Should the drinking age be lowered?

For many years, people have asked the question, "should the drinking age be lowered?" In my personal opinion, I believe that lowering the drinking age will just cause more people who should not be drinking to drink even more. The majority of the people who are protesting the drinking age are those who do not even obey the law. I do not even logically see a good reason to lower the drinking age when the people protesting do not drink legally and responsibly now. If we lower the drinking age, the number of people killed by intoxicated drivers will more than likely increase, and the number of deaths caused by alcohol will also increase. Several men argue that if we have to sign up for the military than why should we not have the ability to drink. I believe that until I see all the men who think the drinking age should be lowered actually go to war, then I will say to them that they can drink all that they want, but until that day comes I do not believe that they should have that opportunity. Other people who are protesting the drinking age argue that the number of people dying from binge drinking will decrease. I heard from a fellow classmate the following story. A young college boy who was about 18 years old was being hazed at a fraternity. However, the boy ended up drinking enormous sums of alcohol and died because the fraternity brothers were so claimed afraid to take him into the hospital because he would be charged for drinking illegally. The mother of the boy said that if the drinking age were lower than my boy may have made it to the hospital. Personally, why would anyone even take the risk of questioning whether obtaining a charge was even relevant to the chance of life or death. We are all aware that the drinking age is 21. We all aware of what happens when we drink enormous sums of alcohol. And we especially are all aware of what the outcome is if we get caught. If you want to make the decision to drink illegally, then you have to live with the consequences. It is the law and until the law saws otherwise, if you are under 21, you are not allowed to drink!

Imagine if the child who died was killed by someone who was driving while drunk, do you still think that the mother would want the drinking age to be lowered? Until you are on the other side of the fence, you do not realize the side effects of lowering the drinking age. I have never had a family member die from a drunk driver, but I have seen the long term effects drinking can have on a person. Many times people think that they can just drink and drink and drink, and then just quiet. Drinking can become an addiction just like smoking or any other drug. Once you start it is hard to quit. There is a big difference between social drinking, which consists of drinking in a reasonable size portions, and drinking just to get drunk. I do not think that it is a problem to drink, but I do think that until you actually are old enough to drink responsibly, which is 21 in the United States, then otherwise you should not be allowed to drink.