In Columbia, home of the University of South Carolina on any given night, every single bar downtown is jam packed with underage drinking. I'm talking 7 days a week. Bouncers look at our hideously, badly made fraud licenses and let us into the bar anyway because that's how the bars will make money. Cops, of course, are not stupid. So why exactly is it that every person on my freshman dorm hall is out on a Friday taking shots at the bar? The majority of students at USC is under 21, and I'm sure the Police know that ... and yet, they do nothing. So, these teenagers go out and get plastered. Who says the girl who was at the wrong place at the wrong time deserves to get arrested for doing what every other teenager is doing? The law? The drinking age being twenty-one is outdated and unrealistic. It does not stop teenagers from drinking, it only stops them from drinking safely. When drinking becomes something hidden from the public eye it becomes such a more dangerous act. The current drinking age needs to change back to eighteen for the same reasons it was raised in the first place --  to make alcohol consumption safer.

Being eighteen years old and attending a college, especially one that is well known as being a party school, I seem to have an automatic bias toward this issue. I have seen people throw up on police officers and walk away without even a warning and seen people get into bars using a Subway giftcard as "ID" while others get arrested on the spot for being near a bar. The inconsistency in enforcing the law is unbearable. Many people support the idea of keeping the drinking age at twenty-one, the reasoning being that the teenage brain is not yet fully developed or that drinking and driving is a huge problem among teenagers. The reason the law was changed to twenty-one in the first place was due to some states making their age eighteen and researchers looking into the difference in alcohol related accidents. Evidence concluded that states that dropped their age to eighteen had significant increase in drunk driving accidents. MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) heard of this and lobbied until their voices were heard and the law was changed to twenty-one. But in the age of Ubers and Designated Drivers, I have yet to drink and drive nor have I seen any of my friends do so. Instead, we jump all over those who even try to grab their keys after a drink. Times have well changed. Teenagers drink, and because it is illegal, they cannot receive the proper education on how to drink responsibly. "Allowing eighteen to twenty year olds to drink alcohol in regulated environments with supervision would decrease unsafe drinking activity" (http://drinkingage.procon.org.). Also, they are too scared to ask for help when they have had too much which is a huge reason there are so many incidents.

Almost any student at a university in 2016 knows someone that has gotten in trouble for underage drinking. Every night across America random unlucky teenagers' lives go down the drain due to an MIP (Minor In Possession). A girl I know had been eager to serve in the AirForce since the 3rd grad. It was her dream since the moment she learned the military even was. She received a $100,000 scholarship from the AirForce to attend University of South Carolina and then enlist. Her best friend begged her to go downtown to celebrate. That night, these two girls received an MIP from two officers while walking back from the bar to their dorm because they smelled like alcohol. The girl lost her entire scholarship and was kicked out of ROTC, her dream now completely destroyed.

Eighteen is considered the age of adulthood even though there is absolutely no scientific reasoning for it. It was made the eligible age to join the military then the voting right was made eighteen because if one could fight for our country then they should be able to vote. It's rumored that eighteen is the age of graduating high school therefore the uniform age for adulthood. An eighteen year old can buy a pack of cigarettes, serve jury duty, get married, join the military, and most importantly: get prosecuted as an adult. The definition of an adult is "a person who is fully grown or developed" according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. An adult has the right to make their own decisions, so what makes alcohol so different? In 2009, the twenty-one to twenty-four age group had the highest percentage of drivers in fatal crashes with BAC levels of .08 or higher (http://drinkingage.procon.org). Traffic accidents and fatalities are most common among newly-legal drinkers, regardless of the MLDA (Minimum Legal Drinking Age). According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, underage drinking accounts for 17.5% of consumer spending for alcohol in the United States. 17.5% sounds like a small number until it is considered that if the law was truly enforced, it would be 0%. The law is not only ineffective in its original purpose, to decrease drunk driving incidents, but also is simply ineffective in its enforcement due to fake IDs.

Underage drinking is a big issue that needs change largely because the law is not thoroughly enforced and at this point in time only deprives teenagers from safe drinking. I see a lot of underage drinking, as does every college in America, and it happens whether or not the legal age is twenty-one. But what does happen when the legal age is twenty-one is fear. People become too afraid to ask for help or education on what to do when it comes to alcohol due to unforeseen consequences. I've seen a friend almost die from alcohol poisoning and the girl I was with told me to not call 911 because we would all get into trouble. It's simply not safe. I am an eighteen year old in college constantly surrounded by underage and unhealthy binge drinking. The drinking age should be lowered to eighteen, fast.

