Highly debated, periodically changed, and morally questionable describe the roots for the controversial minimum drinking age in the United States. As a society, we will never live in a perfect world. Likewise, there will never be a perfect solution to the minimum drinking age laws. In a case like this, the best option seems to be simply collecting the pros and cons and formulating a stance based on the findings. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, "Excessive drinking is responsible for more than 4,300 deaths among underage youth each year, and cost the U.S. $24 billion in economic costs in 2010." That fact alone might sway someone to agree with the current twenty-one and older alcohol consumption law. On the other hand, personally being quote on quote "underage" provides me with a different perspective and raises some questions such as, how did lawmakers decide on the minimum age of twenty-one and why are we given the liberties to operate a car, vote on our president, and serve in the military all before the age of twenty-one. 

Underage drinking was not my first choice as a research topic for the class, actually, I was planning on writing about whether or not college athletes should be paid. Unfortunately, first semester I did a research paper on the very subject so I decided it was better for me to learn about something new. Fast forward a couple days, and our class was throwing around research ideas and underage drinking was one that caught my attention. This research question does affect me in a couple ways. First, I am underage and in college where the drinking environment is noticeable twenty-four seven. Now whether I chose to participate or not, the drinking atmosphere is still relevant. Most people in school here at USC know at least one if not multiple people who have been in trouble with the school and or the police because of drinking related incidents stemming from being underage. Secondly, my brother who is only a year older than I is in the United States Navy and is permitted to protect our country but cannot have the luxury of drinking alcohol; seems a little fishy to me. As of now, I would not consider myself qualified to write a complete paper on this topic. Although, after I do the proper research and push myself to learn about this subject and form valid arguments, then I believe I will be qualified.

My three current sources come from a medical journal, an economic journal, and a journal for policy analysis and management. The first one I looked at was from the "Journal of the American Medical Associates." In the article, the argument being proved is that there is a spike in unintentional injury involvement after drinking for "underage" drinkers compared to legal drinkers. The evidence used in the article was a study called "The National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiology Survey." Clearly the authors of the article are subsequently proving that underage drinking is harmful and should be avoided. If they had done a poor job proving their point, then it could have given support to the opposition of the argument. Three of the authors have medical backgrounds and that provides them with bias because they know the real health affects alcohol has. The last author has a statistics background which facilitated the numerical evidence and the proper data to backup their claims. The economic article, written by a professor at Vanderbilt University, is arguing that the current legislature enforcing the drinking age of 21 is incorrect and in actually more dangerous than if the laws were set at a younger age. This article is bold in the fact that there aren't many academic articles written opposing the current drinking age. I trust this author because he has done studies in all sorts of related fields including, health economics, labor economics, and alcohol. My final source is comparable to my first. Similar because this one is also about injuries sustained by underage drinkers while under the influence except in this article it is specific to car related injuries. There is not much risk producing a article like this one because there is already numerous backers to its central claim that the minimum drinking age should not be lower. The author is credible in my eyes because he is a weathered professor at Northwestern University and has been on economic research cases for decades. Clearly, he knows how to translate data into arguments.

My research question, how did lawmakers decide on the minimum age of twenty-one and why are we given the liberties to operate a car, vote on our president, and serve in the military all before the age of twenty-one, because clearly from my research thus far there is lots of claims proving the dangers of underage drinking, therefore, compelling the minimum drinking age of twenty-one. Two on my sources provide what they claim as evidence for the side of, more people get injured while drinking underage and the third claims it has evidence that proves the opposite. I made sure my sources were relatively current because that allows for most of our current technology to be used in the research for these claims; in return making them more credible. I might have to revise my research question depending on how many sources I can find that support both possible claims.

