Lower the Drinking Age

A lower drinking age law would save even more lives and also stop minors from drinking under the limit. Having it higher will result in more traffic injuries and fatalities among youth. A lower drinking age is effective in preventing alcohol-related deaths and injuries among youth. Young people are particularly vulnerable to the effects of heavy drinking age. According to John McCardell, founder of Choose Responsibility, the legal drinking age does not eliminate consumption among young people. Instead, it only drives underage drinking underground, creating a dangerous culture of irresponsible and extreme drinking. Although the legal purchase age is 21 years of age, a majority of college students under this age consume alcohol but in an irresponsible manner. This is because drinking by these youth is seen as an enticing "forbidden fruit," a "badge of rebellion against authority" and a symbol of "adulthood."Keeping the minimum legal drinking age at 21 will not dissuade young people who want to indulge in reckless alcohol intake. If anything, the age limit encourages binge drinking. Lowering the drinking age could make it easier to regulate consumption among younger adults as well as encourage healthy drinking habits. “For example, 22% of all students under 21 compared to 18% over 21 years of age are heavy drinkers.” “Among drinkers only, 32% of underage compared to 24% of legal age are heavy drinkers.”

According to Alexis Aguirre in The University Star, “Keeping the minimum legal drinking age at 21 will not dissuade young people who want to indulge in reckless alcohol intake. If anything, the age limit encourages binge drinking. Lowering the drinking age could make it easier to regulate consumption among younger adults as well as encourage healthy drinking habits” (Aguirre). Sure enough, if the drinking age were lowered to 18 it would avoid the illegal, abused intake of alcohol by 18 year olds. According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, “Each year, approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking” (U.S Department of Health and Human Services). A way of avoiding such tragedies is lowering the drinking age to 18, teaching younger

I believe that the drinking age should be lowered to the age of 18. I took this stance in my health class debate last year and it was a success. There are many reasons why the drinking age should be lowered that I will discuss in this paper. These reasons are very convincing and should be considered by the government. I will also look into what action is being taken on decreasing the yearly amount of DUI’s.

In the United States, 18-year-olds are considered adults. They can vote, get married and get a license for a gun yet they are not allowed to drink. Many people think that the drinking age should be 18, but others strongly believe it should be 21 for doing all kinds of things. Drinking in the United States has become a controversy for the drinking age; 18 or 21. There are many reasons why the drinking age should stay the same and many of why it should be 18. Even though many Americans think that people under 21 do not have the capacity to handle drinking, in my opinion, drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18 because teenagers at the age of 18 can make important decisions, so drinking should be a decision they can too decide whether to

(Dr. Ruth Enys The drinking age should be lowered Page 1) In those locations they gulp alcohol in an absence of moderating social control. (Dr. Ruth Enys The drinking age should be lowered Page 1) Drinking problems are reduced when young people learn at home how to drink in a moderate responsible manner. (Dr. Ruth Enys Why the drinking age should be lowered Page 2) Lowering the drinking age placed 5th in a resent survey which asked high school students to list their 10 most important issues. (Donald Bradley Lowering drinking age Page 1)A recent Kansas City newspaper asked 8,726 students if the drinking age should be lowered. Out off 8,726 asked 7,992 said yes. (Donald Bradley Lowering drinking age Page 1)The drinking age being 21 does not prevent a single high school or college student from getting alcohol if he or she wants it. (author unknown Lowering the drinking age Page 1) Since most drink anyway the drinking age should be lowered to 18.

With that being said, it is regularly contended by teenagers that the drinking age is excessively high. They accept that in the event that they are qualified to vote, they may be sent to war and possibly die for our country at the age of eighteen; then they should be able to consume alcohol. Then again, the United States government saw issues with youth drinking and they chose to raise the drinking age. As extra motivation to enforce the age significance, the government proposed to stop all government subsiding of roadways to the states whose drinking was short of what twenty-one.

A huge debate in the United States in the past has been whether or not the drinking age should be lowered or raised or just stay right where it is. I believe that it should be lowered. If we are able to vote, die for our country, and rot in a jail cell why should young people not be allowed to have a few drinks every once in awhile. I think that if in the eyes of the law I am considered an adult the day I turn eighteen why am I not allowed to make a decision about whether I am able to consume alcohol or not.

There are statistics that alcohol consumption has lowered since 1984. Some attribute this to the fact that drinking age is set at 21, but this is not absolutely the reason because even where it is set at 18 people make their own choices of whether to drink or not. It is also evident that setting the drinking age at 21 against 18 does not eliminate teenage drinking problems; instead it just keeps them on hold until the teens get to 21 years of age. In some cases keeping the minimum drinking age at 21 encourages teens to drink more. Hence drinking age should be set at the age of 18. Here are some of the reasons why.

Began setting the legal drinking age at 21, the law has been one of the most studied in our history. “She clarifies that the evidence is overwhelming, more than 50 high-quality scientific studies all found the law 21 saves lives, both on and off the road. She says that lowering the age of those who have easy access to alcohol would shift responsibility for underage drinking to high school parents and educations. Laura Dean-Mooney

"The presidents of 135 colleges have called for lowering the drinking age from 21. They note that the age restriction hasn 't stopped binge drinking on campus and argue, not without reason, that it has turned alcohol into forbidden fruit begging to be picked. Perhaps teaching young adults how to imbibe in moderation is the safer direction to go (Harrop)." Having the drinking age at 21 does not teach young adults who are starting to pledge anyway, how to drink responsibly. It makes them hide away from adult supervision and makes alcohol seem that a great deal more appealing. Office of the trill of drinking underage is hiding and getting away with it, so lowering it to 18 would take the thrill of drinking underage away. Things cannot go on this path.

There would be a lot of benefits to having the drinking age change to eighteen. The amount of binge drinking would lessen, and the out rage to drink would also decrease. According to Smith, ?Reports of binge drinking come from all types of campuses across the country. In 1992, researchers reported that more college?s students

A widely debated topic that has gone on for many years is whether the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen years old, as opposed to where it is now, at twenty one. Some argue that at age eighteen, a person is legally an adult and able to go to war, vote, and partake in other adult activities. If they are an adult at this age, why are they unable to legally drink alcohol? There are numerous reasons why drinking is unsafe for those under twenty one. The drinking age is set at age twenty one for a reason, and should stay that way. Some states have experimented with the drinking age in the past, but unsuccessfully. Between the years of 1970 and 1976, some states lowered the drinking age and the results were disastrous and promptly rose back to the age of twenty one (Main). Most eighteen year olds simply are not responsible nor mature enough at this age to handle alcohol safely. Drinking at a younger age has a potential to cause health problems, issues with younger teens, in addition to complications with college drinking and in worse case scenarios can end in death.

Changing the drinking age from 21 to 18 has been a controversial argument for many years now, Even though every states legal drinking age is 21 there is some states that make certain exceptions in some situations. There is many pros and cons to changing this such as a good thing is some 18 year olds may not binge drink as they do when they turn 21. If 18-20 year olds are allowed to drink in supervised locations such as bars and restaurants it would be a much safer environment rather than say a house party or a fraternity house where there is not any supervision for the most part which could lead to dangerous behavior. Lowering the age would also “kill the thrill” of drinking underage and trying to not get caught by parents or law enforcement. The problem is that with pros comes cons. I am 20 years old myself and I have been drinking since I was 17, I have many friends who are not able to handle there alcohol and I have been drinking with them for a few years. The problem with that is that some younger teens like myself tend to binge drink at party’s to impress themselves or each other which can lead to alcohol poisoning, throwing up, dangerous decisions such as driving drunk and fighting. Lowering the legal drinking age could also lower the age that underage teens drink down to middle school or younger years of high school since it would be so easy to obtain. In the next segment of my paper I will talk about the pros followed by the cons and

The age 21 is when you start to become more mature and should be able to drink and buy alcohol. Before the age 21 was set for how old you had to be able to drink it use to be 18 which is too young for someone to drink. “After states set the age at 21, he says, teen highway death immediately dropped by 15 to 20%”(Greenblatt par 14). This shows how setting the age to be able to drink changed how many

Underage drinking, especially under the age of 21, is not allowed in the United States, because it is unsafe for teenagers. When it comes to health problems and other dangers, alcohol can be taken under poor situations where it can be overly used or misused. Alcohol is a substance that is very risky and if used incorrectly or immaturely, the effects can be dangerous to the users and the people around them. Allowing 18 year olds to consume alcohol would be bad for their health and life.