CNN iReport

Lowering the drinking age will have a positive effect on the irresponsible drinking culture in America.  Right now people are not introduced to legally drinking until they are 21 years old, and they learn about drinking from peers who are not necessarily concerned with their safety and responsibility. The drinking age should be lowered and parents should introduce their teens to drinking early on in a safe environment.  Parents can teach their teens about how to drink responsibly, never to drive after drinking, and what kind of drinking behavior is just plain stupid. College kids don't seem to understand how to enjoy alcohol (and it can be enjoyed). Drinking until you are physically sick is not a fun time, and drinking the cheapest of beers in a massive quantity (picture related) is not the best way to enjoy alcohol. Perhaps if people are introduced to drinking earlier on, they learn that alcohol is best enjoyed when you're just buzzed or slightly tipsy, and not incoherently drunk. They will be familiar with alcohol before they even finish high school and so it will be an ordinary thing, instead of exciting and wild. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) have lost their focus. Their intention of preventing drunk driving is a very good cause, but now they are focusing on underage alcohol use (under age meaning under 21, which is too old to first introduce alcohol to people) and even prohibition, which is an awful idea. We know that prohibition only leads to a violent black market that no one can control or regulate. The same thing is true of illegal drugs like marijuana, by the way. Its illegal status only creates a black market that is dangerous and unregulated. Drug dealers who know nothing of safety and responsibilty profit from cut throat black market business, when in a legal system, pharmacists would be the ones to profit. Sure, they would be prostituting themselves to make money from a drug that isn't actually helping people, but at least they know about the biochemical reactions that take place and how to use drugs safely.