Lower the legal drinking age to 18

The college party atmosphere involves alcohol. Every week, hundreds of students are sent to the student conduct offices because of underage drinking. Since it's difficult to change the college party culture, why not just lower the drinking age to 18?

In Australia the legal drinking age is 18. I dont see a problem with this, but when I grew up people were drinking at 14.

I can still picture vividly the parks I used to frequent at that age, and the masses of intoxicated teenagers, stumbling about in various stages of drunkenness, many of them lying in pools of their own vomit.

The thing is, adults do something and kids want to be apart of it. So as soon as you're a teenager and you actually have the ability to do the adult things, you try it. Its just a natural part of growing up.

But if you lowered it to 18 in America, people would STILL be drinking under age. Would you propose lowering it to 14 so people dont get in trouble for underage drinking?

What happens when the people under 14 see what the older adolescents are allowed to do openly and they decide its not fair, they should be allowed to try it too?

Its an interesting question you put out there Attolia. But while I agree that at 18 most people are old enough to make their own decisions and should be allowed to drink, I feel the reason of lowering it so its less trouble for the school faculties isn't a good one.

I think chained wings has said it all, In Britain as with Australia, the drinking age is 18, but there is still a problem of underage drinking here, just at a younger age.

Though in some other European countries the drinking age is lower, and they have less of a problem. I think the whole idea hangs around peoples attitude towards alcohol. The French regularly drink but drink in moderation (say a bottle of wine between a family with a meal), this means that they don't see alcohol as such a big thing and have less of wish to go out and swill the stuff till the vomit. Unfortunately Britain and America seem to be world leaders in binge drinking.

I'm from the UK so can appreciate what has been said above.

I actually found it more fun to go clubbing when I was 15 or 16 just because I might not get in; meaning when I did get in the night was that much better. So, Attolia, I reckon its better to stick to the age limit of 21 and break the law. Did I just say that?

For some reason, I think lowering the drinking age to 18 would be benificial for the fact that It might lower the rebellious teenagers that have to wait til 21.

but at the same time, people around the ages of 18 still have those "immature" tendencies from high school and might lead to even more accidents and unneeded problems.

In some sense, this really could go either way, depending on how you think about it.

I personally don't care what the drinking age is, I very seldomly [want to] drink anyway.