The Minimum Legal Drinking Age should be lowered to 18

Fact Check: Many government officials, journalist and police officers believe that the age limit is not working.Morris E. Chafetz, founder of the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse says this about raising the drinking limit age, "In 1982 I accepted appointment to the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving and agreed to chair its Education and Prevention Committee. The Commission met over the next 18 months and ultimately advanced 39 recommendations to President Reagan... The most conspicuous of those recommendations, and arguably the most controversial, called for raising the minimum legal drinking age to 21 nationwide... In the interest of maintaining unanimity, I reluctantly voted yes. It is the single most regrettable decision of my entire professional career. Legal Age 21 has not worked. To be sure, drunk driving fatalities are lower now than they were in 1982. But they are lower in all age groups. And they have declined just as much in Canada, where the age is 18 or 19, as they have in the United States. But even if we concede that the law has had some effect on our highways, we cannot overlook its collateral, off-road damage. The National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, which I founded in 1970, estimates that 5,000 lives are lost to alcohol each year by those under 21. More than 3,000 of those fatalities occur off our roadways... And if we broaden our look, we see a serious problem of reckless, goal-oriented, drinking to get drunk. Those at whom the law is directed disobey it routinely. Enforcement is frustratingly difficult and usually forces the behavior deeper underground, into places where life and health are put at ever greater risk. The 600,000 assaults reported annually, the date rapes, the property damage, the emergency room calls do not in general occur in places visible to the public. They are the inevitable result of what happens when laws do not reflect social or cultural reality. The reality is that at age 18 in this country, one is a legal adult. Young people view 21 as utterly arbitrary -- which it is... [T]here is no evidence of massive brain impairment, alcohol dependency, or underage alcohol abuse, which the 'experts' tell us will be the inevitable result of lowering the age in the United States.But so long as the age remains a one-size-fits-all, federally-mandated 21, and so long as any state that may want to try something different, in hopes of reversing the dismal trend of binge-drinking that (maybe or maybe not coincidentally) has become more serious in the years since the drinking age was raised, forfeits 10% of its federal highway funds, nothing is likely to change for the better.Fromma Harrop says this in one of her journal entries says this, "Age 18 traditionally separates minors from adults. But one can't legally buy a drink in America until age 21. Meanwhile, many states are now sending minors into the adult criminal justice system, even for nonviolent crimes... Our society's age-specific approaches often boil down to curbing the freedoms of the young -- and increasing their punishments... The drinking age has long been a tug-of-war. Is a 19-year-old mature enough to fight in Afghanistan but not to order beer in a bar? Almost every other country sets the drinking age at 18. The presidents of 135 colleges have called for lowering the drinking age from 21 [see Amethyst Initiative above]. They note that the age restriction hasn't stopped binge drinking on campus and argue, not without reason, that it has turned alcohol into forbidden fruit begging to be picked. Perhaps teaching young adults how to drink in moderation is the better way to go. In our imperfect world, the law has to draw lines, however arbitrary. But laws that only appear to address a problem by burdening young people aren't wise, and they aren't fair."Mark R. Benker, Police Chief in Colorado says this about the age change, "Over the course of my nearly 30–year career in dealing with underage drinking and all the associated problems, I have come to the conclusion that changing the law from 18 to 21 was, overall, not a wise decision. I believe we should consider returning the legal drinking age to 18 (with conditions) and then spend our resources on programs to reduce abuse of alcohol and the effects it has on behavior. While I cannot go into all the detailed reasons why and address all the research in a memo format, I can say in summary that in addition to personal philosophical arguments (they are considered adults in every other way) I believe that the level of drinking between the ages of 18 to 21 has actually increased over the last 20 years. All of the efforts we have tried to implement over the years, including education, awareness programs, heavy enforcement, etc. have had little effect on preventing 18 to 20 year old adults from drinking. What we've done is helped create an underground culture that encourages binge drinking without any oversight or supervision. There are studies, statistics and anecdotal information that support my own observations and experience on this issue."As you can see, many people disagree with the age limit raise. It promotes segregation of age and even though it went down for one age group, it actually went down for all groups. This rule discourage drinkers but that's not the point.