Lowering the drinking age

Ciara Lynch
AP English - George
October 4th, 2008
Debate

What seems more reasonable, dying for your country at eighteen or drinking in your country at eighteen? The answer seems obvious, but in this country at the age of eighteen you can enlist in the army and die for the country before you can have an alcoholic beverage. This needs to be changed. It does not make sense that you can die for the country, vote, and smoke a cigarette at eighteen years of age but you cannot drink alcohol. The drinking age should be lowered to eighteen.

In the army you have the responsibility of defending and saving peoples lives while putting your own life on the line. The people and the government of the country trust you with not only their lives but their country. At eighteen years old the government thinks that you have enough responsibility to save our country, but not enough responsibility to open a bottle of beer and handle your liquor. You must wait three more years to do that, but if you go in the army, you may not have three years left to wait. You also have the responsibility to vote for the leader of our country three whole years before you can have a drink of alcohol, something is not right.

At eighteen years of age, you can vote on the most important thing in our country; who the leader of our country is going to be. You have the responsibility and trust to make the right decision to the better of our country, but yet you do not have enough trust to handle your liquor and be responsible. Being able to vote is an exciting and enjoyable thing, if drinking is supposed to be a means of enjoyment, why can’t you enjoy a drink of beer at eighteen. By the time twenty one years old comes around, people are just so excited to finally be able to drink legally that they go crazy about it. Since they have waited so long they just abuse it. If you had to wait all the way to twenty one to vote, the people would either not care too much about the outcome or would be so excited to do it that they would make irrational choices. But, since they do not have to wait that long they appreciate it and are responsible and if the drinking age were eighteen people would appreciate that and also be responsible. Along with the trust to make the decision to choose the leader of the country and the trust to defend the country, at eighteen you have the trust to make the right choice whether or not to fill your lungs with numerous amounts of chemicals with a cigarette.

Smoking a cigarette kills your body with every puff you take. Not only does it kill your body but it kills the body of everyone around you also inhaling that smoke. Yes, alcohol does effect your body, but not nearly as bad and fast as cigarettes effect your body. At eighteen years old you can buy cigarettes and harm your body and other body’s but you can not buy alcohol which will only somewhat harm your body. When you consume alcohol others around are not consuming your alcohol, they are not breathing in thousands of chemicals, like the people who are around smokers. When you smoke there is really no way to be responsible, because not only are you hurting your body but you are always hurting someone else’s body by the smoke a chemical that linger in the air. When you drink you can be responsible, you can only effect your body and no one else’s body is being hurt by the alcohol that in going into your body. So, at eighteen you are allowed to do something that hurts everyone around, but you still have to wait those three long years to relax and have a good time consuming alcohol, only effecting your own body. This just does the make sense because it is said that the reason for waiting till you are twenty one to drink is because your body is not ready, well if your body is ready to smoke a cigarette is most certainly is ready to consume alcohol. The drinking age should be lowered to eighteen.

All in all, at eighteen years of age you have the responsibility and trust to defend your people and the country, chose the right leader for the country, and to chose whether or not you want to hurt everyone around you by smoking, but you still can not enjoy a glass of beer. There is no real excuse for waiting those three extra years to drink legally. If you are allowed to put your life and other’s lives on the line in many different ways, why not enjoy an alcoholic beverage? Lowering the drinking age to eighteen would only make people appreciate it more and ensure that they are responsible because everyone knows that if you have to wait and wait and wait for something, when you finally get it all you want to do is go crazy with it, especially if it is the last decision you can make. So if the drinking age were lowered to eighteen along with everything else, none of the craziness of anticipation would no go on.