Imagine you’re at your first high school party. It’s sophomore year and your parents finally let you go. You are nervous but excited and don’t really know what to expect. Will there be music? Dancing? Will it be like the parties you see in the movies? Will people be drinking? You get to the party and it is not exactly what you expected. Yes, there’s music but no dancing, not even much talking. All you see is people drinking; some are drinking beer, some are drinking Vodka they stole from their parent’s liquor cabinet, and there’s a select few who are in the corner of the room not drinking. You have never drank before but almost everyone else is: people at the party, people in movies, your older sister did it as a teenager, all your friends. It seems like the normal thing to do so you grab a cup and make yourself a drink. One drink leads to another and the next thing you know you’re drunk along with the rest of the people at the party. The next day you feel guilty and a little bit concerned. You lied to your parents, you feel sick, and you drank alcohol 5 years before you were supposed to. 

This is a common situation for many young teenagers in America today. Alcohol is becoming available to teenagers at a younger and younger age and the decision to start drinking socially has become a decision of much importance among many teenagers in the world today. Drinking alcohol has almost always been a part of American culture: a way to celebrate, to relax, to socialize, to enjoy. It is a societal norm and is accepted by many as a “rite of passage” or simply a part of growing up and maturing. However, the debate on this topic arises as it is questioned when this “growing up” is supposed to or legally permitted to happen.  Teenagers are faced with the decision to drink almost every week and the question arises how to reduce the normalcy and the dangerous reality of underage drinking. Many people are now debating if the drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18 in order to reduce this problem. Personally, I believe that lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 would be beneficial and more safe for the teenagers of the United States due to its many different benefits. If the drinking age changed from 21 to 18, alcohol would be seen less as a “forbidden fruit” and more as a normalcy, causing it to be less enticing to underage teenagers. Instead, it would be seen as normal and expected to drink alcohol at a younger age, causing it to be consumed in a safer and less threatening way. This would not only make the lives of many teenagers safer but it would promote a safer society and a society, specifically the modern generation, less focused on “getting drunk” and more focused on things such as forming personal relationships, personal success, and education.

The discussion on whether the drinking age should be 21 or 18 is one that has existed for decades. After the appeal of the 21st amendment, the prohibition law, in 1933, states were allowed to individually decide alcohol consumption laws, specifically the age at which it was legal to do so. At this point, most states made the legal drinking age 21. However, in 1971, the legal age to vote was changed from 21 to 18 causing many states to also change the legal drinking age to 18. By 1982, the legal drinking age remained at 21 in only 14 states. However, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the startling number of drinking involved accidents caused the government to look at the drinking laws and what needed to be revised to lessen the number of traffic fatalities involving alcohol. After much debate and many suggestions, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 was passed and called for all states to raise the legal drinking age, for possession and purchase, to 21. Finally, by 1988, all states changed the legal drinking age to 21 (ProCon.org). 

The previous legislative debate on the legal drinking age makes it very obvious that there are many who believe that the legal drinking age should remain at 21 and that this is the safer and smarter decision. Those who oppose lowering the drinking age argue that the health of teenagers and the safety of the roads is at risk if the drinking age is 18. There are many organizations, such as MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), the American Medical Association, and the National Transportation Safety Board, that firmly believe that lowering the drinking age to 18 has serious consequences and would not only be harmful to teenagers but to society as a whole. These groups have formed a coalition known as “Support 21” which “highlights scientific studies that say fatalities have decreased since the legal drinking age was raised to 21” (Parker). 

Traffic fatalities are a main concern of those who wish to maintain a legal drinking age of 21. Many believe that there is a negative correlation between lowering the legal drinking age and the number of traffic incidents and fatalities, meaning that as the legal drinking age lowers, the number of traffic incidents rises. According to a study conducted in New Zealand, where the legal drinking age was lowered from 21 to 18, in the span of 4 years, “400 serious injuries and 12 deaths a year among 15-19 year olds could have been avoided by raising the drinking age” (Pacific Institute for Research). Alcohol-impaired driving is the largest cause of traffic crashes and fatalities among teenagers in New Zealand and the study found “that the rate of alcohol-related traffic crashes with injuries among males increased 12 percent for 18- to 19-year-olds and 14 percent among 15- to 17-year-olds in the four years before and after the law changed and for females, the rate increased 51 percent for 18- to 19-year-olds and 24 percent for 15- to 17-year-olds” (Pacific Institute of Research). Though these statistics relate to New Zealand, similar ones are found in the United States. After the Uniform Drinking Age Act in 1984, a study in 17 states that had a drinking age of 21 demonstrated that there was a 16% reduction in crashes involving underage adolescents, proving that there was in fact a correlation between the drinking age and traffic fatalities. Due to these statistics and studies, many groups, especially the MADD and National Transportation Safety Board argue strongly for the drinking age to remain at 21 as it will keep the roads and those on them safe and alive. Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, believes that "if we lower the drinking age we will be killing more children on the highways” (Parker). 

Though traffic fatalities serve as one of the main arguments of those who support the legal drinking age of 21, other arguments focus more on the long-term effects of underage drinking and include adolescent brain development and future alcohol-related issues such as alcoholism. Many people, specifically medical professionals, are concerned about the high level of drinking among adolescents as a “tremendous amount of structural and functional brain development takes place during the teenage years” (White and Swartzwelder). This time of development is critical to adolescents’ brains and their cognitive ability and evidence shows that alcohol has the ability to impact the brain function of adults much differently than it affects the brain function of adolescents and that the brain of adolescents is much more vulnerable to brain impairments such as memory and attention issues (White and Swartzwlder). The adolescent brain and its development is something to take very seriously and those who support the drinking age of 21 argue that if the drinking age is lowered, the adolescent brain will suffer. 

The debate on whether the drinking age should remain at 21 or be lowered to 18 is a highly controversial topic. Many statistics support the idea that a drinking age of 21 does benefit the safety of adolescents physically, on the roads, and mentally, in brain development and cognitive ability and cause many to completely rule out the idea that a legal drinking age of 18 would actually be beneficial and safer. However, personally, I believe that lowering the drinking age to 18 would reduce the occurrence of underage drinking and binge drinking which would therefore lower the underage drinking involved fatalities. In my opinion, a drinking age of 18 would cause there to be a lesser emphasis on getting drunk and partying and promote a society that includes stronger values. 

Many researchers and professionals also agree that a drinking age of 18 would be proactive and help improve the safety of adolescents and those affected by underage drinking and therefore help improve society. John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College, says it perfectly: “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 riskiest and least manageable of settings" (60 Minutes). Though the decision to change the drinking age to 21 seemed proactive and necessary at the time, this law is simply working against the issue. Many believe that history is repeating itself and compare the new drinking age laws to the “old days of prohibition” and believe that the stricter laws are counterproductive as they cause teenagers to find different, more dangerous ways to drink in order to avoid punishment not only with their parents but with the law (60 Minutes). Just as those who drank during the times of Prohibition in speakeasies and in an “underground” manner, teenagers today are finding ways to avoid the law and the risk of getting in trouble. However, these ways to avoid the law, often include dangerous settings such as a friend’s basement or a fraternity party and lead to more problems than expected. Because teenagers fear getting in trouble with the authority or with parents, they often are finding secret ways to drink most of which include dangerous levels of drinking. The law, instead of encouraging teenagers to not drink underage, “has created a dangerous culture of irresponsible and reckless behavior, unsupervised binge and extreme drinking” (60 Minutes). Teenagers are participating in activities such as pregaming and drinking games, in an attempt to get as drunk as possible in the shortest amount of time without getting in trouble often leading to teenagers who are not just tipsy, but extremely intoxicated, many times at dangerous levels. Because alcohol is seen as a “forbidden fruit” it is more enticing to teenagers and is commonly seen as a symbol of “adulthood” (Ruth C.). 
