**Tl;dr) The drinking age should be lowered as it would prevent people drinking too much in irresponsible environments like parties as they would be allowed in bars.** In the USA an adult is an individual aged 18. An adult can drive, raise children, work a full- time job (all activities which require an individual to be responsible as others lives and businesses are in their hands). Yet an 18-year-old is considered too irresponsible to drink in America until they are 21. This suggests the individual is not a responsible adult, yet is still held accountable for greater things than drinking. If you are not responsible enough to drink you should not be allowed to drive, work, etc. High drinking ages do not deter people from drinking, they merely push drinking into unmonitored, irresponsible environments such as fields and parties. A study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration showed that 4.2 million young people (ages 12-20) in the US reported binge drinking once in the past month (2019). [1] Lowering the drinking age would encourage people to drink responsibly. They would be allowed to drink in environments which prevent binge drinking (as most bars stop serving those who have drank too much). They would also have better access to healthcare if someone drinks too much or is injured than at a party. [1] Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Table 7.16A— Alcohol Use in Lifetime, Past Year, and Past Month among Persons Aged 12 to 20, by Gender: Numbers in Thousands, 2002-2019. https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt29394/NSDUHDetailedTabs2019/NSDUHDetTabsSect7pe2019.htm#tab7-16a.

**TL;DR - The drinking age in the US should not be lowered to 18 because drinking at that age can have serious consequences. Generally, 18-year-old adults have not yet acquired sufficient knowledge of adult life to be able to prevent over-drinking, car accidents, unwanted pregnancies, and so much more**. The main reason why 18-year-old young adults should not be drinking is their lack of awareness at this age of what this may cause to their lives and to others. Drinking at 18 is allowed in Greece and so many other countries, and it has not led to less drinking at 18 or any other age. If anything, according to Matt Nagin, drinking at this age can cause risks like 'drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, and violent and/or destructive behaviour', unwanted pregnancies. Professor Tara Watson refers to her research with Angela Fertig, which looked 'back at the 1980s, when many states moved from a minimum of 18 to 21': the study 'found that a lower drinking age was associated with a statistically higher risk of unintended pregnancy and, largely as a result, worse infant health'. Drinking blurs judgement, and most young adults like 18-year-old people are not in a position to control or become aware of over-drinking. 18 is not the age to make any big life decisions, because 18 is the age when most people are just starting to experience and find out who they are as adults. Drinking in the US should remain legal from the age of 21, and this should be adopted by other countries as well. Works Cited Nagin, Matt, 'Top 3 Reasons Why the Drinking Age Should Not Be Lowered to 18' (2012) <https://www.mic.com/articles/14574/top-3-reasons-why-the-drinking-age-should-not-be-lowered-to-18#:~:text=Proponents%20of%20lowering%20the%20drinking,have%20become%20all%20too%20familiar.&text=The%20drinking%20age%20shouldn't,violent%20and%2For%20destructive%20behavior.> [accessed 10 February 2021]. Watson, Tara, 'Lowering the Drinking Age Has Serious Consequences' (2015) <https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/10/you-must-be-21-to-drink/lowering-the-drinking-age-has-serious-consequences. [accessed 10 February 2021].

**tldr: we need to destigmatize alcohol for young people and teach them to make decisions about drugs and alcohol at a younger age instead of just dictating decisions to them.** I think we should treat 18 year olds more like adults (reasonably). Its really jarring for 18 year olds to go from raising their hands to go to the bathroom and filing taxes etc in the span of basically one month. We treat young people like they can't make decisions for themselves but its so much more complicated than that. Instead of dictating decisions to young adults we should teach them to make decisions for themselves - like @thomasbenson57 said, its an issue of education not access.

The legal drinking age should remain at 21 instead of being lowered to 18. While drinking is a pleasant delight for people of all ages, the consumption of alcohol should not be handled recklessly. Even though there is nothing inherently wrong with old teens/young adults drinking under the legal drinking age, the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) should remain at 21. The CDC reported that states that increased the legal drinking age to 21 saw a 16 percent decline in motor vehicle crashes. Since people not old enough to be 21 did not have the option to drink, there were fewer opportunities for alcohol to be consumed, thus decreasing the instances of vehicle accidents as a result of excessive drinking. (CDC The National Highway Traffic Safety Association found that 24% of young drivers died as a result of drunk driving. Even though the same report notes that 27% of deaths were in the ages of 21-24, the CDC maintained that keeping the legal drinking age at 21 also saw a decrease within the same age range from 70% in 1985 to 56% in 1991. Drinking, as I stated earlier, is a pleasant delight. But it has to be handled responsibly. The consumption of alcohol is not something that needs to be monitored closely, but it needs to be handled delicately. We can enjoy consuming one of our favorite pleasantries with a degree of responsibility. And decreasing the age of the legal drinking age is not depriving those who achieve adulthood status once they reach the age of 18, it is about being responsible for those people as they mature further into adulthood. CITATIONS “Drunk Driving.” NHTSA, 12 Jan. 2021, www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving#age-5056. “Minimum Legal Drinking Age of 21 Saves Lives | CDC.” CDC, 3 Oct. 2020, www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/minimum-legal-drinking-age.htm.