Should the Legal Drinking Age Be Lowered? Essay

As many teenagers enter college, they begin to experiment with many things. Although not all students participate in underage drinking, it is evident that a vast majority do. Drinking is not the problem. The main problem occurs when students resort to binge drinking. In the

Once a person turns eighteen, he or she receives many rights and privileges. One major right that all of these teenagers are missing is the right to buy and consume alcohol. The question is posed is whether lowering the minimum drinking age to eighteen would be a better or worse idea. Jeffery A. Miron, a senior lecturer at Harvard University’s economics department, and Elina Tetelbaum, a law student from Yale University, write in their argumentative article in Forbes Magazine, “The Dangers of the Drinking Age”, in which they believe that the minimum drinking age of twenty-one is not working. After conducting studies, they found that the minimum legal drinking age of twenty-one has little or no effect on traffic fatalities. Lowering the minimum drinking age to eighteen would likely have the same effects as the minimum age of twenty-one; it is reasonable to assume that underage teenagers may feel less rebellious knowing that they can legally buy and consume alcohol at the age of eighteen.

Drinking on college campuses has become a huge problem. For example, in the 10th century only old people used to drink, but now students drink more than their parents. Students see their parents drinking, so they may think that drinking has no effect on health that anyone can drink so why can’t the students drink? Therefore, college students have been drinking alcohol since the 14th century. Barrett Seaman’s article “How Bingeing Became the New College Sport,” appearing in TIME magazine on August 29, 2005, explains how binge drinking is affecting college students. It also suggests that lowering the drinking age might help solve the problem of binge drinking. This article has much information on how and where students get drunk.

“According to the CDC, about 90% of all teen alcohol consumption occurs in the form of Binge Drinking, which experts say peaks at the age of nineteen.” (qtd by Listfield). Binge Drinking is the consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. The author, Emily Listfield, defines that the standard alcohol consumption over a two hour period is considered to be four beers for women and five beers for men. This has become a great distraction for college students nationwide and a major dilemma on college campuses. Nearly two hundred thousand students visit emergency rooms each year due to the abuse of alcohol, and more than one thousand seven hundred students die. In the article “ The Underage Drinking Epidemic”, Listfield identifies the problems that underage drinking can cause, the dangers that could happen, and four solutions on what parents can do to keep their kids from binge drinking.

There always has been controversy as to should the united states lower the drinking age to 18. Eighteen year olds should have the right to drink. By lowering the drinking age to eighteen it will give people supervision, teach responsibilities, and eighteen years olds are already considered adults; however, it may cause binge drinking, it will lead to more deaths, and drinking damages brains cells and especially the body itself.

“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college

Every year, thousands of deaths occur as a result of drunk driving, and every day people are facing the consequences of irresponsible drinking. Because of the issues caused by irresponsible drinking, the US government passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984 which raised the minimum drinking age to twenty-one to prevent drinking-related accidents and violence. Despite the intent of its passing, it was a counterproductive decision. Because of the higher age restriction, high school upperclassmen and college underclassmen see drinking as an exciting, rebellious act. Consequentially, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act resulted in an increase in dangerous and irresponsible drinking which continues to this day. Not only does the

“Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.” - Abraham Lincoln

We knocked on the door of the off-campus apartment, as it opened we were confronted with the heavy stench of alcohol. A young girl was passed out on the living room floor, a pile of empty beer cans filled the kitchen sink, and the deafening music rattled the window panes. A group of girls managed to stumble past us. They waved goodbye to the host, who was handing drinks to me and my sister. It was not my first time drinking. In fact, everyone there was quite experienced – after all, it’s college. Half of the guests were completely drunk, and I had no problem with it. That is, until later that night when my sister locked herself in a room with a guy she had met only a week before. This prompted me to seriously consider the effects of

A very controversial argument amongst Americans is determining that the current legal drinking age which is 21 should be lowered to eighteen or not. Researching the following propaganda made me understand the dangers to the youth and people in America if the drinking age were to lower. Therefore i will argue with whoever disagrees with me that the drinking age should be lowered.

Research has supported the observation that young people in America consume alcohol regularly; this prevalence of use increases rapidly during adolescence, as well as a few years afterward (Wagenaar and Wolfson 37). This has come to be a problem among college students. It has been shown through extensive quantitative and qualitative research that those under twenty-one years of age are able to obtain alcohol, which allows them to binge drink. Binge drinking holds many problems for college students: alcohol poisoning, DUIs, traffic accidents, and even fatalities.

There are many definitions associated with alcohol and alcohol abuse in general that need to be clarified. Most college students think of alcohol as that cheap high they get to obtain on the weekends at social events called parties. Knowing what alcohol really is and what exactly it can do to your body in excessive amounts over time and in any one sitting is one of the main problems with why college students abuse alcohol. The social norm of binge or excessive drinking in college is prevailing over the social fact of what alcohol really is and what it can do to a person’s health! The actual definition of alcohol is a “liquid distilled product of fermented fruits, grains, and vegetables used as a solvent, antiseptic and sedative” (Drinking: A students Guide,

Alcohol use among college students has always been a popular subject among teachers, parents, researchers, and even students. The actual act of drinking alcohol is not necessarily the problem, whether legal or not. The main problem is the act of binge drinking of college students, of age or not. Drinking modest amounts of alcohol may have some consequences, but binge drinking has more negative consequences than normal modest drinking. There are many examples as to the consequences that binge drinking can cause to college student’s lives, but one of the main consequences that students face as a result of frequent drinking is poor academic final grades.

The controversy on the proper drinking age is one that has been repeatedly discussed and researched over the years. Its common to hear the argument “If someone is old enough to take a bullet for their country, they should be allowed to drink alcohol.” But is that enough justification? Some would say no. “According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) it is estimated that in 2004 there were more than 1,700 student deaths, 599,000 injuries, and 696,000 assaults annually associated with excessive drinking” (Fennell 247). Given these numbers, would lowering the drinking age really be the best thing for America’s youth?

On college campuses across America, the use of alcohol has been an topic in need of explanation for many years. The concept will be explaned with emphise on the negative effects of hooch. Alcohol in cardio-sport athletes is especially harmful. But at any rate the negative concepts apply to all student. Besides the fact that a large number of students are underage when they drink, alcohol can put students in dangerous situations and give them a headache long after the hangover is gone. The short and long term effects alcohol has can impair students physically and mentally, impacting their education and health.