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Drinking Age Essay

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The United States has one of the highest legal drinking ages among the developed world, and the entire world overall (McCardell). Yet underage drinking is still prevalent in American drinking culture, and typically indicates an instance of binge drinking and often results in dangerous activity (Hingson, Zha, and Weitzman). Supporters of the current federal policy on the drinking age would suggest that drinking under 21 results in these instances of irresponsible drinking by default. Other developed countries in Europe have lower drinking ages and trends that would suggest otherwise (Rooney). The legal drinking age in the United States should be lowered to at least 18 years old to ensure a safer drinking environment for young people and to guarantee …show more content…

Before the National Minimum Age Drinking Act was passed by Congress in 1984, individual states had the right to set their own drinking age. The law made it so that any state who did not raise their drinking age to 21 would lose 10% of their highway funding, leading to all states eventually changing their drinking age to 21 (McCardell). The change in drinking age and the general attitude many Americans have about drinking today can be attributed to the Prohibition Era, a time when consumption and sale of alcohol was prohibited. The Prohibition Amendment was the only amendment in United States history to be repealed, but Prohibitionist attitudes still remain in American drinking culture. American drinking culture is considered to be a ‘dry culture’, where drinking is not an everyday practice and alcoholic beverages are less accessible. ‘Wet cultures’, particularly common in Southern European and Mediterranean countries, tend to have drinking as a daily ritual, like having wine with dinner. In these countries there tends to be a lower drinking age and alcoholic beverages are far more accessible (Bloomfield et al.). People start drinking younger in these countries, and do report drinking more on average than American youth. The difference between American youth and youth from different countries lies in their drinking habits; in European countries where the drinking age is lower than 18, teens have more instances of drinking per month but less instances of binge drinking per month compared to their American counterparts

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