Everyone always talks about how many lives are saved because the minimum drinking age was pushed from 18 to 21, but think about how many more lives would be saved if people taught kids to drink responsibly going into college. In 1984, Ronald Regan established the drinking age law, which prevented people under the age of 21 from legally drinking alcohol. This law was based on several factors that included studies on how alcohol could hurt a developing brain. They believed that kids under the age of 21 would abuse alcohol and make decisions that could affect them later in life. However, even with this law in place this did not stop underage kids from consuming alcohol at an alarming rate. Some psychologists even believe that with this law in place, it makes underage drinking like eating the forbidden fruit, which appeals to lots of kids. Most importantly people need to stop ignoring underage drinking and teach them how to do responsibly. At 18 kids are about to go off to college and leave home for the first time and it’s important that you can feel confident that your son or daughter knows how to drink responsibly because mostly likely they will drink before they turn 21. 

 While they could lower the drinking age to 20, or 19, 18 is the perfect age for people to start drinking. When you turn 18, it’s the first time that you are consider an adult in the eyes of the law. It’s also means that you can fight for our country, get married, and vote for the president of the United States. It doesn’t make sense that 18 year olds are not mature enough to enjoy a beer but they can vote for our commander and chief. However, people keep reverting back to scientific research that teenager’s brains are not developed enough to consume alcohol. While, there might be some fact to this argument, it is only when teenagers binge drink alcohol and binge drinking is bad for everyone not just teenagers. Brain development also isn’t fully complete till around the age of 25, but does that mean we should push the drinking age back to 25? My parents grew up in 70’s, where the drinking age was 18 and some states had separate law for beer and hard liquor. This meant that you could legally buy a fifth in one state and then drive into another state and have it been illegal for you to consume that fifth, and according to my parents this happened a good amount. This type of behavior was called the “interstate beer runs” led to MADD and would be known as the “blood borers”. This led to the higher drinking age laws and is said to have saved 900 laws per year. However, it could have also been the drinking age being the same across state lines that saved things people from getting behind the wheel. It’s even safer with the invention of Uber that is an easy and safe way for teenagers to get home. It makes more sense than ever to change the drinking age to 18. 

Even teachers and parents are surprised with the lack of education about alcohol teenagers are given. High school barely talks about it except for possibly a week during health class. They don’t want to border on telling these teenagers that drinking alcohol is ok, so they try to suppress it and not even mention it. This not only doesn’t help the kids but ends of hurting them in the future. If the drinking age was 18 high school could feel comfortable teaching kids how to drink responsibly. They teach kids about safe sex but seem to skip over the part where they talk about responsibly drinking. This could easily be made part of the curriculum necessary to graduate high school. This would insure that all kids are at least provided the opportunity to learn about drinking safely. If the drinking age was 18, this would mean some students would be able to drink legally in high school. However, this might not seem as bad as some parents might think. Parents would be able to watch over their kids while they drink instead of them trying to drink without being caught. It might also prevent kids from driving home drunk because they were secretly drinking with their friends and have to get home. More importantly these teenagers would be ready for college where they don’t have parents to watch over them all the time. Colleges could also have a class for all freshman similar to a University 101 class that was specifically for teaching responsible drinking. This could limit the binge drinking that happens for college freshman when the get to college. It would also be easier for colleges to watch over their students not wondering if they were legal or not. Even the police would be able to protect kids easier and not have to just arrest them for underage drinking. This system could save a lot more lives than ignoring the problem or inefficiently enforcing the law. Most college presidents have come out and said they want to lower the drinking age because it would help them keep all their students safe. Shuttles could even be put into place for college towns so kids would have a safe and cheap way home. Instead of paying tickets for MIP’s, that money could go to helping students stay safe. While, this system might take some time to perfect, it has the possibility to save a lot more lives than our system right now. 

The United States can look at other countries for examples of how to implement this system. Europe has had a minimum drinking age of 18 and the level of respect and control that they use over the United States so much different. They grew up with alcohol and their approach to drinking alcohol is more responsible. They don’t think of drinking alcohol as a big deal because they were taught to handle it responsibly. While the US doesn’t need kids to start drinking at 14, they can teach teenagers the importance of managing their alcohol. 

I still need to add my statistics and counter arguments to this essay and revise it a lot more. This is a very, very rough draft of my essay. 
