Alcohol Paper

It is somewhat ironic that the study by Wagenaar and Toomey cites the constitution in justifying the age discrimination of those under 21 with regards to alcohol seeing as how from many historical accounts of our founding fathers, the writers of the constitution were often inebriated themselves. Due to age discrimination and other reasons the drinking age should be lowered to 19.
The fact is not allowing those under 21 years old and over 18 to drink is age discrimination. To say that someone who is 20 years and 364 days old suddenly becomes responsible 24 hours later doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The fact is most people learn through experience or education or from their peers about alcohol not from magical knowledge that one suddenly gains when he or she turns 21. One study said also that people are less likely to have drinking problems if they start after 21 then if they do before. One problem I see with this study is that it picked 21 as its age. What if this study used 20 or 19 and could find the same results?
The drinking age should be 19 because of the college situation in America. On a lot of campuses underage drinking is turned a blind eye to as long as it is kept under control. All this does is drive kids into hiding and creates a culture of fear and unnecessary tensions between authority figures and students. If it was out in the open people won’t be as ignorant or secretive about it. It also allows for more free discussion and education about problems that can occur because kids will be less scared to admit that they drink without having to worry about punishment. 19 is better than 18 because this makes sure that people who are legal are of college age and not still in high school therefore making sure that high school access to alcohol is not increased.
An overall statement that is constantly made and is assumed throughout the study is this statement, “underage drinking is a serious problem.” The thing is, is it a problem? If you define a problem as people under 21 being drunk a problem, as the study does, than yes there is a problem. Then wouldn’t you have to say that overage drinking is a problem too? People over the age of 21 get drunk too. With this kind of logic the drinking age should be raised so high that no one can drink because according to the study the problem is consuming alcohol or being drunk in itself is a problem, not the health side effects or other problems like drunk driving or poor judgment. If the drinking age is lowered to 19, then underage drinking will be less of a problem because a percentage of the population that was previously underage will now be legal alleviating the problem of underage drinking somewhat.
Opponents of lowering the age to 19 may say people this young are not responsible enough to handle drinking. This logic is terrible. How can someone not handle drinking but handle going in the army which is essentially putting yourself out to the possibility that you may have to give your own life up or take another’s. How can someone who is responsible enough to decide whether to smoke or not which contains a much more addictive drug than alcohol and is far more deadly in the long run not responsible enough to handle alcohol? The answer is there will be those who no matter what are not going to be able to be responsible for themselves because that’s just who they are, but the majority will be able to be responsible. Saying you can smoke when you are 18 but not drink is a slap in the face when addiction and deaths are taken into account. An added benefit of lowering the drinking age is something that should be happening anyway but will be much more likely to occur is that parents will get involved and talk to their kids, which will most definitely be a positive thing.
Overall the arguments for a 21 drinking age use poor logic and cultural assumptions as well as studies that only use one age therefore creating an automatic favor for a 21 drinking age. As long as this trifecta is used to justify the drinking age there is no reason it can’t be used to also justify a 19 drinking age which would help create safer college campuses as well as allow for people to mature safely.