Chris Skinner finished his shift at the local pizzeria, where he worked, at 9:30. It was time to celebrate big, he thought to himself as he clocked in. He met up with some of his friends at Josh Dymtruk's house in Flamborough. When he arrived, his friends were playing drinking games in the backyard called kings. Dymtruk told everyone to leave by midnight. Skinner was "shocked" according to his friend Kyle Barron, but even so Kyle invited Skinner to his house where the party could continue with Kyle's parents. (Peters) When they arrived at Kyle's house, his parents joined them in consuming more of the hard liquor they had brought from the party ahead of time. Doug and Wendy, Kyle's parents, continued drinking and playing video games while Kyle, Skinner, and the rest of their friends went to the basement to smoke some marijuana. After the smoking stopped, they went to the basement to challenge Kyle's brother to a game of beer pong, a different drinking game. Around 3 a.m., after drinking a 26-ounce bottle of rye, two or three beers, marijuana and drinking a rum-type glass, Skinner passed out and never woke up. (Peters) Alcohol consumption has played a huge role in socialization for decades. Alcohol is consumed at parties, bars, sports games, birthdays, holidays and many other social events. For most of these events you do not need to be 21 years old. In fact in most of them you have to be 18. So why not lower the drinking age to 18? It would decrease the amount of people drinking in unsafe places out of fear of the law. It would reduce the number of people who die neglecting medical care for fear of a police investigation. It would allow people to drink in supervised settings such as b...... middle of paper ......d in most cases without punishment. One of the main reasons the drinking age is 21 is because of this idea that if you stopped the sale and consumption of alcohol to teenagers, there would be fewer accidents among teenagers drinking and driving. Well, there's a problem with that. Well before the drinking age was changed, the number of drinking- and driving-related accidents was already decreasing. When the law went into effect, the amount of people drinking and driving decreased only slightly. Politicians and the Mothers Against Drunk Driving organization threw all these statistics in people's faces soon after the law came into force, claiming that this law saved children when it simply didn't. They forgot to include that a few years before the law was enacted, the number of drunk driving teenagers was decreasing and that the law had only helped a fraction.