What is the Debate Over the Legal Drinking Age in the United States?
There are a number of arguments as to why the legal drinking age in the United States, now set in most states at 21, should be lowered, remain the same, or be raised. It helps to have some historical background on the drinking age. The current federal limits, which prohibit buying anything but very low alcohol beers (about 3%) in some states, were set at 21 in 1984. Many states had temporarily lowered legal drinking age in the United States during the Vietnam War. This was due to perhaps the most cogent argument framed for keeping the drinking age at 18. Many soldiers drafted into the war claimed that if they were old enough to fight or die for their country, they were certainly old enough to decide whether or not they wanted to drink alcohol.
