Should We Lower the Drinking Age? | 18 vs. 21 |

“Quicker Liquor” A Short Research Paper

Should the legal drinking age be lowered? Those who supported the change for the 2009 re-authorization of the law (dubbed Pro 18), and those who wanted the law to remain at the current age of 21 (dubbed Pro 21), had three major categories to explore for this debate: safety, binge drinking and maturity.
There is opposition and support on both sides of the issue including a coalition founded in 2008 by a group of academic leaders called the Amethyst Initiative who support lowering the drinking age to 18. In 1984, after Candy Lightner suffered the loss of her daughter at the hands of a drunk driver in 1980, she created Mothers Against …show more content…

A review from the Institute of Medicine disagrees saying “countries with lower drinking ages are not better off than the United States in terms of the harmful consequences of [underage] drinking” (Institute of Medicine in Sangahvi). Along the biological aspect, Witmer notes “in 1995, 318 people ages 15 to 24 died from alcohol poisoning alone, many of them after a night of drinking at college” (Witmer). Alexander says “what needs to be examined is not the arbitrary age or mythical maturity level [but] at what age is someone mature enough to be able to alter their consciousness and still be able to make good decisions” (Alexander). Personally, I feel that the age should stay intact at 21. There is no magic maturity age. Every person is different and not only mentally matures at their own pace but physically too, which can also affect how a person will handle drinking. Granted, it doesn’t make sense why people can do all those other things at 18 and not drink until 21, but there are a lot of laws that don’t quite make sense. I think the evidence supports the benefits of the age limitation. I do think the schools should be allowed to teach responsible drinking because, unfortunately,