Dissent is a refusal to agree with an official decision or accepted opinion. I dissent with the law that the drinking age is 21. There are many reasons why I disagree with this law, and I believe it should be changed back to 18. I know many feel strongly about this topic as I do, but I do know that there are people who argue that it should be raised. 

The drinking age in the U.S. should be lowered back to 18 and not because I think I should be drinking sooner. I think the age should be lowered because at the age of 18 you are considered an adult in the United States. At the age of 18, you can vote for president, buy lottery tickets, open a bank account in your own name and you can serve your country. I believe if you can fight for your country and quite possibly die for your country you can have a drink. I also believe that you are exposed to alcohol at a younger age and learn how to handle yourself then when you go off to college you won’t act like an idiot and get yourself in trouble. We have one of the highest drinking ages in the world at 21. Other countries are teaching their children young and making sure they know how to drink responsibly and how to handle themselves while drinking. I still don’t understand why they changed the drinking age to 21 in the first place. The drinking age was 18 for so long in the U.S. and then they just changed it because of drunk driving. Drunk driving is an awful thing but why punish the whole population over a handful of people that want to play God and put not only theirs but other people’s lives in danger.  

I know that there are other people out there who want to raise the drinking age to 25, like M.A.D.D. (Mothers against drunk driving), but by raising the age even higher you are just encouraging teens to underage drink. Teens do the opposite of what they are told, so if people think there is a problem now, there is going to be a huge epidemic of underage drinking if it is raised again. The drinking age should be lowered back to the original age of 18. I believe there would be less problems involved with alcohol-related offenses.

Riley Reid