Should states lower the legal drinking age?

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The debate goes something like this: If men and women are old enough to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan at age 18, shouldn’t they be allowed to drink alcohol legally?

Several states are considering lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18. According to a report in USA Today, legislation has been introduced in three states (Kentucky, Wisconsin and South Carolina) to lower the drinking age for military personnel only. In Missouri, a planned ballot initiative would lower the age to 18 for everyone. South Dakota is debating allowing 19- and 20-year-olds to buy low-alcohol beer. Minnesota is considering allowing people ages 18 to 20 to buy alcohol in restaurants and bars not in stores until they are 21.

These proposals have drug dependency treatment and traffic officials more than a little worried. Congress voted in 1984 to reduce federal highway funds to any state that sets the drinking age below 21 (causing most states that had lowered the legal drinking age to 18 in the 1970s to return to the age-21 law). That led to a decrease in traffic fatalities involving drivers ages 18 to 20 by 13%, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Meanwhile, some pretty solid evidence is accumulating that waiting until age 21 to drink dramatically cuts the risk of developing alcoholism. A study released this week online from the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research shows that women born after 1944 began drinking, on average, at age 17 and had a 50% to 80% greater chance of developing alcohol dependence than women born before 1944, who began drinking at age 20 on average. Says study author Richard A. Grucza of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis:

- Shari Roan