Spring break is just around the corner. It’s that time again to plan your vacations and parties. Along with all the fun, there most likely will be lots and lots of drinking and alcohol on your check list, right?

This brings up the conversation of whether the drinking age should be lowered or remain at the age it is, 21. Personally, I am not an experienced drinker and was never into underage drinking besides a couple sips at family parties. But let’s be honest, most people have at least tried a bit of alcohol before they reached the legal age.

Despite this, there is way too much responsibility that comes along with drinking that those any younger cannot handle. For that reason, the drinking age should remain at 21 years old.
Seconding this, Monica Heredia, child adolescent and family study major, states, “Age eighteen is when high schoolers are driving. They do not have much experience driving so lowering the drinking age would allow for more drunk drivers.”

Recently in my Philosophy of Education course, during class discussion it was brought up by a classmate the responsibility one has when entering into adulthood. Once 15 ½ one can get their permit to drive. At age 18 one is considered an adult who can then gamble, play the lottery, and enroll in the military.

However, at age 21, it’s finally the time one can drink despite the many other responsibilities they have thus far. But who really is to say that at age twenty years and 364 days old we are not old enough to drink until the next day?

“I feel it should be lower, if you can be in the military you can drink when you’re younger. Not only that but it will lower the urge to want to drink before you’re 21 and when you are older, you will resist [drinking] more. I have been drinking since I was 16. I am 23 years old now and I can’t stand to go out and drink anymore,” Julian Adame, communications major, states.

As others will agree, if you can have so much responsibility throughout your life thus far, you should be able to take on drinking as well.

Lauren Holbrook, communications and design major, says that most people think drinking at a lower age is a problem for brain development but “people are going to do what they want to do.”

Though this is true and alcohol is easily accessible, especially high school students during spring break, they still should not be able to drink.

“If you go lower [on the drinking age], it would be the highschool range and it would not be favorable to their education,” Yesenia Leon, criminal justice major states.

The Impact of Drinking on Psychological Well-Being: Evidence from Minimum Drinking Age Laws in the United States says drinking underaged can have effects for one’s health, including low blood pressure, increased risk of stroke, liver diseases, kidney failure and depression.

Along with maturity, Greg Esquivel, biology major, says, “at age 21 years old, we see a major distinction between right and wrong.”