Response to Prompt 2 (Drinking Age)

I think the drinking age is appropriate as it is; although, I do not like that at eighteen one can fight for his life yet not get the privilege of drinking. However, I do not feel that it should be lowered to eighteen. I think eighteen is too young because most eighteen year olders are not mature enough to handle the full responsibility of having a driver's license let alone the burden of drinking. Most students are eighteen while in high school and I feel if there are students in high school who are legally allowed to drink, high school would have to become a lot more strict. If students could purchase alcohol most of their younger cohorts would pressure them to buy alcohol for them then there'd be more younger kids drinking. There's also be the difficulty of chaperoning a school function, how would you stop the quarterback from hitting up a bar to "ease" some pre-game jitters, not to mention if the football team won a game then the whole team would go out and celebrate and put their whole career in jeopardy. Then there's prom, if eighteen was the legal drinking age there would be twice maybe three times more pregnancy after prom, and not to mention all the students who would come to the dance drunk and/or spike the punch bowl. I also feel that lowering the drinking age would, not only, raise the teen pregnancy rate but also the teen drop out rate, teens in jail rate, teen death rate. Also the statistics of students going to college after high school would also plummet. I don't feel that most young adults know what "drink responsible" mean. My cohorts drink to get drunk, not to be social or to intensify the taste of a dish. Sometimes I question if twenty-one is even a logical age because I see may twenty-somethings with the mind set of an teenager. But I do think that twenty-one is more appropriate then eighteen.