Argumentative
Lower the Drinking Age
In the United State of America, a person is considered and adult at the age of 18. There are a lot of rights that come along with becoming an adult, such as the ability to buy cigarettes, vote during elections, and even chose to go to war and die for your country. With all this being said, a person cannot enjoy a beer until they are 21. Although this law is not followed to a tee by the American culture, there are many reasons why the drinking age in the United States should be lowered to 18.
The drinking age in America should be lowered from 21 because most countries in the world have younger drinking ages or don’t have drinking restrictions at all. In America people would find it absurd if a 16 year old, who just received their drivers’ license, was enjoying an ice cold beer at diner. On the contrary, in numerous respectable countries like Germany, Greece, Portugal and even parts of Spain the legal drinking age is 16. The majority of the worlds’ countries have their legal drinking age set at 18 years old. This includes Canada and Mexico, the two nearest neighbors of the United States. In fact, there are only four other countries besides the U.S. that have 21 as the legal drinking age; Fiji, Pakistan, Palau, and Sri Lanka. What’s so ironic about this situation is although America has the highest drinking age in the world they also have the most fatalities caused by alcohol consumption.
This brings me to my next point, the drinking age should be lowered because the United States’ law enforcement puts too much time and money into preventing underage drinking and it’s not working. More and more people have their first experience with alcohol before the age of 21. A survey released by the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (TCADA) found that more than 80% of Texas high school seniors had some kind of experience with alcohol. I find this rather twisted considering Texas is a zero tolerance state for...