Lowering the Drinking Age

I know what you're thinking. 1) We tried that once with lowering the drinking age to 18 in many states and it wasn't such a good idea. 2) This would increase drunk driving problems.

An 18 year old that's still in high school being able to consume alcohol isn't a good idea. So maybe at 19. Maybe it's only beer and wine and not the hard stuff. There aren't many countries left that have a 21 age for alcohol. The rest of the free world is surviving fine. We can take a look at some of those countries, remembering that social customs may be different, and see what's working.

As far as underage drinking and maybe driving, there are already plenty of kids, especially in college, drinking at 18 or 19 years old. I'd suggest a lower legal alcohol limit for the under 21 crowd since their driving skills aren't quite up to snuff because of less experience behind the wheel. In case you didn't know, there's a huge business in fake IDs on many college campuses.

There is the argument that you are legally an adult at 18. You can get a student loan, you can go off to war, get married and having kids, buy an AR15, sign a contract, be on a jury, etc. Saying they are old enough to do that, but not have a beer for another three years is hypocritical. When you have laws like this that are routinely ignored, you are creating disrespect for the law.