There are convincing studies that indicate that raising the drinking age from 18 to 21 has produced the expected results. However we as a country must ask ourselves is it fair to ourselves as a nation to consider men and women adults at 18 yet to prevent them from acting as adults. Countries in Europe have significantly lower drinking ages, yet they do not have proportionately higher drinking related accidents. This is, of course, a direct result of having more readily available public transportation and a greater sense of responsibility when drinking which is a result of a non-prohibition attitude.

If the drinking age will not, or can not be lowered then I argue that the voting age must be raised. If an 18 year old is not mature enough to make responsible decisions with alcohol then how can we expect him or her to make responsible choices when voting. Even more disturbing is the idea that we can send young men and women to war when clearly we do not consider them to be mature enough to make responsible decisions.

It is my opinion that alcohol abuse among college students and other young adults is a direct result of the Prohibition movement and the arbitrarily high drinking age. Young men and women are sent out into the world where alcohol is common and easily obtained; despite age restrictions on its purchase. Yet they are often inexperienced with alcohol. As a result they binge drink and put themselves into dangerous situations that result in drunk driving incidents, among others.

In comparison I will take Germany, the only other country that I have first hand knowledge of. Drinking is commonplace there, the legal drinking age for beer and wine is 16. Because of societal standards beer drinking is commonplace but done in a responsible manner (with the possible exception of Oktoberfest). This is helped by the existence of a working public transit system and designated pedestrian areas. These measures are almost non-existent in many US cities, once again placing even legal drinkers in dangerous situations.

In short, the United States needs to reassess its definition of "adult" and legislate in a way that makes the legal drinking age, the voting age, and the minimum enlistment age equal.

I personally never would want to drink at any age unless neccesary, but i think it would be a little more helpful to people to be allowed to drink at an earlier age. People learn to handle the effects and control themselves, therefore making it less damaging.