Do you remember your first taste of alcohol? How old were you? Twenty-one? All 50 states currently demand that their citizens reach age 21 before they can legally drink. But there's a growing movement that says mandatory minimum laws may do more harm than good. When determining the right date when a young person can take one of their final steps towards personal responsibility and freedom, what's the right answer?
We have already seen the tragic results of this experiment age in the early 70s, when 29 states lowered their drinking ages to more closely align with the newly reduced military enlistment and voting age. These drinking age decreases brought about such an increase in alcohol traffic fatalities and injuries that, by 1983, 16 states had voluntarily raised their drinking age back to 21. This brought about an immediate reduction in drinking and driving traffic fatalities.
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