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Taking On 21

Taking on 21
At what age is an average person adequately responsible and trustworthy to drink alcohol safely? Should states lower the legal drinking age to 18? Over 100 presidents of universities across the nation (including Duke, Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins) have agreed that 18 should be the new 21. Setting the legal age for people to purchase and consume alcohol at age 18 simply makes good sense. The 21-year old drinking age has created a dangerous student culture of clandestine drinking (Amethyst, 2009).
Twenty-one (21). Does anything come to mind when seeing this number? Possibly most of us were thinking about alcohol. Needless to say lucky number 21 is the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) in the United States. Why? In other countries, the legal drinking age is 18 years old, and even 16 in others! It does not make sense for the legal drinking age to be 21 when at age 18 we are allowed to smoke, buy pornography and legally have sexual relations with others? Or more seriously, we can send young men and women to a branch of the military and see them leave to fight a war in Iraq or Afghanistan where they might possibly lose their lives!
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan appointed a Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving. This commission was prompted by evidence that linked younger drinking ages with increased alcohol-related highway deaths among youths. In 1984, 23 states had a minimum alcohol purchasing policy for ages of 21 years old. On July 17, 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation to withhold federal highway funds for the states that had not raised the MLDA. On July 1, 1998 the age-21 MLDA was adopted by all 50 states (Alcohol Policy, 2005).
By the time teenagers enter college, many of them have been drinking illegally for years. More than half (59%) of college undergraduates are underage. Enforcement of MLDA laws has numerous consequences in college settings, where underage students, often a majority on campus, co-mingle with students...