Wikipedia has an interesting page listing the drinking age and purchase age for alcohol for many countries around the world. While some countries have no law relating to the drinking age, this probably relates back to the time when water was not safe to drink in many European countries. Even though the custom still exists today to serve wine with meals even to children, the wine is diluted with water to decrease the alcoholic content. And children are not allowed to drink without limitations. From the chart we can see that the youngest a person can purchase alcohol is in those countries without a drinking age and where wine has been customarily served with meals.

Again, in the United States the legal drinking and the legal purchase age is twenty-one, so to drink or to purchase alcohol before that time is to break the law. Breaking the law has its own consequences. Texas has implemented its No Tolerance Law and many states have similar laws with varying degrees of tolerance.  In the March 20, 2008 edition of US Today reported on six different states considering lowering the drinking age with certain conditions:

Choose Responsibility, a group founded by John McCardell, once president of Middlebury College in Vermont, supports lowering the legal drinking age after completion of an alcohol education program. Several states are investigating this possibility.

There are strong arguments for lowering the drinking age, but until it is lowered in your state, to purchase or drink alcohol is against the law and it has its consequences that can definitely get in the way of you pursuing your dreams and goals.

Parents sometimes provide alcohol for their children thinking it is better that they try it at home first under supervision rather than at parties where police can be involved. The website Underage Drinking Laws Take Aim At Parents, shows that parents can and will be held responsible for their actions. Not only are they breaking the law and chancing some time in jail, but they are putting you at risk also.

Knowing that drinking or purchasing alcohol is against the law, can result in your arrest, and can stand in the way of your dreams should be reason enough not to drink. Even though most criminal records as minors are sealed, arrests during high school are part of your school record which is sent to the colleges where you apply. An arrest during high school can stand in the way of your getting into the college of your choice or even a scholarship.