Not really though. Drinking age is 18 in Sweden and they have hugely worse rate of hazardous drinking than US, same for Finland, and a bit UK where there are slightly fewer restrictions.

The legal age for alcohol is 18 in France.

This idea of 'US binging' doesn't really hold that much water, though one could very well argue that 21 is just 'too old' - the fact is, these are as much cultural issues as anything else.

Same with Japan, they are 'polite drunk', it's not even quite the same thing.

Take the argument and apply it to smoking or cocaine, fentanyl and you see that it doesn't really work out.

It really depends.

US could have lower drinking age, possibly 'permitted with parents at 16' - but - a much more responsible culture overall as well. It's hard.