Should the national drinking age be lowered to 18?

by Judith Schnee (Judith Lynn Schnee)

Created on: July 04, 2009   Last Updated: July 06, 2009

I have thought about the topic of lowering the national drinking age for a long time. I believe that, if you can send a young man or woman into the armed forces at the age of 18, he or she is regarded as an adult. Even with training, young people are ill prepared for all the pitfalls of war. It has to be a lot more difficult to make decisions in war about when and where to fire one's weapon, and about avoiding being killed, than using good judgment about the use of alcoholic beverages.

Many automobile accidents involving eighteen-year-olds occur because they have been tempted to drink illegally. When, if ever, the age limit to legally drink alcohol is lowered to eighteen, the temptation to drink will also be lowered. If a person is prohibited from doing something, he or she will crave that something even more. That, of course, directly applies to imbibing alcoholic beverages.

There are a lot of responsible youth today who have been taught to use good judgment when it comes to drinking, smoking, curfews and sociability. Unfortunately, most of the youth we read about today are the ones who have died in automobile accidents or have been sent to jail for breaking various rules and regulations. Once in a while, we read about those who lead exemplary lives, but, "since no news is good news", the media doesn't waste a lot of ink upon the ones who excel. Fortunately, there are a lot of students who do excel, and who use good judgment.

Every year, when it is high school graduation time, we read about accidents involving seniors in which in which at least one senior has died. If drinking alcohol became legal, I believe there would be less accidents. There would be a direct correlation between alcohol being accessible as opposed to being illegal.

Let's also examine drinking alcohol at parties on college campuses. Two reasons it is tempting are: 1) the students are away from parental supervision; 2) it is illegal to drink until students become twenty-one-years of age. The temptation to drink at parties is greater because it isn't allowed.

Of course, while I write about my theories concerning dropping the legal drinking age to eighteen, I also face the fact that this may never occur. If enough people write to their senators and congressmen supporting a bill to lower the drinking age to eighteen, we may see a change in the public attitude toward the judgment of youth, and in the accident rate among high school and college students.

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