Two thousand, five hundred people over the past decade have been saved due to the drinking age being changed from eighteen to 21 in 1984. Lowering the drinking age back to eighteen is a very bad idea because a person’s brain does not develop fully until around 25 years old so you make good decisions. Alcohol damages your brain and body, and causes deaths. Lowering the drinking age would be a huge mistake because alcohol causes serious issues mentally and physically.

To begin, the brain does not fully develop in decision making, which is one of the functions of the cerebral cortex, until it is around 25 years old. If eighteen-year-olds were allowed to drink before they can make good decisions, then they could get into serious trouble which can damage their life irreversibly. Growing brains can establish learning problems or be damaged permanently because of the consumption of alcohol. Drinking at too young of an age is an extremely unhealthy thing to do for an undeveloped brain.

Also, alcohol doesn’t only hurt your brain, but the rest of your body too. Every organ in your entire body can be damaged by alcohol. At a younger age like 18, deadly diseases like cancer are more likely to develop from too much consumption of alcohol. One organ that can specifically be damaged is the liver. The liver is what breaks down alcohol after it is consumed. The liver needs water to do that. If the liver does not have enough water in it, it will produce acetaldehyde, which is toxic to the body. This will cause nausea, headaches, heartburn, and vomiting.

The most awful causes of excessive alcohol consumption are the deaths it causes. Thirty-one percent of people who die in traffic accidents had been drinking alcohol. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s fifty peer-reviewed studies Casualties and deaths will increase by 10 percent if the drinking age is lowered to 18.

On the contrary, someone might say that If an 18 year old can get a driver’s license, vote, join the army, then why can’t they drink alcohol? There are a lot of responsible 18 year olds out there that are in the army, but if we allow them to drink, then all of the other irresponsible 18 year olds will also be able to drink, and will most likely make even more bad decisions. Also some people say that raising the drinking age to 21 didn’t stop 18 year olds from drinking, but just drove it to more dangerous places. Even though there is some truth to this, lowering the drinking age to 18 will give the opportunity for even younger kids to drink. Lowering the drinking age to 18 will not fix any of the problems that concerns alcohol right now.

A person’s brain doesn’t develop fully until their mid twenties so they can make good decisions. Drinking underage along with making bad decisions can cause brain damage, damage to the body, and death. Hopefully this convinced you that clearly the drinking age should stay at 21. It will be better for everybody. Less people will be killed in car accidents, and less people will have physical and mental problems due to alcohol.