The Minimum Drinking Age

The government is conducting an idea to whether lower the minimum legal drinking age in the United States or not. Many Americans forbid the idea of legalizing the drinking age so that it would be profitable to the businesses. Likewise, there have been many advantages and disadvantages of why should the government allow young adults drink under the age of 21. To prevent this issue, many Americans have provided reasoning that will support the idea of keeping the minimum legal drinking age where it is now. The government should maintain the minimum legal drinking age in the United States at the age of 21.

According to Alexis Aguirre in The University Star, “Keeping the minimum legal drinking age at 21 will not dissuade young people who want to indulge in reckless alcohol intake. If anything, the age limit encourages binge drinking. Lowering the drinking age could make it easier to regulate consumption among younger adults as well as encourage healthy drinking habits” (Aguirre). Sure enough, if the drinking age were lowered to 18 it would avoid the illegal, abused intake of alcohol by 18 year olds. According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, “Each year, approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking” (U.S Department of Health and Human Services). A way of avoiding such tragedies is lowering the drinking age to 18, teaching younger

In the 1980s, the United States raised the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) to 21, from 18, in an attempt to protect the nation 's youth. This placed the USA among the few countries whose drinking age is above 18. These countries include most of Canada, the Republic of Korea, Nicaragua, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Egypt, Indonesia, Micronesia, and Palau (Jernigan). Around the world, drinking ages vary; for example, in Slovenia, Italy, Portugal, Malta and Greece, you can drink before you turn 18, and in parts of India, you cannot legally obtain alcohol until age 25 (Jernigan; Mukherjee). This leads to an important question on whether our democracy should lower the MLDA. The facts on underage drinking, international data on lower drinking ages, current enforcement of underage drinking laws, as well as proposed implications of programs coupled with a lower drinking age provides provoking data pointing towards the ethical lowering of the drinking age. The democracy of the United States of America should lower the MLDA, but also adopt a mandatory alcohol education class, and a graduated licensing system.

Drinking among teenagers is prone to cause long term damages in their life. At the adolescent stage, teenagers brain are still developing up until the they are in the 20’s. It is a fact that alcohol causes brain damages to anyone who consumes it but because of this occurrence in adolescent’s body,they are more affected by this. According to Saner in the article Health: Drunk young things: Teenage drinkers don 't just risk making fools of

The minimum drinking age has been debated ever since the early 1970’s when there was no national drinking age. Depending on the state, the minimum drinking age was between the range of 18 to 21-year-olds. However, Exhibit B illustrates how the debate was quieted in 1984 during the Regan Presidency with the passing of a law that required states to prohibit people under the age of 21 to consume alcohol as a condition of receiving a portion of federal state highway funding.

In 1984, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act made all 50 states raise the legal drinking age to 21(Dejong). The debate is on whether the age should be lowered or not. Statistically, having the age at 21 has been very helpful in keeping the nation safe. If there is not an issue with age now, would it make sense to lower the age and create unnecessary problems? In this case, the negative effects outweigh the positive. Simply because there is no good in lowering the age. The legal drinking age has been set at 21 for 30 years, lowering the age would only harm the nation with intellectual, physical, and social issues. First, drinking not only can harm the body and brain, but it puts the lives of others in danger as well. The nation should not be in favor of younger people drinking and losing control. Also, it would make the United States look bad socially. Considering that so many underage college students already drink illegally, it would not make sense to open the doors of drinking to that many people. Overall, there is not enough evidence to prove that lowering the legal drinking age would be beneficial to the United States. Beneficial means resulting in good. Therefore, if the legal drinking age were to be lowered, then nation would meet with disaster.

For the past 30 years, the United States has maintained a National Minimum Drinking Age Act, with long term public debate about the violation of civil liberties of this policy, especially in youth rights. As a matter of fact, at eighteen years old, young people can take on many adult responsibilities, but they do not have the right to consume alcohol. Indeed, they have the rights to vote, smoke cigarettes, serve on juries, get married, sue others, be sued, be imprisoned, sign contracts, be prosecuted as adults, and join the military which includes risking one's life. Even though they now considered legal adults with all of these privileges, they are denied the right to purchase and drink alcohol. Prohibiting persons under the age of 21 to enjoy

In this article “Minimum Drinking Age: Should the minimum drinking age in the United States remain 21?” the author describes both sides of the argument with lots of evidence and facts to back up both sides. Just before that the article states some background information about the topic and what it was like in the 1970 - 2000. He says that before 1970 the Legal Drinking Age was lower than 21 but got changed because of an outcry of people complaining of a lot of drunk driving accidents. The first stars starting changing their laws in 1975. Ever since that date it has been a debate whether it should’ve changed back or not. The author then goes into the first argument. The first argument was what the supporters argue: what supporters say. The author

Dahl states that the brain develops throughout adolescence. During this time, the speed that neurons are able to travel within the brain increases (US Department of Human Health and Services (DHHS)). The speed of neurons affects the ability to call judgement and control emotions during a situation. Since adolescents under twenty-one are not able to fully make proper and wise decisions, they should not be allowed to make a decision such as to drink or to be trusted in making a good decision after drinking. Additionally, studies show that drinking before the brain fully develops is harmful and potentially causes permanent effects such as cognitive defects and incomplete development (US Federal Trade Commision (FTC)). Barring alcohol from people under the age of twenty-one protects them from future damage. Therefore they should not be allowed to partake in alcohol consumption until their brains are safely and fully developed.

In the article I chose from Issues and Controversies entitled, “Minimum Drinking Age: Should the minimum drinking age in the United States remain 21?” the author presents the arguments for and against lowering the drinking age in the United States. I think that the minimum drinking age should remain at 21 because underage drinking can cause serious health issues, car crashes and violent incidents are more likely when under the influence.

Many negative effects come with drinking alcohol. Since teenagers’ brains are not fully developed until they are in their mid 20’s, it is especially dangerous to them. The legal alcohol age should not be eighteen because it harms the teenage brain and body, it has negative (and potentially fatal) effects on school, and it has negative effects on driving.

Minimum limited drinking age law in America was passed more than 30 years ago. Therefore, it needed to be altered to catch up with today’s world. Teenagers today are no longer the kind of teenager back in the 1980s. Now, they have access to information on the Internet, they were taught how alcoholic drinks affect to the body, they were supervised by their parents closely. Moreover, teenagers even have legal access to voting, driving, owning a car,...and they can be jailed up if they break the law, sentenced in prison if the crime was serious enough. Therefore, teenager should be able to control of their life and have access to alcohol as a right they supposed to have long time ago.

The background of the case is a conflict between the state and the federal government over the creation of a minimum drinking age. The conflict was pursued when a car with four friends, all of age nineteen on a summer evening in 1984, crosses the state line into South Dakota where they could legally purchase beer. During the year of 1984, lawmakers in Washington D.C. we’re fortifying the National Minimum Drink Age Amendment which proclaimed that states who refuse to raise their drinking age to 21 would be deducted from 5% federal highway funds by the Secretary of Transportation. South Dakota challenged the rule because it is a state that legalized persons 19 years of age to procure alcohol. The law in question was whether Congress was in violation of the Twenty-first Amendment which granted states the elite power to regulate alcohol.

Most countries around the world have adopted MLDA laws for the purchase and /or possession of alcohol as a protective policy for the youth. Scientific evidence indicates that the lower the drinking age, the earlier the youth begin to decrease alcohol (at least in the United States). MLDA laws are vital components of any effort to control the production, marketing, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages (Philip, 528). Several studies have indicated that more accidents occurred as a result of lower drinking age. As a result there has been advocacy for restoring MLDA to 21. Due to such advocacy campaigns, 16 states increased their MLDA between September 1976 and January 1983. The US government also lowered this age to 21 too.

As I was browsing through numerous websites that explained the major effects of alcohol on the teenage brain, I was amazed. The brain undergoes vigorous changes throughout teenage adolescence, and alcohol abuse can seriously injure long-term and short-term growth processes. Frontal lobe development and the refinement of pathways and connections continue until the age of sixteen, and a high rate of energy is used as the brain matures until the age of twenty. Damage from alcohol at this time can be long-term damages. Not only that, these damages are generally irreversible.