The legal age for consuming alcohol in the United States is 21 years old, even though 45 states have certain exceptions when in specific locations or with family members and only 5 states have no exceptions of the federal law. A drink is considered alcoholic when it contains 0.6 ounces or around 18 ml of pure alcohol in it. Although, there is debate on whether the legal drinking age in the U.S. should be lowered to 18.
18 is the age of independence in some way, at 18 one is allowed to vote, work full time, move out of their parents’ house, apply for a loan, etc. If at 18 one is responsible for so many of these things, why shouldn’t they be allowed to be responsible about their alcohol consumption? Even though alcohol isn’t allowed to be consumed before the age of 21 for safety reasons, it doesn’t mean that there has been no consumption of alcohol before that age. Setting the age higher has increased the number of cases teenagers consume alcohol dangerously or in unsafe places to hide from adults, like parties. This in some cases has caused even greater consequences because one can go out of control and is unsafe if not under supervision of adults. If the drinking age is lowered, more teenagers can drink safely and surrounded by responsible adults instead of hiding in fear of getting caught, and it would also lower the thrill of breaking the law. “The 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reports that 24.8% of youth aged 14 or 15, 46.7% aged 16 or 17, and 68.3% aged 18 to 20, drink alcohol.” Not only that, but teens are also using more and more things like fake ID’s to purchase alcohol, enter bars, clubs, etc. which affects security concerns like terrorism, illegal migration, or more.
Some may argue that making drinking age higher could decrease numbers of car accident fatalities, which has been noticed in the U.S. the percentages are still higher than Europe, which has a drinking age of 18. Percentage of road traffic deaths in the U.S. is 31% which is higher compared to Germany with 9%, Great Britain with 16%, Israel with 3%, and France with 29%. Others may argue that alcohol consumption may have negative health effects on younger ages, like loss of memory, effect in development of the brain, it could loud lead to chronic problems in the future, depression and suicide. Although consumption of alcohol in big amounts has many negative health effects especially on younger ages, 72% of studies have shown that there is no relationship between lowering drinking age to 18 and rates of suicide.
Overall, there are huge arguments over what the legal drinking age should be, and not everyone will agree on one age, whether it is 18, 21, 30, or 15, it will have its pros and cons. Although, setting the drinking age higher doesn’t always mean that there is no underage drinking, teenagers often drink away from adults which as mentioned before could cause bigger, more serious problems. And although people associate drinking with high rates of accidents or suicide, it isn’t always like that. Countries around the world with lower drinking ages have shown even lower rates of these occurrences. Reducing the drinking age to 18 would teach teens another thing to learn to consume responsibly and could be for their own benefit.