Lower the Drinking Age in the Us

In the United States of America everyone becomes a legal adult once they reach the age of eighteen. This means that once everyone reaches this age they can be tried and convicted as an adult as well. It is ridiculous that eighteen year olds have to carry the responsibility of being an adult, but they are not allowed to drink! The government is giving them mixed signals by saying that they are adults, but are not allowing them to do certain things that are legal to the other adults that are twenty-one or older. The fact that eighteen year olds are allowed into bars but cannot drink because they are not three years older is a confusing and unfair concept. The law that prohibits eighteen year olds to drink alcohol but allows them to serve it is also confusing and unfair. In this paper I argue that the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen because an eighteen year old is allowed to marry, vote, smoke, and enlist in the army to die for one’s country, then he or she should be able to drink alcoholic beverages as well.

If an eighteen year old is allowed to marry, vote, smoke, and enlist in the army like all other adults then he or she should be able to drink. It is said in an article in New Jersey Law Journal “over time, it became generally recognized that the common-law age of adulthood was no longer appropriate in our society” (Underage 26). This statement rings very true in a lot of cases. All adults should be treated equally; there should not be a difference whether the adult is eighteen or twenty-one. This only makes it seem like the government is trying to create double standards which is giving out mixed signals and is not being fair which, in turn, leads young adults (and people of all ages for that matter) to show contempt for the government. In regard to the mixed signals the government gives eighteen year olds, the same article in New Jersey Law Journal says: “It encourages young people to flout the law, and those who flaunt their disregard...