For thirty-two years, the drinking age has been twenty-one, previously being eighteen. The push for it's original change came from a group called Mothers Against Drunk Driving. They believed that the change to twenty-one would be safer overall for society. Since it's change there have been a countless number of debates, petitions, studies and more that aimed to lower the drinking age back to eighteen. Reasons to lower the drinking age vary from person to person. A reason can be as simple as "eighteen year olds are adults, they should be able to drink", to as complicated as a precise study done that displays the amount of underage, excess drinking done in the past year that has resulted in injury or death. I went into this project with the idea that the age should be changed, and I came out with even more confidence that I had the right mindset. From the research that I have done, it is evident that the drinking age should be lowered for a safer and more educated society. The United States lowering the drinking age would create safe environments in many facets of life and would give a type of education to adolescent that is not available today. 

The focal point behind all of the debate on this issue is safety. Whether this safety is on the roads, at home, teen parties, or even in college, the main goal is to have a safe society when involving alcohol. Drunk driving is a major issue today and has been since the creation of automobiles. After the original change to a twenty-one-year-old drinking age, the number of lives that were saved did increase, making the new law a success. The new law was well respected and it was good for the U.S. Although, the main concern is a new trend that is occurring. The number of lives that the twenty-one-year-old drinking age has saved is lowering. According to an entry in Journal of Public Health, "Will Increasing Alcohol Availability By Lowering the Minimum Legal Drinking Age Decrease Drinking and Related Consequences Among Youths?", the number of deaths on the road due to alcohol from ages eighteen to twenty in 2001 was 971 and then has increase over eight deaths a year since then. The data provided has shown that the law made an initial positive impact, then switching to negative. I believe that alcohol is becoming more accessible and more desired from teens in this age range. From a personal standpoint with the drinking age being what it is, drinking underage must be hidden. Whether it it hiding from parents or law officials, I have seen people try to drive home from their friend's house because they did not want to tell their parents they were drinking. Luckily, I have not known anyone injured or killed because of this, although this sort of underground drinking is causing a great amount of underage drinking death and can be easily fixed. 

Safety can be talked about in many walks of life, not just on the road. Alcohol has a clear physical and mental affect on people. Safe drinking can prevent many deaths such as those that happen due to alcohol poisoning. Unfortunately, I do know someone who died from alcohol poisoning underage because he was new to drinking and was not aware of his limits. An article that was almost completely about safety was the CNN article, "Should the U.S. Lower its Drinking Age?'' This article is about a Brown University anthropology professor who believes that the U.S. drinking age should be lowered. The interesting attention grabber shocks the reader when it says the Professor Heath thinks that the age should be lowered to as young as 6 years old. It goes on to explain that this is not to get kids drunk, although it is to get them familiar with the use of alcohol and protect them from the peer pressure of the teenage years. The Brown professor, professor Heath says, "In general, the younger people start to drink, the safer they are."  This idea is common as it is seen in this argument throughout the nation. The younger that people begin to drink, the sooner they begin to understand the risks that it holds. As mentioned in this article, the amount that the young people would drink does not have to be a lot, it can be in portions enough to educate the individual slowly as they age into the teen and adult years. Nothing is more important than the safety of young Americans, and in today's society with alcohol being present in many young lives, safety is absolutely necessary. 

Being a college student, I see a share fare of underage drinking. Unfortunately, most of this drinking is done "underground", meaning drinking in places that will isolate people from the law enforcement. Drinking underground is unsafe although the current law forces those underage to do so, especially college students. In a CBS article, "The Debate on Lowering the Drinking Age," the author article reports that over 100 college presidents have made a stand to move the drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one. The president's reason for this change is that the only thing that the drinking age limit does is push underage drinkers to drink "underground" and also binge drink when they are of age. These presidents argue that lowering the drinking age will make kids safer. It is a big deal when presidents of schools such as Dartmouth or Duke are making claims such as lowering the drinking age. This creates a large debate because these men and women are well-respected and very knowledgeable especially when dealing with underage kids at the college level. The fact that college age kids are known to be drinking and authorities know it is happening creates unsafe environments, which makes for a notable stake as well. Many would agree that people with this much credibility should be respected by government. The president of Middlebury has had a numerous amount of debating with Mothers Against Drunk Driving. There has been no budge on their side, creating major issues. Steps need to be taken to create safer environments on college campuses. Nothing is more valuable in this situation than the facts and the facts point directly to the drinking age being a cause of deaths especially on college campuses. When parents send their kids off to college they should know that they will be safe and do everything properly, and the current law does not allow for this to happen. 

When stepping away from the idea of safety regarding a lower drinking age, education becomes the next most important reason to lower the drinking age. The overall educating of adolescent today on alcohol can then revert back and create more safety. If one were to get to college or to a scene that has alcohol and not be educated, how can they make the proper choices? They simply can't. Education has veered toward other things such as technology and there has been a loss in educating youth in alcohol. In a video that I researched, "History of a Controversy: The Legal Drinking Age" a student interviewed many school officials at Penn State University and asked them their opinion of the drinking age. When asking them if there would be a positive effect, a Resident Life Senior Coordinator said, "I think that there might be some positive effects in that it would normalize responsible drinking a little bit more." This lady deals with underage college students frequently and sees the irresponsible drinking that goes on. "Normalizing" responsible drinking is what today's society needs. Educating while young will create an overall safer and more responsible atmosphere. 

On the opposing side of the argument, it was hard to find multiple credible sources that give a sufficient and factual amount of information that proves the drinking age should be kept the same. There was a U.S. News & World Report article that did have some evidence and arguments that the drinking age should be kept the same. This article, "The Debate is Over-Higher Drinking Age Saves Lives," is an article out of U.S. News & World Report that argues the drinking age of twenty-one has saved lives. This is mainly due to alcohol-related traffic fatalities being underage drivers. This article shows more research that the drinking age of 21 does not create more binge drinking, which is a common debate. The biggest stake in this article is the lives that the drinking age have saved. Being that this study has been proved, saving 900 lives a year is a major deal and should be used in the argument. The writer of this source is credible on this topic because of the source that she writes for and the research she did. U.S. News is a credible news center and is looked at for news every day. For this topic, it is credible because it has research in this article that is directly given to prove it's claim. Credibility helps this argument because there were so few articles found pushing for keeping the drinking age the same. This may be because the drinking age should actually be moved or because the people simply want change. Whatever the case may be, despite this article, all signs lead to the age being lowered again. 

When creating this argument, I was open to all input and wanted to see if my argument was accurate and should be executed. Along with the article above, I was able to find a journal entry that posed arguments that say the drinking age should be lowered, and then the journal would have a rebuttal. The journal comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and it is called, "An Examination of the Criticisms of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age 21 Laws in the United States from a Traffic-Safety Perspective." The first argument discussed in the journal stated, "Nineteen- and twenty-year-olds are drinking anyway. If we legalize it, at least they'll be drinking in a controlled setting." (NHTSA). The response was interesting because it argued that bars and clubs were not necessarily "controlled" environments. This is interesting because for those who believe in lowering the drinking age, they mainly mean controlled environments such as homes or under the supervision of those not drinking. The rest of this journal was similar in it had replies that were not fully answering the question. While there were some respectable answers, I often found that most of the time they were not. 

When researching, it was helpful to find sources that debated in itself like the one mentioned above, to show the reader why it's argument was correct. A scholarly journal that I previously used, did just that and used it's own sources to prove why they were correct. This specific journal entry was titled, "Will Increasing Alcohol Availability by Lowering the Minimum Legal Drinking Age Decrease Drinking and Related Consequences Among Youths?" While reading this article there were many examples of the use of other sources and evidence to back up it's case. This article had a clear push to lower the drinking age and unlike the others, it had many reasons. The most evident reason was a education of alcohol at a young age to prevent adulthood abuse of alcohol. The author writes, "Drinking alcohol most commonly begins during adolescence and early initiation of alcohol use is associated with alcohol problems in adulthood." This is an important fact because it is the most commonly brought up point throughout all the articles. If this is the case, then something needs to be done. After reading this the thought of why something hadn't been done struck. I then read, "In recognition of the harms caused by underage drinking the US Surgeon General issued a Call to Action in 2007 to pre- vent and reduce drinking among youths." What happened was, many states began to initiate their own rules and create lower drinking ages because they thought it was safer. This began to happen and the United States as a whole never followed, making the drinking age enforced at twenty-one throughout the entire country. Nothing has been done since. 

Throughout the research of the alcohol age limit, there are clear common reasons as to why the drinking age needs to be lowered. From safety to education, the youth of the United States are inevitably going to face dangerous lives if something is not done. For people to go to college and not know anything about drinking is dangerous. For people to get in a car and have to worry about some teen drinking and driving because he or she did not know what it was like to be drunk is unfortunate. The situation has dragged out entirely too long and needs to be fixed right away. If this is fixed there will be a noticeable drop in incidents throughout the country and society will be safer.  If college professors and presidents can step forward and say that something needs to be done, then something should be done. If the numbers clearly point toward lowering the drinking age, then the drinking age should be lowered. The importance of the safety of our adolescent in this country is indescribable. Coming from a college student who has been around and fortunately been educated, change needs to be made. I sincerely applaud the work done by Mothers Against Drunk Driving and what they stand for. I too want a safe country. I also am not trying to put any of their work down. I am urging them to look through a different lens and to broaden their perspective. I urge them to go to a college and see what goes on. Go and see the amount of unsafe, underground drinking that occurs. My multimodal project was a website. This website is a group that I would like to lead to work with MADD, help them look through a different perspective, and help make society today a safer and more educated place.  

