Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered from 21?

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Proponents of a lower drinking age often argue that "If I'm old enough to go to war, I should be old enough to drink," but many rights have different ages of initiation. In most States, a person can obtain a hunting license at age 12 and drive at age 16. US citizens can vote and serve in the military at 18, serve in the U.S. House of Representatives at 25, and serve as the U.S. President at 35. Other rights we regulate include the sale and use of tobacco, and legal consent for sexual intercourse and marriage. Vendors, such as car rental facilities and hotels, also have set the minimum age for a person to use their services—25-years-old to rent a car and 21-years-old to rent a hotel room. The minimum age for initiation is based on the specific behaviors involved and must take into account the dangers and benefits of that behavior at a given age. The minimum age for initiation is also based on physical development, including brain function. The military recruits 18-year-olds fresh out of high school because they are young, impressionable, and highly trainable. This does not mean these 18-year-olds are ready for alcohol use.

Alcohol actually affects teens differently than adults. A teenager may look like an adult physically and may even appear more physically fit, but the teenager’s body is still developing. According to the American Medical Association (AMA) it actually takes less alcohol for a teenager to get drunk than it does for an adult in his/her twenties. A normal adult’s liver can safely process an estimated 50 alcohol calories an hour (one ounce of 40 percent alcohol). However, studies show that a teenager’s liver can only process half that amount before they experience harmful effects. To ingest only 25 alcohol calories per hour, a teenager could drink no more than one-fourth of a “light” beer over the course of one hour.
   
Early onset of drinking by youth has also been shown to significantly increase the risk of future alcohol-related problems (e.g., addiction, getting into fights, drinking driver crashes, other unintentional injury).
   
When the age 21 law was challenged in Louisiana’s State Supreme Court, the Court upheld the law, ruling that “…statutes establishing the minimum drinking age at a higher level than the age of majority are not arbitrary because they substantially further the appropriate government purpose of improving highway safety, and thus are constitutional.”