Wew ladNext thing you know he ' s going to stock up on tonerink <| sep |> And you ' re allowed to drive a car before you can vote . These laws were all made for different reasons . The US ' s drinking culture is different than most other places . Most other places decent amount of teens starting as young as 1314 are familiarized with a little bit of alcohol . Culturally that ' s how it ' s done and a teenager may have wine at a moderately formal dinner . In the US most of the time it ' s absolute prohibition and it becomes a matter of maturity . Someone who is 20 can still have pretty bad judgement . I ' m not saying that the 21 drinking age is ideal but for the current situation it is . If culturally we could familiarize younger people with alcohol they wouldn ' t be as likely to be out of control as often .