In 1984, Congress passed an act that made all states raise the minimum age to drink and purchase alcohol to 21 by October of 1986. Congress passed this bill in order to prevent kids in high school from drinking and to universalize the state’s laws into one.

However, there are many activists who argue that the law should be reversed back to 18 and restore the rights that were taken away from young adults. Although, proponents of keeping the drinking age at 21 argue that it’s a necessary law that protects all citizens equally.

The reason why the drinking age should be lowered to 18 is that you are legally an adult and take on many other responsibilities as an adult such as get married, sign a binding document, and even go to war. So as an adult, they should also be able to consume alcohol if they choose.

Some people may say that if we let 18 year old drink, then it would cause more drunk driving accidents, and that is why the law was established originally.

“When reviewing this work, Alexander Wagenaar, of the University of Florida College of Medicine, and Traci Toomey, of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, found that all 46 high-quality studies that showed an effect demonstrated that the age-21 drinking law saves lives.”

The drinking law has not really affected drunk driving as much as most think.

 If the law only affected drunk driving for one year after the law was introduced multiple decades ago,  then the law actually has been doing nothing for a very long time, and they should think of a different way to stop the drunk driving problem.

The final reason why the drinking age should be lowered to 18 is because most kids are more likely to drink when the law says you have to 21 to drink by rebelling against the law and drinking anyways.

 When the law enforces no alcohol, young adults  will only try to hide their consumption of alcohol instead of drinking out in the open where officials can intervene. This causes them to more likely be in danger because if something bad happens, then young adults might be afraid to get in trouble and will refuse to get help.

In 2014, a Rutgers University student died from alcohol poisoning at a frat party. This proves that even if a law is enforced on drinking, it doesn’t provoke people from drinking.

Based on the latest data from 2006-2010, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates 4,358 young under age 21 die. 1,580 from vehicle crashes, 1269 from homicides, 246 from alcohol poisoning, and 492 from suicides.

Now, the other side is that most teens aren’t able to handle alcohol due to the lack of responsibility. Knowing when enough is enough, your judgement on what’s wrong and right can be impaired due to the consumption of alcohol, as it interferes with brain development when your brain is still maturing.

 This does not exactly fix the problem, but very little bit helps to reduce the number of deaths and illegal situations that happen every year from alcohol.