among underage and legal drinkers: examining differences in beliefs, motives, self-efficacy, barriers and intentions," examines behaviors of drinkers who are of age and not of age. Their data shows, compared to legal drinkers, the underage drinkers recorded significantly less confidence to perform responsible drinking behaviors, significantly more perceived barriers to responsible drinking, and significantly lower behavioral intentions to perform responsible drinking behaviors the next time they consumed alcohol (Berry). This strengthens Heath's theory that when alcohol is instilled in your culture at an early age, more responsibility comes along with it. If underage drinkers were exposed to drinking earlier, they could be better experienced to make more responsible decisions then if they had no idea.

In a news article, entitled "Should the drinking age stay at 21?," Brandon Griggs argues the drinking age should be lowered as well. One of the several benefits to lowering the drinking age back to eighteen is the ability to teach minors under the age of twenty-one how to handle alcohol responsibly. Griggs includes: "Right now we're in an impossible position (on college campuses). Why should we be expected to enforce a law that's ignored by seventy percent of students before they even come (to college)?" Josh McCardell, the President of the University of the South, Sewanee, agrees with Griggs and makes a convincing argument on why it should be lowered. McCardell believes that the drinking age should be lowered to nineteen. This is the rough age when most kids are in their first couple years of college. This age, instead of eighteen, allows a teenager to start learning about using alcohol and how to control it while in college. Many college presidents were on board with McCardell's plan but sadly, the economy crashed right around the time that they proposed their plan to legislators and they turned their heads to bigger priorities (Griggs). A lower drinking age would drastically benefit college students. For example, Gabrielle Glaser believes that a lower drinking age helps teach kids how to control it responsibly and better understand its effects. Many underage teenagers have no problem getting their hands on alcohol regardless of the law. She states that a lower drinking age with stricter enforcement would be beneficial in the United States (Glaser). One of the biggest effects that has been seen with our current laws restricting college aged students from purchasing alcohol is that many minors just take drinking underground altogether rather then waiting until they're of age. This leads to extremely harmful practices.

 This underground form of drinking amongst minors is seen almost everywhere, such as big high school parties and fraternity events (Glaser). Former president of Middlebury College, John McCardell says, "This law has been an abysmal failure. It hasn't reduced or eliminated drinking it has simply driven it underground, behind closed doors, into the most risky and least manageable of setting," (Drinking). A 2009 study shows that deaths related to alcohol poisoning among eighteen to twenty-four year olds nearly tripled from 1998 to 2005 (Glaser). This would counter the previous argument that a law allowing eighteen year olds to drink is more harmful then if not. Glaser poses a good question when finishing her article: "Why expect twenty-one year olds to learn how to drink responsibly without learning from moderate models, at home and in alcohol education programs?" If alcohol is legal in the country, naturally rebellious teens will be drawn to consume it regardless of their age. A psychologist, David J. Hanson, Ph.D., stated: "When we raise the drinking age to twenty-one, which incidentally is the highest in the world, it makes drinking more attractive to young people" (Faulders). This backs up the idea that by restricting teens access to alcohol, it does nothing but encourage the consumption. Mark Beckner, former Chief of Police in Boulder Colorado says in a 60 minutes' interview, "We find a party where we know there is underage drinking, we would seal the house, surround the house with officers and write every single underage persons coming out of that house ...  All we did was we pushed it further underground," (Drinking). If a chief of police agrees that a law in which he enforces is botched, I think that makes a huge statement.  Mary Cary, the author of "Time to Lower the Drinking Age" agrees with Beckner but offers a different perspective. Cary talks about how when she went to college, most events included beer on campus because the drinking age was eighteen. She states that a decrease in the drinking age could possibly eliminate the usage of a fake IDs as well as prevent ``most people from "pre-gaming." Pre-gaming, or drinking before going out, typically in a locked dorm or fraternity house, has become dangerously popular yet unpopularly dangerous. Due to the fact that if you are under twenty-one you cannot buy alcohol promotes pre-gaming so underage people can get drunk and proceed to go in public without having to worry about buying alcohol. On the United States Center for Disease Control's website, it states that binge drinkers are fourteen times more likely to report alcohol impaired driving when compared to those who do not binge drink. By lowering the dinking age binge drinking would be less encouraged, resulting in less impaired driving, thus lowering the alcohol related car accidents. 

Lastly, a lower drinking age would benefit national and state governments greatly. With the majority of the states in the U.S. having a sales tax, by opening up the consumer population more money could be made by these states. Over twenty-five million people are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one in the U.S, according to the U.S. census in 2010. This much of an increase would dramatically increase tax revenue. Spirits are the have, on average, the highest sales tax of any product followed by wine in beer according to tax foundation's website. This sort of boost in revenue could greatly improve states roads, schools, etc.

To keep the drinking age at twenty-one is a futile battle in our generation. Several arguments against this notion are backed by statistics of alcohol related car incidents being higher when the drinking age was eighteen. There are ways of creating and implementing legislation for a lower drinking age that also doesn't increase the rate of alcohol-induced accidents including stricter DUI and seat belt laws that have proven effective. Another argument is that drinking alcohol which could have negative effects on a developing mind have been disproven or reduced by studies done in countries with a lower drinking age. Other parts of the world have successfully controlled alcohol consumption of people younger than twenty-one and even taken away a lot of the self felt need to abuse it underground. By introducing alcohol earlier, several harmful practices such as binge drinking could be avoided which would directly effect drinking and driving and alcohol related health issues. Aside from safety concerns, the state and national governments would see an increase in tax revenue due to the fact that lowering the drinking age would expand the consumer population by over twenty-five million. With all the benefits in mind, it is clear that lowering the drinking age would be a great decision benefiting citizens and the government. Citizens of the United States are legal adults by the age of eighteen and the drinking age should correspond in a similar manor. The United States would see the benefits mentioned above with some form of a controlled law lowering the drinking age as it was in previous years.

