While Writing My Paper, I Wanted To Carefully Choose My

As many teenagers enter college, they begin to experiment with many things. Although not all students participate in underage drinking, it is evident that a vast majority do. Drinking is not the problem. The main problem occurs when students resort to binge drinking. In the

Underage drinking is a problem within the US and has been for some time. No matter how hard many businesses try it still goes on because of the kid’s lucrative ways to obtain it. Many kids use fake IDs or have a person of age purchase it for them. This problem of alcohol abuse is most prominently seen it college. One college it often occurs at is Indiana University in Bloomington. The early habit of drinking alcohol can have many bad effects on one’s body at a young age and causes habits, decrease in grades, and other negative outcomes.

“According to the CDC, about 90% of all teen alcohol consumption occurs in the form of Binge Drinking, which experts say peaks at the age of nineteen.” (qtd by Listfield). Binge Drinking is the consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. The author, Emily Listfield, defines that the standard alcohol consumption over a two hour period is considered to be four beers for women and five beers for men. This has become a great distraction for college students nationwide and a major dilemma on college campuses. Nearly two hundred thousand students visit emergency rooms each year due to the abuse of alcohol, and more than one thousand seven hundred students die. In the article “ The Underage Drinking Epidemic”, Listfield identifies the problems that underage drinking can cause, the dangers that could happen, and four solutions on what parents can do to keep their kids from binge drinking.

Young teens all get a bad rep when it comes to drinking alcohol. Especially college students that are considered “binge drinkers”. When in reality a nation wide survey of students at 168 colleges and university’s found some interesting things about the underage corrupt youth. 93% of all students have never received a lower grade in a class because of drinking too much. 98% of all college students say that they have never gotten into trouble from an administrator from excessive drinking. While the media continually gives the under twenty one community a bad rep, in reality they are continually practicing safe drinking habits and in some cases not drinking at all. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse by the Institute

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.”

“Every year in the U.S., roughly 5,000 people under the age of 21 die from an alcohol-related incident including car crashes, homicides, suicides, alcohol poisoning and other related injuries” ( “11 Facts About Alcohol Abuse”). That is 5,000 more teens or young adults that could be saved from this plague in this society (11 Facts About Alcohol Abuse). Underage drinking and alcoholism is a huge problem in the United States, and as a society need to make a change with how everyone sees this problem. Adults and young teens take this topic too lightly, and it should not be taken lightly because of how many deaths there have been from poor decision making. There are many programs or events that could help this problem by fundraising, however people think this is not a very important problem. Underage Drinking and Alcoholism is a huge problem in the United States because it causes major health issues that can be very costly, personal life problems that can lead to more problems later in life, and major risks that have no benefit, but can put someone else’s life in danger.

Underage drinking has been occurring since laws were set in place for age qualifications, but it is better serving American society by continuing it because we can’t accept lowering the national age? Ruth C. Engs, a professor for Applied Health Sciences at Indiana University, finds that the mandated drinking age should be lowered to 18 or 19. If young adults were legally allowed to drink in controlled environments, then responsible drinking methods could be taught, resulting in mature behavior when consuming alcohol (Engs, 1). By keeping the drinking age so high, students or young adults are forced to hide drinking and more often than not, turn to binge drinking, an unhealthy, addictive, and extremely dangerous form of drinking that often results in blackouts and alcohol poisoning. Engs states, “For example, 22% of all students under 21 compared to 18% over 21 years of age are heavy drinkers.” This is not the only issue that arises from underage drinking. Newsweek writer, Jeffrey A. Tucker, sees that this law is only causing “over-indulgence, anti-social behavior, disrespect for the law, secrecy and sneaking and a massive diversion of human energy.” To diminish these issues, people are turning towards the examples of other nations that have managed to maintain low drinking age laws, with low risk results. In other countries, alcohol is seen as a cultural norm and are taught at young age how to responsibly consume. However, it is treated the opposite in America, instead, it is seen as how Wil Fulton from the Huffington Post sees it, “forbidden fruit”. Fulton states through a claim made by the World Health Organization, that while Europeans tend to consume more alcohol, Americans still die from more alcohol-related causes. In efforts to change this law and hopefully encourage safe and responsible drinking, many are turning towards the Amethyst Initiative, a movement created by John

Alcohol is a main concern in many college campuses, leading to various problems with students either being involved in overusing it or becoming the victim of someone who has been over using it. Many of the freshmen in college are underage students coming right out of highschool with little knowledge of the serious consequences that alcohol can have. If the drinking age is lowered to 18 years old, these students coming out of highschool and into college will be the appropriate age to purchase alcohol. It is important that these students are informed of the issues alcohol can have before they endanger the wellbeing of themselves or

Vivian Jones, the author of “Underage Drinking,” questions the drinking age limit, and wants to decrease the age limit for consuming alcohol from twenty-one years old to eighteen. Firstly, the author defines underage drinking as a danger to young adults and teenagers that are developing. Secondly, Jones states that raising the age limit for drinking is a controversial topic in society. Thirdly, Jones acknowledges that drinking underage is banned and as a result the young adolescents are more allured to drink alcohol and rebel. The author also states that more younger Americans are drinking in excess with comparison to the UK. The author writes that raising the drinking age will not stop the violence and crime, it would only help slightly. Also, Jones conveys that underage drinking is a major issue in today’s society. I disagree with the author, the drinking age should be twenty-one because it would first reduce crime, it would prevent death, and finally it would decrease medical problems.

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?

At colleges, the problem persists as well where more than 30% of college students display at least one or more symptoms of alcohol abuse and more than 40% of college students reported one or more symptoms of alcohol dependence (McCabe). Even so, studies have shown that 21 year old drinking restrictions reduce the amount of underage drinkers. It has been shown that since the implementation of the 21 year old drinking age requirement, binge drinking doesn’t peak until people are between the ages of 21-25 as opposed to 18-20 (Department of Health and Human Services). While the earlier statistic that 72.2% of twelfth graders admit to drinking may be shocking, it is actually down from the percent of underage people drinking since 1984 when the drinking age was increased to 21 (Fell). Not only this but since the drinking age was increased, people continue to drink less through their twenties and into adulthood (Wagenaar).

Lowering the legal drinking age to 18 would make alcohol less of a forbidden fruit, taking away the thrill that many young people get from breaking the law, make alcohol less of a taboo for adult’s newly entering college and the workforce, and make alcohol consumption a more normalized activity done in moderation. A drinking age of 21 only forces alcohol consumption behind closed doors. Always unsupervised, done in secret and too often excessive, this style of drinking among minors has no doubt been responsible for the alarming rise in rates of dangerous binge drinking at colleges. In 2006,

Bars, nightclubs, and other licensed alcohol establishments are very unsafe for college students (“Should the Drinking Age...”). Also, new college students are extremely vulnerable in the first six weeks of their freshmen year (“College Drinking”). Therefore, lowering the drinking age to eighteen will allow new college students to engage in binge drinking at an incredibly young age. Also, seventy-six percent of licensed alcohol establishments cater to intoxicated patrons (“Should the Drinking Age...”). As a result, nearly half of the intoxicated consumers are arrested for driving while intoxicated (“Should the Drinking Age...”). The intoxicated drivers pose a serious risk to pedestrians, drivers, and college students. If the drinking age was lowered to eighteen, college students would be exposed to a greater amount of danger which can lead to fatal injuries, car wrecks, and assaults (“College Drinking”). Do parents or guardians want to expose their children to the danger of intoxicated people? The majority of the population would agree that lowering the drinking age to eighteen would result in greater danger to college students.

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.

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).