Underage Drinking Debate

Every year, thousands of minors die from the use of alcohol. Many young adults abuse the drinking age policy. It is put in effect for substantial reasons, which contribute in making the safest environment for all. Drinking underage is not only illegal, but also damages one’s health tremendously. Furthermore, drinking in large amounts is extremely dangerous and can cause detrimental things to occur. There have been numerous attempts to create a law to lower the drinking age, but none have gone through. In contrast to what some people may say, the drinking age should not be lowered because it would decrease maturity, promote poor behavior, and damage reputations.

Underage drinking should not happen because it could lead to health problems, addictions, and serious accidents.

There has always been a big controversy on the legal drinking age and what it should be. The consumption of alcohol can be seen has dangerous or has a medicine. The legal drinking age should be raised due to violent crime, domestic abuse, and DUI all related to abusing alcohol. Raising the legal drinking age will decrease the amount of violent crime, domestic abuse, and DUI related deaths.

You know an issue has evoked large levels of community discussion when interest groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving and rappers like J-kwon are telling us the same thing: teen drinking is very bad. But discussion on the topic tends to vary far more than that. Congress discussed the issue in 1984, with the National Minimum Drinking Age Act: an act that withheld federal highway funding from states without a minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) of 21. The motives behind the act can’t be summed up in just residual American puritan values; it wasn’t aiming to ruin teenaged fun, but reduce deaths by drunk drivers and cut down on alcohol dependence and abuse. It’s been over 30

Although in twenty-nine states youth are allowed to consume alcohol on private property with the consent of a parent or legal guardian that still doesn’t justify why people who are between the ages of eighteen and twenty are not allowed to go out and have drinks with friends. If adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty were able to drink in public environments, I believe that risks of injury and harm would increase greatly.

What is most remarkable about the City of El Cajon’s Ordinance is the different approach the City decided to take. The method of regulating alcohol sales by type and quantity has proven successful for the City as the ordinance only limits the sales in businesses that obtain a CUP. In the last few years, the City has seen a sharp decline in alcohol-related crime and nuisances, such as public drunkenness and loitering

In the United States, a citizen is considered an “adult” at the age of 18, and with that new title comes many responsibilities, such as the right to vote and to join the army. However, the legal drinking age in America is twenty-one. This issue has been a major controversy for some time now that faces both national and state governments. Should the drinking age be lowered to the age when legally a person becomes an adult and assumes all other adult responsibilities, or should it remain at a higher age to allow people to grow more mature and, hopefully, make more responsible decisions?

Prohibiting 20 years old and below can lead the young adults to drink in some places that are completely unsupervised like fraternity houses and private parties which very unsafe for them because these young adults do not have experience on how the alcohol can affect their bodies and make them drink an excessive amount of alcohol for the reason that this is where the only place they can drink without getting caught by their parents and law enforcements. Being out of nowhere drinking these young adults are very vulnerable to be a victim of such crimes, they could be sexually abused and be robbed other people can easily take advantage of drunk people. On the other hand being drunk also can make people do some things that could possibly hurt themselves like driving drunk that could lead them to be hospitalized or even death.

In fact, of all underage drinking, some 90 percent is consumed through binge drinking [as of March 2014]” (Hall). That being said, by making alcohol more readily available it will reduce pregaming and excessive drinking on and off campus. “ The main consequence of this law has been to drive college-age alcohol consumption underground, which has in all likelihood increased that consumption and probably actually increased drunk driving,” says Gordon. Nevertheless, pregaming can lead to heavily intoxicated individuals driving drunk to their final party destination; which could cause more alcohol related traffic fatalities. By lowering the drinking age young adults could safely drink a reasonable amount of alcohol, legally, without the fear of getting in trouble for doing so.

I have always wondered why the drinking age was raised to twenty-one. I have looked and researched the following information but still don’t have a true explanation as to why it was raised to the age of twenty-one. The movement called Amethyst Initiative began recruiting university presidents to provoke national debate about the drinking age. College Presidents from about 100 of the nation’s universities, are calling on law makers to consider lowering the drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen by claiming the current laws encourage dangerous binge drinking on campuses. These colleges include some of the popular one like including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State.

The legal drinking age in the United States is 21 and older but in many cases, pre-teens to teenagers may experience their first alcoholic beverage by the age of 12. This is a time where the child will engage in social groups and face peer pressure from others. Underage drinking is a growing public health issue in the United States and it can affect many. The matter does not only start in middle school but escalates by the time they reach college. A college is a place where students begin to face their own adulthood. There is no longer any nagging parents around to set rules and this gives college students a piece of freedom. The opportunity of liberty to do whatever they please such as staying out past their home curfew, dressing how they

Mark Beckner, the chief of police in Boulder, Colo. –a college town –deals with underage drinking every day. “We’re not in a situation where we can stop it. The best we can do is try to contain it,” he told Stahl. “So you’re basically telling us that you simply can’t enforce the law. They are drinking and you cannot enforce it’” Stahl remarked. “Well, we do enforce it,” Chief Beckner replied. “But what we’re seeing is it’s not being effective.” Beckner has tried many different kinds of enforcement techniques over the years, including strict crack-downs. ‘We’d find a party where we know there’s underage drinking. We would seal the house. Surround the house with officers and we would write every single underage person coming out of that house. We wrote hundreds and hundreds of tickets those years. All we did is we pushed it further underground,” Beckner told Stahl.

One approach that many people who are concerned with the issue take is to lowering the drinking age because current policies don?t work. Most people taking this approach believe that the laws in place today do little or nothing to help or stop underage drinking, and in some ways even make it worse. "At the very least, American youth alcohol policy is ineffective. More disturbing, the drinking age may be counterproductive. It is applied so rigidly in most of the country that it precludes any attempt to teach young people how to handle alcohol responsibly." (Hanson).

I assisted Tracey Talavera in presenting two informative sessions, on the Social Host ordinance recently adopted by the city of San Antonio. The Social Host ordinance is designed to increase accountability of anyone who promotes or provides a venue for underage drinkers. The ordinance is in response to the increasing number of underage drinkers at parties being promoted through social media. The ordinance would allow for minors and

High School parties are notorious for underage drinking, and a celebration thrown by John Smith Wednesday January 15 was no exception. Ignorant and unaware parents, Stephen and Cindy went out of town with no expectation for chaos whilst they were gone, but when neighbors complained about the rambunctious noise coming from 4971 Northwood Dr. NE it was clear their misguided thoughts were false. Officers responded to the complaint, and apparently, this was not the first incident occurring at the Smith residence, Officer Jeremy Boots stated “This isn't the first time we’ve responded to noise complaints or incidents involving underage drinking.”; He hopes “this serves as a lesson for students that they shouldn’t participate in these activities”,