The Drinking Age

I am here to argue that the drinking age should remain at 21.

As college students, the issue regarding the drinking age is something very relevant to us all. And as a part of the under 21 group that consumes alcohol, many of you may automatically lean toward a younger drinking age merely because it's in your best interest and not because you are making an informed decision.

Lowering the drinking age really does not determine whether you will drink or not. As college students, it is almost assumed that we will drink anyway.

But by lowering the drinking age, access is being granted to younger teenagers and even children who are not as mature and responsible.

In fact, with the law as it is, nearly three-quarters of 8th graders (71%) say that it is "fairly easy" or "very easy" to get alcohol. If children this young already have access to alcohol imagine how much easier it would be if the drinking age were lowered to 18. Of the people who began drinking before age 14, 47% became dependent at some point, compared with 9% of those who began drinking at age 21 or older.

In other countries the people get an education about alcohol from their parents and from their culture. Public drunkenness is socially unacceptable, and drunk-driving laws are very strict. Here public drunkenness is accepted and often seen as humorous.

Another aspect of the maturity approach is that of brain development. Scientists once thought that the brain was fully developed when a person reached puberty, but it has now been discovered that the brain doesn't actually develop fully until around 20-something. The prefrontal lobe of the brain is the last to develop and that doesn't happen until around 20 years of age. The prefrontal lobe is the part of the brain responsible for self-control, judgments, and emotional regulation, which we know alcohol affects.

There is also a maturity necessary to assure that people out drinking are not driving or acting unsafe in any other ways. According to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 21.2 % of the 8,000 drivers ages 15-20 involved in motor vehicle crashes in 1998 were drinking. There has been a 63% decline in alcohol-related crash fatalities among young drivers since the age was raised. Just this past Saturday, a friend of mine lost one of her best friends because she was drinking and