Lowering The Legal 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.”

Everyone knows that it is illegal to consume alcohol under the age of 21. Why is 21 the "magical" age that makes a person intelligent and mature enough to consume alcohol? Sure, some adults abuse alcohol and some teenagers would be perfectly able to drink responsibly, but why not 18 or 35 or 40? This seemingly random number, 21, is associated with adulthood, as if the day a person turns 21 they know everything and are mature. The drinking age should be lowered to where one can learn to drink responsibly.

As Tucker explains, the minimum legal drinking act does nothing to stop teens from drinking underage. It’s so easy these days for an underage person to get a fake ID to buy alcohol with or to ask another friend over 21 to buy them drinks. The large amount of people drinking age then causes another problem that people believe could be solved if the legal drinking age was lower, people having less respect for the law. People who drink underage know they are breaking a law, but they aren’t very worried about that, this may then lead into them breaking other laws as well as not having much respect for the law in

The U.S. gov’t has set an age limit on the consumption of alcohol, in order to lead safer and healthier lives. One reason it is believed to be safer if one cannot drink alcohol until the age of 21, is because the brain has not fully developed and the consumption of alcohol will interfere with that development. But is it really safer if the drinking age is 21, rather than 18? Many people will believe that it is safer, because that’s what the gov’t tells them, but those people will often fail to see the whole picture. Other than brain development,

One of the most controversial problems within the United States is the policy of the national minimum drinking age of 21. I believe that the raising of the drinking age to 21 years old has created more problems than solving them. America has had past experiences with a similar situation when they enforced prohibition. As we know, prohibition was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages, which was a huge failure. America have tried prohibition legislation twice in the past for controlling irresponsible drinking problems. The first National Prohibition was during the 1920’s, and the state prohibition was in the 1850’s. These two laws were decisively repealed because they

Drinking generally increases in popularity amongst teenagers each year, which fuels the controversial issue of lowering the drinking age to eighteen or keeping it

So far, keeping the minimum drinking age at 21 has not dissuaded young people from consuming alcohol. If anything, underage people are becoming less educated on the physical, mental, and emotional health factors that are associated with consuming alcohol. This leads to young people to consume more alcohol and indulge in reckless behavior due to this ‘forbidden fruit’. If the minimum drinking age was lowered and alcohol awareness increased, people between the ages of 18 and 20 (and even younger) would not look at alcohol consumption as a challenge. This would not only take away the excitement of drinking, but could also reduce binge drinking, by

Another great benefit that can be derived through lowering the drinking age is reducing the amount of trouble teenagers get into legaly for underaged drinking, and crimes directly related to it. Teens would be getting into less trouble for drinking since the age limit is lowered more of the ones that already do drink at the age of eighteen wouldn’t get in trouble for it, and it would encourage those under the age of eighteen to wait till they’re of legal age since they don’t have to wait as long to so. Even with the law saying you must be 21 or older to drink, many teenagers still do it, and because of it they get in trouble for it. Not only that but the reduced age limit would make it so teens wouldn’t acquire fake ID’s and overall showing

Many teenagers already drink, so lowering the minimum legal drinking age wouldn't be a big deal. According to a survey by NCADD, 87% of high school seniors have drank

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), underage drinking is a leading public health problem in this country (NIH, 2016). The NIAAA also estimates that approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking (NIH. 2016). This includes about 1,900 deaths from motor vehicle crashes, 1,600 as a result of homicides, 300 from suicide (NIH. 2016). The National Minimum Drinking Age Act (NMDAA) was passed by Congress and signed by President Regan in 1984 (Miller, 2016). This law established a national drinking age of 21. Twenty-nine states made the decision to lower the legal drinking age but quickly changed it back to 21 after there was a rise among teenage and young adult highway deaths. Before NMDAA, states were responsible for establishing their own drinking ages that varied from the age of 18-21 (Miller, 2016).

John is a 17 year old male who lives in Oregon. To celebrate his 18th birthday, he decided to go out with some friends and have a few drinks. He knows that the legal drinking age is 21, but he thinks what is the harm? I am 18 and in other countries, you are allowed to drink before you turn 21. Later that night as John gets in the car with his friends after a few hours of drinking, everything seems to be going well as they are driving down the freeway on their way over to his friend Dan’s house that is just a few miles up the road. All of a sudden out of nowhere a car comes around the curve and before Dan who was driving could react fast enough, the two cars collide. This unfortunately is a case that has occurred many times all across the country, many times with unhappy endings and lives changed forever. John is one of the many who believe that the legal drinking age should be lowered to under 21. After looking through research, articles and opinions, I have come to the conclusion that being allowed to drink before you turn 21 is not in the best interest of developing adolescents and their abilities to make the best decisions for themselves. I will present figures and facts from articles published to help support my position in the following paragraphs.

The most common argument is that when teenagers turn 18 they can sign up for the army and risk their lives for the Untied States of America, but they cannot drink in America. Which brings up the question how can you die for something and not be given all of the freedoms you are fighting for? There has been reports from overseas in other counties with lower age limits that have safer highways and better control over underage drinking. So would America`s problem with underage drinking be solved by lowering the age limit to drink, It can by giving young adults and teenagers time to adjust to and realize the dangers and punishment of drinking. These can be done in several way lower the drinking ages on items like beer and wine while keeping the age limits at twenty-one with hard alcohol. That way you can better teach teens and young adult’s better ways to control drinking habit and lessen the amounts of binge drinking in America’s younger population. Making certain alcohol legal at younger ages would help decrease the amounts of drunk driving in America and lessen the amount of alcohol related deaths as

People claim that the only way young people will learn their lesson is by having the age lowered, so they can feel a sense of independence. They believe that young people should have a right to drink legally at the age of 18; by modifying this law, it will help to gradually reduce the amount of teenagers breaking the alcohol consumption law because it has become legal. When

The current drinking age in America is 21 years of age. The laws around the drinking age have changed with time. In 1984 the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was put into place which required states to raise their drinking age 21 or they would lose 10 percent of their highway funds. When year 1987 came around every state was compliant. The drinking age can be a controversial topic. Some think the drinking age should be lowered to 18 while others think it should remain 21. Although there are mixed opinions, the drinking age should stay at 21, because of the many dangers it would bring to society if it were lowered.

The drinking age set by the U.S government should be lowered to the age of 18, just as other countries such as Kansas or Texas. The drinking age in the United States has been a rather controversial topic throughout the years. It has all rather depended on the times we ¬¬are currently living in. As a teen in these times, I know for a fact that most individuals are drinking even before the age of 21. Our parents have almost always told us about times that they have gotten “hammered” back when they were young with their friends. I know this because my mother has told me most of her stories that relate to either her and her friends getting intoxicated at some bar. There are many factors that have one contribution, or several, as to why the drinking age should be lowered to the age of 18. There are countless reasons as to why individuals may drink alcohol. Depression, anxiety, peer pressure, rebellion, boredom, celebrations, special occasions, family history, and these are merely a handful of the many other reasons individuals drink. Considering the reasons that were stated, most of those individuals are not even within the legal range to consume, nor purchase alcohol. The age ranges from those who are in high school to college, but it all mainly occurs within individuals in the age range of a high school students (freshmen and seniors alike).