The Voice - Student Newspaper

Drinking age may raise uproar

When contemplating drinking, many are counting down the months, weeks and even days until their 21st birthday. What if the legal drinking age was increased to the age of 25?

Well, typically one would become outraged at the fact they have to wait four more years. Frankly, the usual person would drink anyway, saying, who cares that it's four more years?

Countless facts prove that people are drinking between the ages of 16-21. Many would look at the legal age of 25 and think "why should I wait?"

Especially, for example, when the drinking age is 16 years old in France, and 18 years old in the United Kingdom or 16 years old if in a restaurant. In China there isn't a minimum drinking age at all.

A large number of people in the US drink before the age of 21, knowing it is illegal and considered "forbidden," causing them to pick up drinking habits at a younger age. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) claims early legal right to consume alcohol is linked with higher rates of drinking as an adult.

Also consider the countless and relentless amounts of peer pressure in high schools and colleges to drink at parties, or in social settings. Increasing the drinking age to 25 is based on the fact that the brain is still not completely developed at the age of 21. Those who begin drinking before or at the age of 21 are increasing their chances to becoming alcoholics.

The reason other countries allow drinking at a younger age is because they teach them how to drink in moderation from the beginning far more than we do in the United States.

If you can drive at 16 years old and serve your country, marry, and vote at the age of 18, why not drink? Many 21 year olds still can't handle the responsibility with drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car. Individuals don't take the time to think about the families who are burying their children killed by drunk drivers.

According to the NIAAA, "In short, raising the drinking age simply changed the ages of those killed."

If the drinking age was raised to the age of 25, perhaps the death rate caused by drunk drivers may decrease even more drastically. Raising the drinking age to 25 will save them from a life filled with pain of the constant need of a drink or the horrifying truth that they killed an innocent human being.