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Alcohol: Lowering the Legal Drinking Age

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Alcohol: Lowering the Legal Drinking Age Karita Lockwood Professor O’Quinn COM 323 October 29, 2012 Introduction Alcohol is a drink that is made from corn, barley or a beverage containing ethyl. There is currently an ongoing debate as to if the legal age limit for alcohol consumption should be lowered. Despite the dangers, everyday in the United States more than 13,000 children and teens consume alcohol. The age range between eleven and eighteen is the most influential period when youths are susceptible to outside influences such as friends, classmates, family members and the media. Many young children start consuming alcoholic beverages before the age of fifteen. Drinking alcoholic beverages at a young age could lead to a …show more content…

The central nervous system consists of the brain and the spinal cord and it tells the body what to do. When alcohol is consumed it is absorbed quickly into the blood stream through the stomach lining and could travel to the brain in a matter of minutes. If the brain is introduced to alcohol at these early stages, it will interrupt brain development. According to information issued from the U.S. government publication entitled Prevention Alert, “Subtle alcohol- induced adolescent learning impairments could affect academic and occupational achievement. In one study……..short term memory skills were evaluated in alcohol dependent and non dependent adolescent’s ages 15 and 16 showed that the dependent youth had greater difficulty remembering words and simple geometric designs after a 10 minute interval” (teendrugabuse.us). Alcohol is a depressant that affects every part of your body because once it’s consumed, twenty percent is absorbed in the stomach and eighty percent is absorbed in the small intestine. Excessive use of alcohol could cause other health problems such as, arthritis, cancer, heart disease, hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, kidney disease, liver disease, nervous disorders, obesity and psychological disturbances. Alcohol related liver disease is a major cause of death in the United States. There are three primary types of alcohol induced liver diseases, including: fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis. Fatty liver is the accumulation

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