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What it if the drinking age was 18? Whether lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 would help in solving the problem of alcohol abuse has been a question of interest for this past week’s PLA sophomore class. It has been constantly argued that the fact that the drinking age is 21 is the cause of various alcohol-related accidents including death. Students have continuously argued that the reason they hesitate to call an ambulance or even university police for their drunk friends is that they d0 not want to put their underage drunk friends in trouble.

This argument is further supported by the fact that most of the developed countries such as France, Spain, Italy, England, China, and South Korea have set the minimum legal drinking age to 18 years or 19 years. “Even the neighboring Canada has set the drinking age to 18 and 19 years depending on the province!” some people exclaimed. Japan is one of the few developed countries where the legal drinking age is 20 years, but still, some people argue that it is not as strict as it is in the US. On a closer observation, these countries have been found to have lesser issues with underage drinking and alcohol abuse compared to the US, but this has nothing to do with the minimum legal drinking age.

Considering a country like Italy, children are alleviated into the drinking culture by their parents. It is common for parents and children to share a glass of wine during dinner, which is very different from the American drinking culture whereby parents are strict and straight about which age you should have your first alcohol. As a result, the two drinking cultures yield opposite results whereby people, especially in Europe, see alcohol consumption as a form of enjoyment, which must be done in moderation and casually. On the other hand, growing up with strict rules on the drinking age, children in the US see alcohol consumption as something that must be done in excess. Even though this observation is true to some extent, there is no solid evidence to support how the difference in the two drinking cultures affects alcohol abuse, especially among young people.

Furthermore, those who advocate for lowering the drinking age to combat the problem of binge drinking among young people fail to realize or simply ignore the fact that underage drinking is not done by 18-year olds only. 16-year olds and below engage in underage drinking too. Are we going to lower the drinking age to 16 years and below when we finally realize that lowering the drinking age to 18 years didn’t work? Also, if you look closely, the argument of lowering the drinking age to 18 years is made mostly by underages, who argue that a 3 to 4-year difference is so small that it should not make lowering the drinking age a problem. What will happen if 16-year olds start making the same argument as well after we’ve finally lowered the drinking age?

Personally, I think that having the drinking to 21 years is not a problem, in fact, it has done more good than harm. I find the problem to be how alcohol consumption by minors is seen in the US. There is so much stigma that comes with underage drinking and so many strict laws against alcohol consumption by minors that when people finally get a chance to drink, they do it as if there is no tomorrow. As a result, individuals are reluctant to call for help for their friends who indulge in binge drinking. However, in as much as I realize that a cultural shift cannot happen overnight, I also believe that so many issues associated with alcohol abuse among minors could be eradicated if the negative connotation that comes with underage drinking was to be eliminated.