By Ricardo Vargas
Contributor
One of the most heated debates in the country is the drinking age, which is currently 21, despite how people are considered adults at 18. This means that an 18 year old can be held responsible for a choice they make but are not considered responsible enough to buy alcohol. Therefore, the drinking age should be lowered to 18 to fix this inconsistency.
At the age of 18 someone is considered old enough to go to war to kill or possibly be killed, but they can not go to a bar and have a drink with friends. They are old enough to be tried as an adult and be put in prison for life, or, in some instances, be given the death sentence, but buying an alcoholic drink is out of the question.
People have been calling for the drinking age to be lowered to 18 for years. This makes sense for a couple of reasons. First, drinking under some sort of supervision will encourage responsible drinking, while secondly, a lower drinking age wouldn’t make drunk driving a bigger problem.
Even though the legal drinking age might be 21, 18 year olds still drink quite frequently, with little or no supervision. This is because they have to do it behind closed doors while hiding from the law. Drinking without supervision will usually result in binge drinking, especially for new drinkers who have not yet learned to drink responsibly.
If allowed to drink in public places like bars and restaurants, 18 year olds would be under better supervision and would be more likely to pick up good drinking habits. I believe better supervision for new drinkers would result in more responsible drinkers.
Some people argue that lowering the drinking age would result in more drunk driving accidents. I don’t see any real evidence that this would be true. In reality, countries with drinking age of 18 have similar if not better drunk driving statistics than those of the United States.
Overall I believe the pros are greater than the cons when it comes to lowering the drinking age. But for now, the debate will rage on.
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