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Lowering the Drinking Age

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“What we’re doing now to prevent underage drinking isn’t working; it’s time to try something else.” Although many people argue that the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1964, which lowed the drinking age from eighteen to twenty one, was a good idea. David J Hanson a professor in the State University of New York believed that something needs to be done to make the United States a safer place to live. Is it fair that people in the United States can serve in the military, vote in elections, serve in juries, get married, and enter into legal contracts at the age of eighteen, but not buy alcohol until they are twenty one years of age. Lowering the drinking age in the United States to eighteen will help young adults be more responsible, and…show more content…
Lowering the drinking age to eighteen will encourage drinking in safer environments with supervision rather than secretly behind closed doors. Colleges will be a safer environment if the government would allow eighteen year olds to consume alcoholic beverages and less incidents of hidden intoxication will occur. As a result of the drinking age at twenty-one, many teenagers binge drink in dangerous and unsupervised places. According to the NIAAA, almost 28 percent of eighteen to twenty-four year olds binge drink at least once a month. Binge drinking is a type of heavy episodic drinking with the primary intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time. Binge drinking is also associated with an increased risk of unplanned ad unprotected sex, unplanned pregnancies, and an increased risk of HIV infection. Many proponents of lowering the drinking age believe that “with higher alcohol age limits, young people in the United States find it harder to get alcohol and so binge-drink whey they do” (Debatepedia) As mentioned before, binge drinking can lead to alcohol poisoning which can have traumatic consequences. According to the CDC, Each year, excessive drinking and binge drinking cause 80,000 deaths across the country. Furthermore, binge drinking and any other kind of drinking “may have lasting harmful consequences, including greater risk for the development of alcohol dependence” (ICAP)
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