Science has proven that your brain is not fully developed until the age of 21.

Lowering the drinking age would be taking a step backwards in the fight to save lives and prevent binge drinking.

Think about the person you love most losing their life tragically in a drunk driving crash because of a college student heading home from a frat party.

enterprise:

Science has proven that your brain is not fully developed until the age of 21.

Prove it. If that's the case, we should change the age of adulthood. Those under 21 wouldn't be able to vote, but couldn't be tried as adults. They couldn't marry, but they wouldn't be able to legally enter into contracts. And so on.

enterprise:

Think about the person you love most losing their life tragically in a drunk driving crash because of a college student heading home from a frat party.

That can happen now. In any case, that's not the way to think about laws. For instance, I'd be upset if my husband were to die in a car accident because someone were speeding, or because someone was playing with their radio or simply because accidents happen. By your logic, I should fight to ban cars because one might kill my husband.

One has to think about the issue on a nationwide scale, not on an individual scale.

Correct, car " accidents" happen, drunk driving crashes do not and are not "accidents". They are 100% preventable.

If making something illegal meant it didn't happen, then the drinking age would be immaterial to drunk driving, which is always illegal. Get it? Someone who drinks and drives and is willing to violate the law in that way is going to illegally drink underage anyway.

I am sorry for your loss, but the age of the driver is immaterial - whether s/he was 18 or 21, it was the the choice to drive drunk that resulted in your tragedy, not the fact that the driver was underage. If that driver had learned to respect alcohol at a younger age, perhaps s/he would have made a different choice - in your case, it would be better to lobby for a more responsible attitude towards alcohol instead of a higher drinking age, which is exactly what the college presidents are trying to accomplish.

I too am sorry for your loss. But individual tragedies are a not very usable as guidelines for legislation.

You are writing about an underage driver causing the accident - this would indicate that the current law did not have the desired effect.

In my opinion, the only solution to such problems is a good education, with the parents introducing their children into responsible alcohol enjoyment - exactly what is prohibited by the current laws.

Automobile "accidents" DO NOT "happen" and they all are 100 percent preventable. Just out law driving. (and, please, don't tell me computer controlled autos will solve the problem, they won't)

In our society we label a great deal of negligent behavior as "accidental" when, in fact, negligence is NOT "accidental."

Will we ever completely eliminate collisions caused by negligence? We could, by eliminating cars, but then we would act negligently with whatever replaced them and resume killing each other..

If you don't believe me about negligence, look at your auto insurance policy - it covers you for negligent acts while driving, not "accidents."

What about the 54 year old drunk driver who killed my loved one?

Actually, the brain develops nonstop until you turn 25. Maybe 25 should be the right legal drinking age? No. The problem has nothing to do with the age, it has to do with the culture. In europe, the minimum age is what, 10? They don't seem to do very bad. What we actually need is more orientation, more strict laws about DUIs, and more goverment help. I live in Puerto Rico, the legal age here is 18. We know how to drink. Our DUIs incidence is way lower than the one from the mainland. Our bartenders are obligated to call a police "taxi" for people that had tee many martoonies. It's a cultural thing.

enterprise:

That can happen now.

Exactly-and it did! which proves that having a drinking age of 21 does nothing to save lives. It was illegal for this person to be drinking, but they were anyway, and something bad happened. Obviously the drinking age didn't help in this situation and millions of others. That kid was going to drink and drive home from a frat party no matter what the legal drinking age was. As I said before, college students and anyone else over the age 18 drink. They don't have problems getting alcohol. It's not about being let into bars- I never went to a bar until I was 21 but I started drinking during freshman orientation. Kids drink at frat parties, at knitting parties, at people's houses, in the woods behind the school...they don't need to be 21 to drink. The senior in their dorm buys them the alcohol, or the older guy at work, or they get a fake ID.

"As I said before, college students and anyone else over the age 18 drink. They don't have problems getting alcohol."

Just because they have access to it doesn't mean it should be legalized. People can obtain access to illicit drugs like heroin and cocaine...it doesn't mean we should legalize those things either. Stricter enforcement and higher penalties are the weapon...if a cop breaks up a party but no one is arrested, nobody learns anything...the same thing happens week in and week out at colleges. Give those students harsher penalties, and actual consequences for their actions, and they'll be less likely to drink.

Kids drink underage. It is not going to go away by lowering the drinking age...you just shift the kids that are drinking underage from 18-, 19-, and 20-year olds to 15-, 16-, and 17-year olds. Now do you really want college-type keg parties popping up everywhere in America with kids THAT YOUNG drinking alcohol??? At least in college it's contained to university areas...lower the drinking age and you have no containment. Underage drinking is going to happen, but to lower the drinking age just to accept the inevitable is not the answer...you just shift the problem from only college campuses to every town with a high school in America, with kids FAR YOUNGER than the 18-year old frosh.

penguin15:

"As I said before, college students and anyone else over the age 18 drink. They don't have problems getting alcohol."

Just because they have access to it doesn't mean it should be legalized. People can obtain access to illicit drugs like heroin and cocaine...it doesn't mean we should legalize those things either. Stricter enforcement and higher penalties are the weapon...if a cop breaks up a party but no one is arrested, nobody learns anything...the same thing happens week in and week out at colleges. Give those students harsher penalties, and actual consequences for their actions, and they'll be less likely to drink.

Kids drink underage. It is not going to go away by lowering the drinking age...you just shift the kids that are drinking underage from 18-, 19-, and 20-year olds to 15-, 16-, and 17-year olds. Now do you really want college-type keg parties popping up everywhere in America with kids THAT YOUNG drinking alcohol??? At least in college it's contained to university areas...lower the drinking age and you have no containment. Underage drinking is going to happen, but to lower the drinking age just to accept the inevitable is not the answer...you just shift the problem from only college campuses to every town with a high school in America, with kids FAR YOUNGER than the 18-year old frosh.

Unfortunately kids THAT YOUNG are already drinking-plenty. Many kids wait until college because in high school they've got parents waiting at home and would have to answer to them upon returning home drunk. Vast majorities of high school kids also know not to drink and drive- and it's easy to get back and forth to the party on foot in college than it is in high school. These are the kids that abstain in high school, and for each of them there are probably 2 that drink. Now, lowering the drinking age isn't going to change the reasons why kids don't drink in high school- they've still got the parents home, they're still in the suburbs with cars. And it's not going to change the reasons why kids do drink in high school either. I remember at my high school, all four years, there was standing friday night party in the woods including everyone from freshmen to seniors, and probably some junior high kids as well! How they got the beer? Who knows. I also knew a lot of kids at very wealthy private prep schools-they were drank more and earlier because parents often went away or had huge houses for the kids to remain undetected or even had multiple homes. Basically what I'm saying is, 14 and 15 year olds who are going to drink all already drinking. 14 and 15 year olds who don't drink- either because it's illegal or because they'll get caught-are still going to have those reasons not to drink if the age were 18 or 19.