The Aftermath of Teenage Drinking

Every 51 minutes in America, someone is killed in a drunk driving crash. A dangerous issue facing society today is the problem of teen drinking and driving. Currently an approximate of 10,076 people die in drunk driving crashes per year. If positive progress to ceasing this act does not happen, teens will continue to drink and drive putting everybody on the road at risk. Teens who drink and drive put everyone on the road at risk, causing serious crashes that could be preventable.

Alcohol is usually sought after within the adolescent community and has been an issue among young people. On July 17th 1984, congress passed The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 which enforces the legal drinking age and purchasing of alcohol in the United States to be twenty-one. Since then, the debated idea of whether or not the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen has been an ongoing topic for decades. Alcoholism affects many people in the United States but promoting it at such young age would not be such a great idea for the youths in today’s society.The drinking age should not be lowered due to the fact that it poses many dangers in the lives of teenaegers especially brain damages, underage drinking has declined since 1984, enforcing alcohol among teenagers may cause an increase in drunk driving and deaths and most importantly, teenagers who start drinking at an early age are more than three times more likely to develop alcohol dependency later on in life than those who started at the legal age of 21 or later.

An obvious outcome of underage drinking is drunk driving, which we know kills thousands every year. But an effect of lowering the drinking age that escapes the minds of many is the easy access that younger teens and tweens will have to alcohol when their senior friends are allowed to partake of alcohol freely. When 18 year olds are still in high school, they can have legal alcohol at their social events and house parties. There’s no doubt that underclassmen will be allowed in to these events to enjoy the privilege of the older peers. The danger in young drinking makes itself clear in a CDC Fact Sheet: “About 2 in 3 high school students who drink do so to the point of intoxication, that is, they binge drink (defined as having five or more drinks in a row), typically on multiple occasions.”

Alcohol is many people's drink of choice in several different situations. Whether it is a casual get together or a crazy out of control party, it is not hard for adolescents to get their hands on the substance even if it is illegal for them to purchase and drink it. However, even the parents and lawmakers of the most respectful teenagers can not ignore the growing rate of adolescents drinking earlier than 21. While it may be fun in the moment teens miss the steps of drinking responsibility and the long-term effects of partaking in it. Even though some lawmakers claim that lowering the drinking age would negatively affect the country, the long term effects of individuals drinking earlier could

During our lifetime, alcohol has become a very serious health problem throughout the United States. According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, alcohol has become the most widely used substance of abuse among America’s youth. Some interesting statistics presented by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, in the year 2013, 8.7 million people (ages 12-20) reported that they drank alcohol, (2015). There is no getting around the fact. Young people drink, they are going to drink, and it would be impossible to make them stop drinking. We all know that they are going to partake in this activity. As children grow older, they tend to get a sense of maturity and independence. Seeking new activities and taking risks is what children live for. Underage drinking is one particular risk that attracts many young people. The big major debate currently going on is should the minimum legal drinking age be lowered?

Alcohol; it’s something Americans enjoy, whether it is at a party, before meals, during the football game, with our buddies, so on and so forth. Alcohol has been a part of human civilization for hundreds of thousands of years and is linked but not limited to, pleasure, and sociability in many people’s minds. Up until 1984 the legal age for people to drink was eighteen, that age was then raised up to twenty-one in order to reduce the death rate of many teenagers who were dying because of alcohol related problems. Today, many people believe that lowering the drinking age back down to eighteen would reduce and or solve the problem of binge drinking among college students. A simple answer can be conjured up, no. What many people don’t realize

Few explanations behind high schoolers drinking are: companion weight, pleasure, and so on. In any case, the principle explanation behind doing as such is "violating the law." 87% of secondary school seniors have utilized liquor. That implies that a huge amount of youngsters less than seventeen years old to eighteen have utilized liquor some time recently. We as a whole know why adolescents drink, I mean is regular since. Simply the vibe that they get of violating the law is colossal. Being revolt and not taking after the guidelines is an imperative part of a youngster's life. Outcomes are the one that change them, yet we don't need them to encounter the results of being affected by liquor since we know them and they are deadly. Kicking the bucket in a fender bender and executing others is a wreck that we would prefer not to clean.

Unfortunately the usual teen does not ever believe anything bad will ever happen to them and therefore they do not realize what could happen to them while being under the influence of alcohol. Frequently, we hear about bad things happening in the news and the words, "alcohol related" are attached to the news story. This is particularly common in car accidents with teen drivers. Not only are they young and less experienced drivers on the road but also participating in drinking and it is often a fatal mistake. Drunk driving continues to murder more innocent people on the roads than ever before. Many feel that the laws punishing those charged with a Driving under the influence charge are too lenient and if stronger laws were present it would assist people from doing this destructive behavior. Teenagers today are more afraid about their parents finding out they were at a party where they had alcohol than getting in the car intoxicated. This needs to change also where stronger communication of parents and their teenage drivers takes place.

The drinking age in America should be lowered from 21 to 18. At 18, someone in America is legally considered an adult, and they can indulge in things that are potentially far more harmful than alcohol. Under certain circumstances, alcohol has already been permitted for people under the age of 21. Furthermore, the drinking age of 21 is ineffective because people between the ages of 18 to 21 are still drinking regardless. However, this drinking often takes the shape of dangerous binge drinking. Many college deans, who have first-hand knowledge of how ineffective the current drinking age is, are in support of a lower drinking age. Reckless alcohol behavior of uneducated underage drinkers also leads to drunk driving, instead of confiding in

No one can deny that alcohol is a huge part of the American and global culture. Even looking into the past histories of countries around the world, one can see how alcohol and drinking have been integral parts to religious, professional, familial, and social life. Alcoholic consumption began for many as a symbol of friends and acquaintances coming together to simply enjoy life and “be merry.” However, in the United States, alcoholic consumption and the law have collided quite often in the past. Through Prohibition’s ultimate failure of banning the sale, transportation, and manufacture of alcohol and future amendments and acts mandating who should be allowed to drink in this country, the United States has surely been accustomed to controversies regarding the consumption of alcohol. The most recent and ongoing controversy regarding drinking is whether the legal drinking age should be lowered from twenty-one to eighteen. This is a huge controversy specifically relevant to college students, as drinking at American universities has grown to become a defining part of college life despite the fact that a majority of college students cannot even legally drink. It is clear through the prevalence and dangers of binge drinking among college students and the high percentage of DUI and alcohol-related accidents and deaths that something needs to change in this country. Lowering the drinking age from twenty one to eighteen would be an effective and beneficial step in changing the

The people in this age range are the ones who tend to develop the abusive tendencies with alcohol due to the sheer fact of not being able to obtain it legally. College drinking and drinking among some youth populations is becoming more and more common in today’s society. When you prohibit drinking legally, it pushes it into places that are uncontrolled, like fraternity houses for example. These are places that promote drinking games and excessive, rapid consumption of alcohol, which puts people in danger of getting alcohol poisoning, and that can be fatal (Ogilvie, 2011). “Drinking greases the social wheels, and college life for many is saturated with popular drinking games that no doubt seems brilliant to the late-adolescent: Beerchesi, Beergammon, BeerSoftball, coin games like Psycho, Quarters, and BeerBattleship, and card and dice games linked to beer.” (Main, 2009). People within the 16-20 age range are being forced to drink in unsafe places and are at a greater risk of drinking irresponsibly because of the 21 laws. This is mostly seen on college campuses where 15 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds binge drink, according to the Centers for Disease Control (Main, 2009). Among college students, 80 percent reported drinking and of those, 40 percent binge drink once a month, and that is more than twice the rate of their peers in the general population (Main,

Many people are opposed to lowering the drinking age to eighteen because the majority of eighteen to twenty-one year old college students are not equipped with the necessary skill set to be responsible while drinking (“Should the Drinking Age…”). Due to the vast amount of danger posed by drinking, several people believe

Underage alcohol drinking can have devastating effects on teenagers. It can affect teens' grades, health and many other things as well. The reasons why teenagers consume alcohol are pretty clear. What aren’t clear are the solutions to eliminating, or at least reducing the number of underage drinkers. It is vital that we do something to at least suppress this problem. By taking action, we can greatly reduce the number of underage drinkers and it could also save not only their lives, but also someone else's life as well. Underage drinking can cause many health problems as well as educational problems in a teen’s life; therefore our country needs to decrease the number of underage drinkers by increasing both the price of alcohol as well as the legal drinking age.

First off, alcohol addiction and abuse among teenagers today is a bigger problem than ever before. The root of the problem lies in the fact that the teens are so exposed to the culture of this day and age, leading them to where they have easy access to alcohol. For example, their parents may already be alcoholics, and it's merely a few bad decisions later which could cause the child to have a few drinks and cloud their judgement. This is a big problem because their young bodies have never encountered anything like alcohol before, so in turn, the body does not know how to process it, and therefore leads to their downfall. A publication released by the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAA) suggests that by age 18, an astounding 60% of US teens would have had at least one drink. Moreover, according to the NIAA, youth between the ages of 12 and 20 will often binge drink as well.

Underage drinking is becoming more of a noticeable problem in society, not only with high school students, but also with younger generations. Drinking is all over the television, the radio, and talked about in schools, public places, etc. Alcohol advertisements are more and more appealing to younger generations. If our youth is educated at a younger age, if school policies were stricter, and if clubs and bars cracked down on underage drinking the problem would not be as serious.