At the age of 18, a person can enlist or be drafted into the military. These young soldiers at war are expected to be morally mature enough to judge when someone should die.
At the age of 18, a person will start receiving letters of pre-approval for credit cards they didn’t order, and are then held fiscally responsible if they accumulate a lifetime worth of debt.
At the age of 18, a person is expected to be socially responsible enough not to commit a crime, and also to accurately interpret punishment for another’s social irresponsibility while on a jury.
At the age of 18, however, a person cannot be expected to responsibly have a drink.
If the drinking age was lowered, the government and the people would benefit from the additional tax revenues, as well as from the jobs that the new industry created. The new market of 18-21-year-old clientele would require a service enhancement by the industry. This additional service could be created by the 18-21 year olds that then, legally, could serve alcohol as bartenders and waiters.
The drinking age not only severely conflicts with the age of adulthood, but could have an adverse effect on the growth of the economy.
While the economy is still on its slow march back to health, many states are looking for new ways to bring jobs and money flow back, even to the point of repealing laws that upon closer inspection have seemed unjust.
Colorado is an excellent example. By legalizing marijuana, the government is now benefiting from the taxes from sales, saving money in enforcement and has more people back to work selling pot.
This new industry has not taken or replaced jobs, but created them, simply by expanding the state’s viewpoint of legality. This all adds up to more money being exchanged, and jobs being not replaced, but created. The creation of new jobs in new fields, through innovation, has been one of the backbones of American economy.
Perhaps reversion and reexamination of past rules that have worked in theory, but in effect are currently hurting the economy and the people, is the more feasible route to economic advancement. In the end, most underage people are drinking anyway.
The responsible thing to do is to regulate the behavior rather than try to stomp it out entirely– in the same way that it is responsible to give under age people condoms rather than abstinence awareness and removing prohibition instead of cracking down on every person who has a drink.
The state has decided that, somehow, responsibility for actions extends as far as killing and being killed in battle and accumulating overwhelming debt, but cannot extend to sitting on the bar porch, having a drink with friends.
Through this simple change in the drinking age, the people and state can benefit from a better economy. Those drinking can benefit from advisement, and laws can make adults truly adults – as responsible citizens.
When every great responsibility is thrust immediately on to a person’s shoulders, the state has decided that somehow responsibility for actions extends as far as sending you to prison for life, being killed and killing in battle, and accumulating overwhelming debt, but cannot extend so far as sitting on the bar porch, having a drink with friends.The laws of adulthood with one hand allows severe responsibilities and on the other hand denies those less serious.
Click to read the CON side.
