Lower the drinking age? Tell me what YOU think!

I remember studying the US Constitution in 5th grade. It was so BORING! But there was one thing in there that I thought was pretty funny- the eighteenth amendment and it's history.  "Well it must be the alcohol causing all these problems! It can't possibly the fault of the idiots actually consuming the alcohol."  hmm...

For those of you who don't know, the eighteenth amendment was Prohibition. It made it illegal to sell, manufacture or transport alcohol in the United States. But why did I find this amendment so funny? Well it's not the amendment I found funny, it's the reason why they passed it. Apparently, a bunch of men would get their paychecks, then go out to the tavern and spend all their money on boose, gambling, and sometimes hookers. When they would get home late that night/early that morning and tell their wives where their paychecks went, the wives weren't too happy about it. So all these wives as well as some former alcoholic men decided that the alcohol was the reason for all their troubles and that they were going to get rid of it all together.  So they managed to get the eighteenth amendment passed.

 And, surprise surprise, the twenty-first amendment repealed the eighteenth amendment a short time later; however, they did decide on prohibition of alcohol of those under the legal age of consumption. Now note the numbers of the amendments. Eighteen and twenty-one. Does anyone else find this funny and ironic?  Maybe this is where everyone got the idea to argue 18 vs 21 in the legal age debate!   

Moving on....Now let's look at all the different arguments that can be made. Some of these are more than just drinking age related and are not really for or against anything. I just threw them in because I thought they were interesting.

1. Why is it that America has a legal drinking age of 21, but in other countries it's either 18 or no drinking age. America should be the same way. By enforcing this drinking age it makes it seem like our government doesn't think we're mature enough to drink until we're 21.

2. And if maturity is the case, what makes the government think they can put an age on that? There are some 12 year olds that are more mature than some 30 years olds. It all depends on the person.

3. So why is it there that there is a zero tolerance policy(in Illinois) for underage people who drive. Shouldn't they just do a zero tolerance for everyone? They say that your blood alcohol content is 0.08 you are okay to drive as long as you're twenty one. But if you have any alcohol in your system under the age of twenty one, you get your license taken. I mean, I understand that this is most likely because you shouldn't be drinking, period, under the age of 21 since that's the law, but to have your license taken? I do understand the governments argument for this, but it just bothers me.

4. People who start drinking alcohol at a young age are more likely to become alcoholics later in life. Well, I recently took Psychology and we basically learned that you either have that alcoholic tendency or you don't. I really don't think what age you start matters at all. There are simply some people who are going to form that addiction and some who are not. I do remember one video we watched that studied the brain and found that in alcoholics have a certain part of the brain that is actually missing, as opposed to non alcoholics. I don't remember the name of video or the name of the researchers, so you don't have to take my word on that if you don't want to do so.

5. There are some people who argue that lowering the drinking age will stop underage people from binge drinking. They argue that there is actually a type of thrill involved in consuming alcohol underage. I guess I can understand what they are saying, but does anyone actually find drinking underage drinking thrilling? If so, I wouldn't doing any extreme sports, as this person may go into cardiac arrest. There are definitely people out there who binge drink who are older, it's not just college students like everyone says. I don't think lowering the drinking age is going to stop them.**Now I realize that I've only covered a small portion of all that's involved with this issue. So now it's your turn. What do you think? And don't forget to add in things I forgot to mention!