Keeping The Minimum Drinking Age

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Keeping the Minimum Drinking Age

In 1984, the United States’ federal government passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. Under this act, the federal government gives highway funds to States that forbid people under the age of twenty-one years old from “purchasing or publicly possessing alcoholic beverages”(23 U.S.C. § 158). The incentive created a sense of a standardized minimum drinking age when legally there cannot be a federal minimum drinking age. Even though this Act has been in effect for decades, there are many debates on whether or not the age should be changed. The minimum legal drinking age should stay the same because it prevents a large number of drinking and driving accidents; it reduces overall alcohol consumption; and it has very horrible health effects on youth.
Reducing drinking and driving was a goal of having a minimum drinking age of twenty-one. Before 1984, all states had their own minimum drinking age. These ages ranged from eighteen to twenty-one. A majority of states selected their minimum age as eighteen years old. If one were not able to legally purchase alcohol in his or her state, the person would drive to another state to drink legally. Many people would get into fatal accidents on their way home because they would be drunk. This caught a great deal of attention by the public. The nickname blood-borders was given to the borders between states with two different minimum drinking ages since many people would die in these drinking and
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