When the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 was passed, states were forced to raise their legal drinking age to 21 or face a 10 percent decrease in federal highway funding.
Because of this, American adults who are old enough to marry, adopt children, serve on juries, enter into contracts, operate businesses, employ others, go to prison, be executed, obtain abortions, hunt with deadly weapons, fly airplanes, drive cars, purchase pornography, vote, and risk their lives in the military are not allowed to consume alcohol.
We need to focus on the abuse of alcohol and drunken driving, rather than the responsible consumption of alcohol by those considered adults in almost every other aspect of the law.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/opinion/2012/11/13/lower-the-drinking-age