What is one thing that television shows, movies, music, radio commercials, billboards, any kind of media form advertises? Alcohol. You see alcohol endorsing sports athletes, sporting events, and various competitions around the world. Everywhere you turn alcohol is there, whether it be right there in front of you or subtly. Little kids watching television all of a sudden see “the most interesting man in the world” telling them to “stay thirsty”. Rather than restricting young adults from alcohol until the age of 21, the drinking age in the United States should be lowered to 18. In the United States, 18 is considered adulthood. While the purpose of bringing the drinking age to 21 was to reduce alcohol related traffic accidents, serious issues of underage drinking are still happening today. The higher the drinking age, the more likely young adults partake in dangerous behaviors like binge drinking, a means to cope with stressful life events, or simply getting behind a vehicle.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2014), “People aged 12 to 20 years drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in the United States, while more than 90% of this alcohol is consumed in the form of binge drinks.” Reading these statistics, I remember being in high school and thinking how drinking was this cool rite of passage when in reality there is nothing special about it. At every high school party, there is a group of people taking shot after shot and not actually knowing their limit. For some kids, they were able to be honest with their parents about drinking and their parents would gladly pick them up from a party. Other kids would sneak out, drink heavily, and either have their friends drive them home or manage to get behind the wheel themselves, all for the love of alcohol.

So you may ask, why 18 as a proper age limit? Among the benefits of being 18 in the United States, you can enlist in the military, have your own bank account, vote, marry your high school sweetheart, adopt a child, move out of mom and dad’s house, even order from infomercials! What you are not allowed to do is buy a single beer, but you can serve it to someone else at a restaurant! If 18-year-old adolescents are responsible for making important life decisions, since they are considered adults under the United States government, they should be allowed to purchase alcohol. The problem with our society is that it glamorizes alcohol when in fact there is nothing glamorizing about it.

The Journal of Studies on Alcohol published an article that reviewed various databases on the minimum legal drinking age from 1960 to 1999. They found that, “The preponderance of evidence indicates there is an inverse relationship between the MLDA and two outcome measures: alcohol consumption and traffic crashes” (Wagenaar, 2002). When the drinking age was lowered, traffic crashes increased. About 31 years ago, “President Ronald Reagan signed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, a law that required states to bring the drinking age to 21 or face a 10 percent cut to their federal highway funding. All states complied and adopted the higher drinking age” (Tietjen, 2014). Since then, the amount of alcohol related traffic accidents decreased yet it still happens everyday. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act was also implemented because of statistics from the early 1980s.

It is 2015; we have advanced technologically from 30 years ago when the age limit was set to 21. One of the major differences is car safety. Cars are now being installed with front and rear head collision warnings and GPS systems. It should not be difficult to install devices that measure your alcohol levels. Depending on the state you live in, car breathalyzers, also known as ignition interlock device, may be installed to those issued a DUI after their first offense or after multiple (Gorman, 2015). If the age limit was set to 18, I personally think that it should be installed after the first offense. Before you even think about getting in a car after drinking, you should think to get in touch with friends, have a designated driver, or split a cab. Many of the people I know in college, including myself, rely on Uber to take them places after nights of drinking. Whether you are 18, 21, or 55, there is not a reason to be driving under the influence.

Another device that can be used as a tool to prevent any kind of alcohol related accident is the cell phone. Cell phones are basically an extension of the arm, especially for teens. There is currently an app out there called Drunk Mode that allows you to locate your friends, prevent you from drunk dialing someone, and can be used to find a ride home. Other apps have you solve basic math problems. Underage drinking is going to be a problem no matter what the age is set to, but what can be significantly helpful if the age was set to 18 is the ways we can prohibit young adults from making terrible decisions under the influence of alcohol.

Setting the age limit of drinking to 21 does not stop people from drinking underage. Kids are curious and surrounded by a society that sends them mixed messages about alcohol. Young adults whose parents talked with them about alcohol and allowed them to drink at home in a controlled setting in high school came into college with an understanding of alcohol. Some adolescents who never had alcohol a day in their lives come to college and drink almost every day. If the student is unlucky, he or she gets caught and reprimanding for drinking underage in college while other students just a few years older are free to go.

Being 18 years old in the United States has so many perks that there should not be a reason why the drinking age limit has to be 21. College settings are a prime example of how the age limit causes more problems than good. In terms of the issues of drunk driving, we have developed tremendously from the early 1980s that drunk driving should not even happen in the first place. Along with the drunk apps on the phones, car safety precautions, and the controlled exposure to alcohol, young adults should be allowed to drink at 18.

References

CDC, (2014). Underage Drinking. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm

Gorman, M. (2015). What is an Ignition Interlock Device (IID)? Retrieved August 6, 2015, from http://www.totaldui.com/breathalyzers/overview/ignition-interlocks.aspx

Tietjen, D. (2014, July 14). Why 21? A Look at Our Nation’s Drinking Age. Retrieved August 5, 2015, from http://www.boston.com/health/2014/07/17/why-look-our-nation-drinking-age/rzK2FA5UYj0LgwJ5Ujrr7I/story.html

Wagenaar, A. (2004). Effects of minimum drinking age laws: Review and analyses of the literature from 1960 to 2000. Retrieved July 30, 2015, from http://www.jsad.com/doi/abs/10.15288/jsas.2002.s14.206