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In the U.S., when you reach 18 years of age, you are legally an adult. Your new rights allow you to vote, join the military, obtain a marriage permit, sign legally binding contracts and many others except purchase and consume alcohol. Many feel this is the best reason for lowering the drinking age. I want to take a different approach at the issue; I think the legal drinking age should be lowered to allow young adults to drink under supervision in controlled environments such as restaurants, taverns, pubs and official school and university functions. We should allow drinking under supervision at an early age, because this teaches and develops more responsible acts of drinking. In these situations responsible drinking could be taught through role modeling and educational programs, this would develop mature and sensible drinking behavior. As we teach more responsible drinkers, then we can correct our current problem of abusive drinking. The drinking age is to youth today, what the Jim Crow laws was to blacks in the Old South. This law segregates our youth, while it is meant to protect society. Unfortunately, it has backfired. Drinking age laws do a fine job of keeping young people out of clubs and ba