Drinking Age Essay

I belive drinking age should be changed from twenty-one to eighteen. The drinking age was changed from eighteen to twenty-one in 1984 in the United States. Drinking age is eighteen in many countries such as Germany, Mexico, Turkey and almost all European countries. You have to be eighteen to vote, you have to be eighteen to enlist in the military and actually put your life at risk and make life and death decisions but you can not drink? I believe these are the most important examples to follow for why the government should change the drinking age. Also, to legally bind yourself in marriage, commit for a partnership for life at the age of eighteen but can not have an alcoholic beverage? On top of this, driving age in most states is sixteen.

In the article Why the Drinking Age should be Lowered, Ruth Engs believes that the drinking age should be lowered to about 18 or 19. Engs is a Professor at Indiana University in the Health and Sciences department. In this article Engs makes a valid point in that “responsible drinking could be taught through role modeling and educational programs.” Engs also states facts about the different drinking ages in other countries, and that the United States has the highest legal purchasing age for alcoholic beverages in the world.

The alcoholic drinking age should be lowered to age eighteen based on the fact that our current prohibition laws are not working. Our nation has tried prohibition twice in the past for controlling irresponsible drinking problems. These laws were finally repealed because our nation was not able to enforce them and because the reaction towards them caused other social problems. Today we are repeating history and making the same mistakes that occurred in the past. Prohibition did not work then and prohibition for young people under the age of 21 is certainly not working

First of all the United States is one of only twelve countries in the world that still uses 21 was the minimum drinking age. The majority of the world (115 countries) are either 18 or 19. In America 18 is the age of adulthood you can vote, smoke cigarettes, serve on juries, get married, sign contracts, and be prosecuted as an adult. I would also add that at 18 you can join the military but underage drinking is legal for any military member well at a base but when they return home the same rules apply to them as well. With having to hold the same responsibilities as a 21 year old why not allow one to consume alcohol. Secondly by not allowing people under the age of 21 to drink in public it forces them to binge drink in unsafe and unmonitored locations as opposed to a restaurant or bar. According to CDC.gov 90% of underage drinking episodes constitute as underage drinking. Binge drinking is defined as having BAL or blood alcohol level over 0.08, which is the legal limit. This usually occurs when a male has about 6 drinks or female 5 in under 2 hours. Binge drinking can lead to serious health issues such as alcohol poisoning, liver disease and high blood pressure. On top of this young adults under age will try to do all their drinking before they go out which can lead to a dangerous amount of consumption of alcohol. In a lot of cases this can lead to alcohol poisoning and even death. When underage drinkers partake in drinking it is usually at house parties and private locations with no type of supervision or public safety measures such as a bar. This can lead to another serious issue sexual assault. It is reported that 80% of sexual assaults that occur under the age of 21 are alcohol related according to thedailyreporter.com. This is due to underage drinking being pushed underground and being consumed in larger quantities. Another issue faced is when

The drinking age should not be lowered because it would be medically irresponsible. In the article “How Alcohol Affects the Adolescent Brain,” it states “Alcohol is classified as a depressant. Depressants negatively affect the central nervous system and slow down the brain. Teenagers will experience a greater loss of cognitive functions...alcohol diminishes the ability to process information. It also affects the brain’s frontal lobes, which govern decision-making skills, the ability to form ideas and inhibitions” (par.4). This is suggesting that alcohol is not safe for people under the age of twenty one as it affects their brain that is still

The legal drinking age of twenty-one, far from being the solution to the problem of underage drinking, has forced young adults eighteen to twenty to drink illegally and without supervision. Instead of saving lives, it endangers lives, because adolescents have no chance of learning how to drink responsibly. Students often excuse their heavy drinking with the mantra, "Everyone is doing it. It's part of being in college." In addition, lowering the drinking age can bring many adolescents back into social situations where they can experiment with alcohol under the supervision of peers and adults.

Congrats, it is your eighteenth birthday! You are now legally mature enough to sign contracts, fly airplanes, accommodate in the military, accommodate on juries, vote, and hold public office. So why are you not able to sit down, relax, and enjoy a nice cold beer after a hard week at work and college? The minimum drinking age of 21 has not made underage drinking obsolete, it has instead inspired underage binge drinking into private and less controlled environments, leading to more health and life-endangering behavior by teenagers.

The legal drinking age is should not be lowered because of the multiple dangers that could be encouraged. One of the most important factors of life is education. Drinking can cause problems with the way a person is able to comprehend certain things. Lowering the drinking age can inhibit more drunk driving crashes. It can also lead to broken bonds with family. These are all consequences of lowering the drinking age.

At the age of 18, any individual who is a legal citizen of the United States of America has the option to vote, marry the love of their life, enter law abiding contracts with banks, see R rated movies without the presence of an adult, serve in any branch of the military, and buy tobacco products. These are important choices given to those entering adulthood, but one choice not given to those who are legally considered adults is drinking. 30 years ago this July, the National Drinking Age Act was passed. This act required that those who are in the United States must wait till the age of 21 to consume alcohol legally. According to Camile Pagila, this is “absurd”, “unjust”, and “a violation of civil liberties.” Although those words could be used to describe forcing adults to wait till they are 21 to drink, in “Keeping Legal Drinking Age at 21 Saves 900 Lives Yearly: Study,” Bahar Gholipour shows that these laws that keep the drinking age at 21, save lives and protect young adults from the dangers that come from drinking.

Originally, I believed if you are considered an adult at eighteen, why isn't the legal drinking age twenty one? "Turning eighteen entails receiving the rights and responsibilities of adulthood

If an 18 year olds don't have legal access to a beer at a public place , they have no experience handling liquor on their own. They feel liberated and with no parents to stop them they have a “let's make up for lost time” attitude and end binge drinking. People can drive cars, fly planes, marry, vote, pay taxes, take out loans, and risk their lives as members in the military but laws in all states won't sell you any alcoholic drinks to anyone until their 21st birthday.

For many of the generations living today, the legal drinking age has always been set at twenty-one. In the 1980’s, it rose from eighteen to twenty-one in an attempt to reduce the amount of underage drunk driving accidents. The number of traffic fatalities has significantly declined over the past few decades. However, many would argue that the law has spawned many new problems as well, such as an increase in alcohol poisoning deaths and binge drinking.

Although states have laws about a certain legal drinking age, these laws are quite ineffective. The reason that people believe that the current legal drinking age laws are ineffective is because of the numerous loopholes for underage people to obtain alcohol, and underage people are going to consume alcohol if they want whether the presence underage drinking laws exist or not. Even though the government makes laws about the legal drink, law enforcements have no real way to enforce the laws about underage drinking in every situation that underage drinking occurs. Underage drinking has been going on for quite a long time in the United States. The United States first started discussing a certain age for people to be able to start drinking alcohol. By 1988 all 50 states was force to make a law establish the legal drinking age to be twenty-one, and set penalties for those who broke that law, but people still break these ignoring what consequences could happen if they were caught (Disney). Also, this situation could be compared to the situation of alcohol beverages being obtained during the Prohibition age when alcohol was illegal to all people. During that time period even though alcohol was banned all around the country to all people of all ages in every region of the United States, people still found a way to obtain alcohol and consume it. Today in society alcohol might not be banned to all the people, but is illegal to people under the age of eighteen. The current laws on the legal drinking age are ineffective and a deprivation of rights that should be given to people who are eighteen years old just like many other rights they acquire.

They are not getting the right to drink freely and so they go out and deviate from the laws. Professor Engs has tested this theory by using a student alcohol questionnaire. The questionnaire tested 3,375 students that were both underage and of legal age. The questionnaire showed that 81.2% of the underage students were drinkers, which was compared to the legal age students that had a percentage of 75.3%. Out of the 81.2% of the underage drinkers about 24% of them are heavy drinkers. This compares the lower percentage of heavy drinkers that are legal age; they only have a percentage rate of 15.93%.

İn conclusion, there are many damages of alcohol such as violence incidents, traffic facials, and permanent diseases. That's why the drinking age should not be lowered. Alcohol is very harmful and it is not anyone's friend. İn our country we say alcohol is mothers of evil. As far as I am concerned in stead of lowering the age of drinking alcohol, the government can explain more alcohol harms on television. Alcohol abuse should be explained to young children at