It's three in the morning, your car is in park, there are sirens screaming in the background, the flashing lights are blinding and adding to the pounding in your head. Your palms are sweating, your vision is blurred and you can barely make out a sentence to the officer at your window. Your twenty-first birthday was supposed to be fun but this special night has come to a tragic ending all because you didn't understand the effects of alcohol and you were never educated on drinking safely or how to know your limits.

In the United States, 96% of the states classify citizens as adults at the age of eighteen years old. When you are an adult you should be able to do all the things deemed legal, why have to wait another three whole years to drink if you can do everything else a legal stable adult can do? If you're an adult, out drinking at the bar responsibly has no issue to it. (Ma university of chicago). Another point following this is that if you can join the United States military straight out of high school and can go fight in war at eighteen years old, why shouldn't you be able to sit back, relax and drink a beer? “This means I can go to war, killing men for three years before having a fun simple drink with friends.” (Rob Blair) For these reasons and many more, If you are considered a legal adult in 47 out of the 50 states in the United States, and can go fight in wars and risk losing your life, why shouldn't you be allowed to drink.

When you think about teens drinking your mind automatically goes to parties and car crashes. But according to Mr. Dwight B. Heaths, he says directly “the drinking age needs to have a lowerment onto it.” This has a big role in having parents be allowed to show and offer their kids a drink. Things like these crashes and bad party incidents can be avoided if teens are educated from a sooner time point on how to drink responsibly and well. Kids will obviously drink regardless of underage, except they feel the need to hide their drinks away and drink behind an adult's back. If this all could just be talked about more and have teens learn things like amounts, and safe places to drink then bad things can be avoided. Stats show that 79% of teens who were able to start drinking responsibly with their parents, their next few years and on were able to continue the responsible drinking and avoid terrible consequences. 

By having the ability to lower the drinking age it can actually help out our economy a lot to save money. There is a 3 year age gap between 18-21, meaning that's many people between those ages that can be reduced for having to press legal charges. For example, if one is pulled over at age 19 for say, they will receive a minor in possession, and potentially more charges. The police officer's time can be spent on way more important things going on around than an unopened bottle of alcohol in someone's trunk. It saves money and space on having to book and arrest these young adults to jail for something as small as having possession of alcohol. In 2015 alone there was over 110$ million spent on alcohol violations from ages 18-20. That's a lot of money in just a singular year for a small age group to be spent on money, when it could be getting saved or spent on way better things involving the law enforcement. Also, 61.9 billion was spent on law enforcement of just underage drinking and traffic violations just for being under the legal limit, but it is still a charge because of the age. Overall this minor age change can help save millions and even billions of dollars on law enforcement which will help better our economy overall.   

Old enough to die on a battlefield but too young to have a beer, listening to that sounds crazy. At 18 the United States sees you as old enough to die, yet not old enough to live your own life and have fun. There are many concerns with drinking but those concerns do not revolve around the age of the person drinking; it is due to the lack of education. If we educate people little by little on alcohol and safety then we can lower the level of concern and arrest due to alcohol related incidents. The problem with drinking isn't it being people drinking before they are twenty one the problem with drinking is people are uneducated and unaware of how to handle themselves under the influence and others. If you're old enough to risk your life fighting in war then you should be old enough to live your life and have fun.

Work Cited

Griggs, Brandon. “Should the U.S. lower its drinking age?” CNN, 16 July 2014, cnn.com/2014/07/16/us/legal-drinking-age/index.html. Accessed 12 March 2024.

“Social, Health, and Economic Consequences of Underage Drinking.” NCBI, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK37611/. Accessed 12 March 2024.

“Why the drinking age should be lowered: Articles: Alcohol Research and Health History: Indiana University.” Alcohol Research and Health History, alcohol.iu.edu/articles/drinking-age/index.html. Accessed 12 March 2024.