Changing The Legal Age Limit

My classmate, Jason Ebeling, wrote a post about raising the legal drinking age to 25, titled “Legal Drinking Age 21 or 25?”  He proves a valid point that some 21-year-olds are too irresponsible to be drinking, sometimes getting themselves and others killed.  What bothers me is that people against 21-year-olds legally drinking tend to provide their argument with horror stories of young people dying due directly or indirectly to alcohol.  What do you think normally happens when young people drink?  If it’s a story like the one Ebeling wrote about, you might believe too much of what you hear from the media.  Most of the time young people drink, situations similar to what happens when their older counterparts drink occur, with a little less maturity. 

I liked that Ebeling tied the issue to personal experience in his post.  It showed he can somewhat relate to a younger and older audience.  Regarding the age limit of alcoholic consumption though, unless you’ve had a life-altering experience in between the time you’re 21 and 25 (such as Ebeling having a child), you probably aren’t going to change or mature all that much.

I also noticed that in Ebeling’s blog post, he only had one reason for the legal drinking age to be raised to 25, which was that at 21, people are too irresponsible to handle alcohol.  Although I am against the age limit being raised, I would have provided at least one other valid reason for raising the age limit, such as how alcohol can affect a still-developing 21-year-old body.

The age for legal alcoholic consumption is a hot topic that may be changed in our near future in Texas.  It is one that the young will be more likely to participate in, which is just what some political observes have been asking for, right?  For now, those “irresponsible” 21-24 year olds who are not a “functioning part of society” will just have to continue “[getting] drunk and then get laid.”