Ever since the end of prohibition in 1933 the United States government has placed the issue of MLDA (minimum legal drinking age) sensitively in the hands of the states, letting each decide for itself what the minimum age should be. At that time all agreed that the minimum legal drinking age should be 21, where it remained for all states until 1970. Between 1970, and 1975 a number of states (29 to be exact) played around with the idea of lowering that age to 20, 19, and even 18 for some states. At this time the minimum age for other activities, like the right to vote were being lowered as well. The argument was that if a person is considered an adult at 18, and can serve his or her country and vote in it's elections, he or she ought to be able to have a drink.(Toomey 1) This is exactly the way I feel about it. The drinking age should be lowered to eighteen.
During the period in the 70's when many states were lowering their drinking ages scientists started doing studies to determine whether or not the younger drinking ages had any effect on automobile accidents. These studies generally concluded that traffic accidents significantly increased among teenagers after the MLDA was lowered.(Toomey 1) It can, however, easily be argued that since these studies came out right after the drinking ages had been lowered, they would naturally show that there was an increase in death among teenagers. Anytime you change something dramatically it.
takes a while for things to settle into a routine. If all of a sudden, for instance, you allow 18-year-olds to drink alcohol when before they couldn't, it's going to take a while before that becomes the norm, and therefore less exciting and alluring. These studies would have been far more accurate if they had been done after society had adapted to the change.
When the government found that many of the states were lowering the drinking age to 18 and 19, it began to worry about the safety of teens in those and neighboring states.
