Should The Drinking Age Be Lowered To 18

The topic of the American drinking age has been a controversy since president Ronald Reagan passed the Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984. The Minimum Drinking Age Act requires people to be 21 years old to legally purchase alcohol. The act was passed in order to end blood borders with states and lower the high drinking and driving fatality rates between the 18-20 year old age groups. Those who are against the current drinking age argue that it is too high and should be lowered to 18 because the United States has one of the highest minimum drinking ages in the world. I am for the current drinking age because it effects high school dropout rates, alcohol effects the development of an adolescent’s brain, and if lowered, there will be an increase

I disagree with this idea because 18 years old is too young and it will result in an increased high school dropout rate. Most high school seniors turn 18 before they graduate and if the drinking age was lowered, it would give seniors an easy opportunity to provide alcohol for their younger peers. For example, Andrew Plunk, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School states, "The minimum legal drinking age changes how easy it is for a young person to get alcohol. In places where it was lowered to 18, it's likely that more high school students were able to get alcohol from their friends." A recent study shows that lowering the drinking age to 18 will actually increase high school dropout rates. During the 1970s and 1980s, when some states still had the age limit set to 18, the dropout rate dramatically increased. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), “...adolescent drinkers perform worse in school, are more likely to fall behind…” Plunk states, "I think this study gives us some idea of what could happen if we lower the legal drinking age. It suggests to me that we'd see this same dropout phenomenon again” (Health). Currently, the United States dropout rate has set a record low and is working towards diminishing the dropout rate. The minimum drinking age limit of 21 should stay in place to prevent the dropout rates from increasing once