Now I know that most of you are thinking that I just want to drink legally or bring the European culture of drinking at a younger age to the United States. However, I am just concerned with the health of my peers.

I will save you the cliché speech of if someone can die for America at the age of 18, then they should be able to drink, (even though it is a valid point) and the argument that drinking is just going to happen anyway. But I will explain the harmful effects of binge drinking that is caused by having a minimum drinking age of 21 years old.

The argument to have the minimum age stay at 21 is that it helps to combat drunk driving and alcohol consumption among youth, but it is not working. Underage drinkers between the ages of 12 and 20 guzzle 11 percent of all the alcohol consumed in America. This is a significant portion, and most of these underage drinkers are drinking a whole lot of alcohol in short periods of time. Over 90 percent of the alcohol consumed by these teenagers is done through binge drinking.

College campuses are notorious for the amount of underage drinking that occurs. If the legal age was lowered to 18, students underage should no longer feel the need to binge drink on weekends, at house parties, and/or where ever they can get their hands on alcohol at the time. Currently, students know that it could be another week or longer until they can consume more alcohol, so many think that they might as well drink a lot while it is available to them.

Lowering the drinking age would allow 18 to 21 year olds to consume alcohol more casually. They would be able to drink at their own time, not having to wait for when they have access to it at social events that they could only attend once a week or month. If people between 18 and 21 were able to purchase and not hide alcohol, they would not feel the pressure to drink large amounts of alcohol in short periods of time.

Even if the minimum drinking age is not lowered, underage drinkers please just listen to the consequences of binge drinking. Side effects from binge drinking range from memory loss and poor decision making to the long-lasting side effects of brain damage, heart problems, and cancer. So if you are going to drink, just try and drink less for your own sake.

The statistics are in and whether alcohol is legal or not, people under the age of 21 will continue to consume it and for most of them, a lot in a short amount of time. This is a conversation that needs to be discussed more and binge drinking, in particular, must be addressed since this is how the majority of alcohol is consumed by underage drinkers. Until then, please take these numbers and side effects into consideration for your health and spread the word to others.