Minnesota you can get a hunting license at 14, a driver’s license at 16, vote and go to war at 18, but you can’t legally drink until you are 21. Some may argue that if a 14-year-old can carry a gun to go hunting, why can’t a 20-year-old hold a glass of wine? On the other hand, it seems wise that the drinking age should remain at 21. One can argue about whether 14 is the right age to hunt or 16 is the right age to drive, but to me it makes sense to keep the legal drinking age at 21.
The Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) website states, “More than 40 percent of individuals who start drinking before the age of 13 will develop alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence at some point in their lives.” A lower drinking age is likely to put more teenagers at risk of developing alcohol abuse issues later in life.
While the legal drinking age in America is 21, in many places around the world it’s 18 or lower. My friend Silas Goodman, a fifteen-year-old who lives in Rivaz, Switzerland (where the drinking age is 16), said that although he doesn’t drink, “a lot of guys in my class do, and I’m sure there are many more that I don’t know about.” When asked what benefits of a lower drinking age are, Goodman said “I can’t think of any…”
Presidents of schools such as Gustavus Adolphus College and Ohio State University have signed the Amethyst Initiative, advocating lowering the drinking age to 18 in order to avoid binge drinking. But it seems obvious that lowering the drinking age will just push drinking down to even younger students.
The MADD website counters the ideas behind the Amethyst Initiative, saying, “When the ‘forbidden fruit’ is no longer forbidden, youth simply drink more.” I think that this is true, and that if drinking were not illegal for high school students, it would simply be abused more.
Even though some 18-year-olds may be mature enough to handle the responsibilities that come with drinking, others are not. Also, if the drinking age were 18, even more high school kids will have access to alcohol, when they are not as responsible and are not old enough to make potentially life-changing decisions. The risks that come with underage drinking are so big that it seems best to leave the drinking at 21.
There are many different arguments related with drinking and the drinking age, and changing it now seems like it would do more harm than good. I think that students need to make wise choices and wait until they are 21 to drink.
