Reasons Why The Drinking Age Should Stay At 21

Politicians have been working to pass a law to lower the Minnesota drinking age from 21 to 18 years of age. People are trying to push this law because the country-wide description of being an adult is 18 years of age. At 18 people can serve in the military, buy tobacco, and yet cannot buy alcohol. Reasons for this is that high schoolers and middle schoolers have easier access to drinks.

Getting to 18 years of age is an important milestone for a US resident because it is the legal age for independence, allowing the individual to make his or her decisions regarding tobacco smoking, driving and even joining the armed forces while being treated as an adult by the justice system. While this statement is essentially accurate, it is untrue concerning the ability to purchase and drink alcohol. This is because the US law has set the threshold for alcohol purchase and consumption at 21 years of age (Mistral 1980). The question then remains; if an individual is considered an adult at 18 years of age, is it not right to allow them to purchase and consume alcohol at the same age? Answering this question has been a matter of polarizing debate, with those in support of and opposition to lowering the drinking age presenting valid arguments. The present paper discusses the same argument with a subjective bias towards supporting calls for the US legislators to lower the legal drinking age to 18 years.

At the age of 18, American Citizens gain the immense responsibility of becoming an adult. When you turn 18 you gain a sense of adulthood and many things that were illegal for you before are now legal. Object lessons are the right to sign a contract, vote in elections, attend on a jury, make a will, get married without parental permission and the list goes on. For what reason is it that you aren 't old enough to purchase and consume alcohol. "The passage of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 prompted states to enhance their legal age for purchase or public ownership of alcohol to 21 or risk losing millions in federal highway funds (alcohol policy. Noah. NIH. Gov)."

Should the legal drinking age be lowered from 21? In all fifty states the legal drinking age is 21 years of age. Now there are exceptions to this law including drinking at home, under parental supervision and for medical reasons. Those who agree in lowering the legal drinking age believe that the set age at 21 has not stopped teens from drinking but encouraged underage drinking to less safe and controlled places. Those who are against lowering the legal drinking age believe that teens are not developed enough to drink responsibly which makes them more likely to harm or kill themselves or others.

There has been a debate on lowering the drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen. There are many reasons why this policy should not be passed. At the age of eighteen in the United States one is considered as an adult to make there own decisions, vote, and are allowed to buy Tabaco. Drinking is not one of them. Studies have shown that there are scientific reasons this should not happen. First drinking can be very harmful to the body, causing severe symptoms. Second the drinking and driving rate would increase. Finally, eighteen year olds are not as mature as twenty-one year olds. They are not as fully developed as twenty-one year olds. All of these are factors that contribute to why the drinking age should not be lowered.

The drinking age should be lowered to eighteen because there has been many problems that have caused life threatening dangers to these teens. The age eighteen is where you start to become an adult so people should have the right to drink when they turn eighteen (“Drinking Age”). It also should be allowed

Since the drinking age was raised to 21 years old in 1984, underage drinking and driving have gone down by 54% since 1991 according to the CDC. The number of alcohol-related deaths among 16-20 year-olds in the U.S. decreased from 5,244 in 1982 to 1,987 in 2008 after the raising of the drinking age. 16-20-year-olds are 17 times more likely to die in a car crash when their blood alcohol levels are higher than 0.08%. Today alcohol is involved in 37% of all traffic deaths among persons aged 16 to 20 so if we were to lower it to 18, then it would make that drastically higher. Raising the drinking age did help and prevent many accidents and it also helps prevent unnecessary

(Dr. Ruth Enys The drinking age should be lowered Page 1) In those locations they gulp alcohol in an absence of moderating social control. (Dr. Ruth Enys The drinking age should be lowered Page 1) Drinking problems are reduced when young people learn at home how to drink in a moderate responsible manner. (Dr. Ruth Enys Why the drinking age should be lowered Page 2) Lowering the drinking age placed 5th in a resent survey which asked high school students to list their 10 most important issues. (Donald Bradley Lowering drinking age Page 1)A recent Kansas City newspaper asked 8,726 students if the drinking age should be lowered. Out off 8,726 asked 7,992 said yes. (Donald Bradley Lowering drinking age Page 1)The drinking age being 21 does not prevent a single high school or college student from getting alcohol if he or she wants it. (author unknown Lowering the drinking age Page 1) Since most drink anyway the drinking age should be lowered to 18.

According to Drew K. Saylor, he writes that studies from a meta-analytic review showed that "Raising the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) is associated with a 16% median decrease in alcohol-related crash outcomes while lowering the MLDA result in a 10% median increase in such crash outcomes" (332). The essence of this argument is that having the law of the drinking age to be 21 has a positive effect in the country because there is a decrease in car crashes. This is why the author Drew K. Saylor also agrees when he writes "A solution to this problem is not a simple as lowering the drinking age and asking young people to choose responsibility" (332). Saylor's point is to make the people understand that lowering the drinking age won't fix much because accidents will still happen, but with more frequency. Since in the past, the argument was deciding whether to raise or no to raise the drinking age to be 21 because of the danger youths had to live through if something happened to them. Drew K. Saylor argues that the drinking age has led to create a change in the people who are 18-20 years old because college students now a days tend to consume more alcohol than any others. When this happens among college students, it’s called binge drinking. According to Drew K. Saylor, a professor from the University of Virginia with a BA degree, he states that “Binge drinking is the consumption of an excessive amount of alcohol in a short period of time”

In the United States you are legally an adult at age 18. That entails being able to vote for our president, get married, and even join the military and go to war, but with all these things you still can’t drink legally. The present law says that an 18 year old can go to war where they may lose their life for their country, but you still have to be 21 to drink alcohol. If we allow people to be an legal adult at 18 we should allow them to make that decision to drink.

Lowering the drinking age will result in life and death consequences. By keeping the drinking age at 21, the rate of fatalities for drinking and driving decrease drastically. During the short period during the late 1980’s when the drinking age was lowered to 18, the number of fatal car crashes involving young adults who were under the influence dropped from 61% to 31% (Wil Fulton). By bringing the age down to 18-years-old, alcohol would be more accessible to the lower age group. For example, an 18 year old, who is still in high school, is more likely to sell alcohol to a 16 year old than a 21 year old, who is away at college. In recent studies, researchers found that 77% of the population are opposed to lowering the drinking age to 18 (Brandon Griggs). MADD is supported by influential government companies such as the American Medical Association, National Transportation Safety Board, National Safety Council, International Association Chiefs of Police, Governor's Highway Safety Association, Surgeon General of the United States, and U.S. Transportation Secretary to name a few (John H. Barnhill, PHD). Overall, young teenagers lack the proper wisdom collected to make right judgments about alcohol. The 3 years between the age 18 and 21 are filled with change and responsibilities, making one more suitable to make appropriate

In the article Save Us from Youth, by Bradley R. Gitz, Gitz points out that many things in the Amethyst Initiative discussing the legal drinking age is inconsistent for an adult between the ages 18 and 21. At the age of 18 you are given many rights and is considered an adult, you are given the rights to buy cigarettes, the rights to vote, the rights to enlist in the army. an be tried as an adult in court. Buying or consuming alcohol is not one of the rights given. “Ultimately, the most important issue at stake with respect to the drinking age is not whether 18-year-olds are responsible enough to consume alcohol, or even the consequences of such consumption in legal vs. illegal circumstances, but whether those who are old enough to be sued in a court of law, carry a gun into combat on behalf of fellow citizens and participate in our democratic process by

Once a person reaches the age of 18, they are allowed to tattoo their bodies, smoke tobacco, gamble and even enlist if they wanted to! As an adult, they want to be treated as one but how can they feel like an adult if hanging around with their friends and drinking beer while watching TV is illegal? Of course, that does not stop them, though. The United States is one of the few countries in which still have such a high minimum drinking age. Although most people think young adults (18-year olds) are irresponsible, the minimum drinking age should be lowered to 18 because they deserve to be recognized as adults in order to avoid illegal, uncontrolled drinking and other illegal actions.

Reviewing these statists one may be able to analaze and see that even drivers between 21 to 24 were high at risk. What would make a person want to lower the drinking age to 18. Young adults at eighteen are new drivers and less expierenced then the 21 + drivers and logically would produce more fatal crashes.

This discussion has been going on for long on many forums without a decisive conclusion or agreement. This is mainly because both the arguments for lowering the age to 18 years and not lowering have some substantial facts to support them. The people who are against lowering the drinking age come up with a number of arguments which are explained below.