The drinking age in the United States needs to be changed to coincide with the age at which a person is considered to be an adult. There are rights, responsibilities, and consequences to all actions that are made, and when the correct time to allow people to make those decisions is the basis of the argument of changing the legal drinking age. Taking into consideration when a child becomes an adult, and when they are able to make independent, well thought out decisions is most important. As stated in the Amethyst Initiative Statement, adults are considered adults when they reach the age of 18 years old. At that time, they are “deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries, and enlisting in the military.”(Amethyst Initiative Statement, page 456) All of these new expectations or abilities are given to them, as they are believed to be capable to make these very important choices. If these “adults” are capable of these extremely important decisions that may and will affect many others at the age of 18, then the question that arises is why they cannot have the right to have an alcoholic beverage? For those that feel that adults between the ages of 18-20 are incapable of making good decisions about drinking alcohol, then it would be unfair to assume that those same adults would then be able to make good decisions regarding choosing our countries leaders, fighting in wars to protect the freedom of citizens, signing binding agreements, or making adult decisions in the judicial system. There seems to be a disconnect on when children become adults, when they are able to make good decisions, and which rights should be given to them at what time. There is proven evidence showing that the frontal cortex of the brain is not fully developed until around the age of 25 years of age. There are studies being done that show that the brain development may be even later than that. According to an article by the National Institute of