Should the drinking age be 18?

A minimum age of 18 normalizes responsible drinking

Question: Should the drinking age be 18?
Position1 of 4›: Yes, the drinking age should be 18.
Argument1 of 3›: A minimum age of 18 normalizes responsible drinking

Eliminating the thrill of breaking the law through underage drinking makes moderate, responsible consumption of alcohol the norm.

The argument

Adults in most countries drink some amount of alcohol on a fairly routine basis. Drinking in moderation and making responsible choices while doing so (such as not drinking to excess or driving while drunk) does not present serious risks to other members of society, and it is important to normalize this kind of responsible approach to drinking. If 18-year-olds are not able to drink legally, they are therefore not able to make a responsible choice to drink. This makes drinking a thrill-seeking choice for young adults, which encourages illegal activity and irresponsible behavior. Allowing 18-year-olds to drink legally eliminates the incentive to break the law and establishes the more common, moderate pattern of drinking as the normal and appropriate way to drink.

Premises

[P1]Drinking in moderation and making responsible choices poses little risk to others, and normalising this approach is valuable. [P2] Banning 18-year-olds from drinking legally turns it into a thrill-seeking, illegal act rather than a responsible choice. [P3] Letting 18-year-olds drink legally removes the incentive to break the law and establishes moderate drinking as the norm. [C] Therefore, the drinking age should be 18, because it normalises responsible drinking.

Counter-arguments

Advocates of a 21 age, a sibling position, reply that the evidence does not support the normalisation claim. When the US raised its drinking age to 21, traffic fatalities among young drivers fell substantially, and studies attribute thousands of saved lives to the higher age; earlier legal access is associated with more, not less, harmful drinking among the young, whose brains are still developing and more vulnerable to alcohol. They argue the 'forbidden fruit' thrill is speculative and outweighed by simply reducing availability during high-risk years, and that many countries with an age of 18 or lower still have serious youth binge-drinking, undercutting the idea that legality alone breeds moderation. On this view lowering the age would likely increase alcohol-related harm rather than instil responsibility.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Evidence from the US raising the age to 21 links the higher age to large falls in youth traffic fatalities and less harmful drinking, so legal access at 18 is associated with more harm, not normalised moderation. [Rejecting P2] Many countries with an age of 18 or lower still have serious youth binge-drinking, so legality by itself does not produce the moderate, responsible pattern the argument predicts.