Lowering the drinking age would be good for the economy according to the national center on addiction and substance abuse underage drinking accounts for about 175 percent of consumer spending in the us if you put that into numbers that is 225 billion dollars per year. Should the drinking age perhaps be lowered read the discussion debaters return it to 18 and enforce it gabrielle glaser author her best kept secret why women drink raising the . Yes the proportion of the us population who drink has been going down since about 1980 that includes young people that decline began long before the states were forced to raise the drinking age in and of course the law has no impact on those age 21 or older. In the united states the minimum legal drinking age mlda is considered to be 21 which includes the purchase and consumption of any alcoholic beverages the minimum age for purchasing alcohol has changed many times over the years and at one point states were able to set their own age limits for purchasing alcohol