Society 's Attitude Towards The Drinking Age

In 1984 Ronald Reagan proposed a new law that declared that the legal drinking age must raised up to 21 instead of the age of 18. The law was forced upon the states by threatening them by stating that the government will reduce their highway funding until the states passed the law. Of course all the states eventually change their legal drinking age to 21. Some critics believe that this law’s results have been very successful, however the law possesses many insecurities, but certain programs can be arranged to help educate teenagers on alcohol.

According to Andrew Mark Lisa in the preface to his online petition to see the national drinking age limit lowered, it is not only young people but also colleges across America who are interested in promoting legislation that will lower the drinking age. Lisa references a Time magazine article, which quotes Dartmouth College President James Wright as stating that a lowered age limit would help prevent alcohol abuse because campuses would be better enabled to monitor drinking activities which could be conducted on the level rather than underground (where students do their drinking in private and without regulation). After all, in the 1970s a number of states actually lowered the drinking age for a few years until the Federal government stepped in and threatened to deny the states federal money for highways and the drinking age was once again placed at 21. This paper will show why there is still a push to lower the drinking age to 18, and why some people promote it and why others oppose it.

I. Introduction: Starting in 1970 21 states reduced the minimum drinking age to 18. Another 8 reduced it to 19 or 20. However, these states noticed increases in alcohol-related fatalities among teenagers and young adults. As a result, of the 29 states that had lowered their drinking age, 24 raised the age again between 1976 and 1984. By 1984, only three states allowed 18-year-olds to drink all types of alcoholic liquor. The enactment of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 prompted states to raise their legal age for purchase or public possession of alcohol to 21 or risk losing millions in federal highway funds. The states who raised it were given highway funding by the

We live in a nation that prides itself on being free, however a few Americans feel they do not have as much opportunity as they merit, such as the flexibility to drink lawfully at a more youthful age. For a considerable length of time, as far back as the times of Prohibition, truth be told, numerous legislators, scholastics, and guardians alike have occupied with the drinking age dispute regarding whether the lawful drinking age of twenty-one ought to be brought down to eighteen. I believe the lawful drinking age ought to be brought down to eighteen years old in light of the fact that at eight years old adolescent as a grown-up according to the law.

The drinking age in the United States is a contradiction. At the age of eighteen, one can drive a car, vote in an election, get married, serve in the military and buy tobacco products. In the United States you are legally an adult at eighteen. An eighteen-year-old, however, cannot purchase alcoholic beverages. The minimum drinking age should be lowered from twenty-one in the United States.

On July 17th, 1984, President Reagan passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act (1). This meant that in order to purchase and publicly posses alcohol, one must be twenty-one years old (1). Today, many push for a reversion back to a drinking age of eighteen years old. The reasons on both sides are many, and all of them will be explored and diagnosed. As the reasons pile on, though, it will become clear that the drinking age should return to eighteen.

It has been a rising issue within the past century to have the drinking age set at 21, but many people are more in favor of having the age set at 18. For instance, “’Raising the drinking age to 21 was passed with the very best of intentions, but it’s had the very worst of outcomes,’ stated by David J. Hanson, an alcohol policy expert” (Johnson). Many people believe that having the drinking age set at 21 was a smart idea, but it has caused many more deaths and injuries over the years. Most of these fatalities are cause from people who are underage and choose to consume alcohol. Again, “Libertarian groups and some conservative economic foundations, seeing the age limits as having been extorted by Washington, have long championed lowering the drinking age” (Johnson). These groups see that keeping the drinking age set at 21 is dangerous as it causes more problems to the Untied States. If the drinking age was lowered, or set at 18, there would not be such unforgiving outcomes, like deaths and lifelong injuries, which are usually caused from people who are under the age of 21 drinking alcohol. Although there are numerous groups that are fighting to keep the age

Today alcohol, is a huge problem that affects the entire world. In particular, in America it seemed a good idea to increase the legal drinking age to 21 years old, to lower accidents that may be caused by alcohol consumers. The issue is to understand if this decision actually helped, or if the USA should reconsider to lower the drinking age to 18 years old again.

In America most people are considered an adult once they become eighteen. By law you cannot consume alcohol legally. In the United States the legal amount of alcohol consumption determines the location and actions you take. The older you get the more privileges you will receive versus when you were a minor. At the age of 18, people can get married, buy a house, and join the military, People who are 18 should be able to consume alcohol.

The repeal of prohibition by the twenty-first Amendment in December of 1933 allowed for each state to set its own alcohol consumption age. After the passage of the twenty-sixth Amendment, which lowered the national drinking age to eighteen, thirty states had lowered the minimum drinking age to eighteen, nineteen, or twenty (“Prohibition”). In 1984, the enactment of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act prompted states to raise the legal age for purchase of public possession of alcohol to twenty-one or risk losing millions in federal highway funds. By 1988, all fifty states had raised the minimum drinking age to twenty-one. The United States is one, of just a handful of countries to have a drinking age as high as twenty-one. Of the one hundred and ninety nations, one hundred and fifteen, or sixty-one percent, of the countries have a legal drinking age starting at eighteen or nineteen. In some countries such as the Central African Republic, the drinking age starts at ten ("Minimum Legal Drinking Age"). The United States should follow suit with most of the other countries and lower the drinking age to eighteen.

Although alcohol is not completely outlawed like many other drugs in the United States, it is still regulated. In 1984, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed, in which forced all states to raise their minimum drinking age to 21 years of age. In addition to this, many other federal, states, and local laws, regulate alcohol in the United States. This would include the regulation on the manufacturing of alcohol, the sale of alcohol, who gets to drink alcohol, and the response to alcohol related problems. It should be noted, Congress controls the importation and taxing of alcohol, but through the 21st Amendment individual States also have control over alcohol sales, importation, distribution, and possession

One can make adult decisions at age 18. At age 18, one becomes an adult and is allowed to do a lot of things that one couldn't do at any other age. Alcohol consumption can interfere with development of the young

It is often said (and true) that once you turn eighteen by law you are an adult, and to me part of being an adult is making your own decisions. Once you turn eighteen you get to do things like joining the military, getting married, serving on juries, smoking cigarettes, and much more. The reason that alcohol consumption isn’t amongst this list is because when alcohol related tragedies

In America a minor is determined as an adult when they reach the age of eighteen. At the age of eighteen, one has many decisions to make. One decision they can make is to choose whether or not to break the law about the legal drinking age. In many countries at the age of eighteen, one may legally drink alcohol unlike in America the legal age to drink alcohol is twenty-one. In “Keeping Legal Drinking Age At 21 Saves 900 Lives Yearly: Study,” Bahar Gholipour opposes lowering the drinking age.

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (July 17, 1984) changed the legal drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one (Moss,Stephen). This controversial bill punished every state by reducing its annual federal highway apportionment by 10%, if a state allowed people below twenty-one years of age to purchase and publicly possess alcoholic beverages (Moss, Stephen). The state government would punish any minor that got caught buying or drinking alcohol. There is a controversy in our society, debating that at eighteen, the body is not fully matured; thus the body should not come in contact with alcohol. This idea is irrelevant, because once reaching adulthood, many eighteen year olds go directly into the military. They risk their lives every day,