After watching the 60 Minutes segment on the drinking age debate, I was presented with several things that I had and had not considered regarding underage drinking. The drinking age debate has two sides. One side says that the drinking age SHOULD be lowered because it will go on no matter what, and it will prevent the alcohol abuse of young adults. Some police agree with this because there is no real way to enforce the law that you must be 21 years or older to drink. They can break up parties, write up tickets for kids who were drinking underage, but it's still going to happen- enforcing the drinking age will just push it more under ground and more out of control. Others who agree with this believe that if you are responsible enough to go to war and fight for your country, you should be responsible enough to drink. The final group of people that agree that the age should be lowered is to keep kids who will drink underage, especially in college, safer. As crazy as it sounds, they do back up their opinion with a strong argument. First, they say that lowering the drinking will prevent underage drinking from being so out of control and from being pushed "further under ground". In the case of the college student Gordy, had the drinking age been 18, his friends most likely would have called the police to get him help. They avoided the call because they obviously didn't want to get busted for supplying alcohol to an underage person. As a result, he died of alcohol poisoning.
With the points presented in the video and the opinions of adults, I am torn between both sides. For one, I belive 21 is the prime age of maturity and responsibility. Lowering the age would simply increase the availabilty of alcohol to kids even younger than 18. College upperclassmen provide alcohol to lower classmen and high school seniors. If 18 was the drinking age, who's to say that high school seniors wouldn't be supplying alcohol to the lower classmen in their high schools as well? On another note, if 18 year olds are allowed to vote, risk their lives over seas for their country, and smoke tobacco (which also been considered a dangerous substance) then they should be responsible enough to drink. Key word is should*. In my opinion, the age should stay where it is. Even though there are 18 year olds that are responsible enough to drink, there are those who aren't. I believe lowering the age would promote unneeded recklessness and alcohol abuse among young adults who AREN'T mature enough to drink but would be allowed to.
Regardless, whether the drinking age is 21 or 18, people under age 18 will drink, there always be cases of alcohol abuse and there will always be deaths as a result of alcohol abuse both on and off the road. Keeping the drinking age at 21 proves to be the most sensible idea because no matter what underage drinking will drink- keeping the age at 21 would simply put a hold on increased recklessness due to drinking.
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