The Benefits Of Lowering Age To 18

Most people would think that lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 would be a bad idea. Giving older teens the legal privilege of drinking just doesn’t sound right, but in fact it is a good idea and should be changed. The drinking age should be lowered to 18 for various reasons because turning 18 makes a person an adult in the eyes of the law and adults should be given the choice to consume alcohol. There are many positive and negative aspects when it comes to changing the drinking age which are still in debate. Keeping the age restriction at 21 to stop teens from underage drinking is ineffective and teens are more likely to drink in excess in uncontrolled places when prohibited from the use of alcohol (Ogilvie 2). The Positive aspects for changing the drinking age from 21 to 18 far outweigh the negative. Keeping the age at 21 leads teens to drink at

“Over 190,000 underage people visited emergency rooms for alcohol related injuries in 2008” (“Underage Drinking” 2). This problem can be fixed, however. If the law was changed to 18 and restaurants and bars accepted this age group where mature and responsible drinking is expected, the amount of unsafe drinking activity would decrease. This would also diminish the thrill of breaking the law to get drunk. Normalizing alcohol consumption as something done responsible would make drinking alcohol less of a thrill for young adults entering college and workforce settings. There are actually fewer drunk driving traffic accidents that result in fatalities in countries with a minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) of 18. Lowering the MLDA would also lower alcohol related injuries