Abigail Hall's Lowering The Legal Drinking Age

Alcohol is around teenagers regardless if the government wants it to be. Teenagers are going to drink, why wouldn’t the government want to make it safe to drink. So, either they get their alcohol from strangers, family members or friends, or they get a fake ID and potentially get caught and arrested. Abigail Hall claims in Lowering the Legal Drinking Age Will Create a Safer Drinking Culture that women are especially abused when they are drunk, which leads to many rapes and kidnappings. An underage, “woman, unable to help herself, must rely on friends who are probably also underage. They are faced with the choice of calling for help and getting busted or trying to care for their friend themselves and hoping for the best.?” says Hall. This is prior to a party even starting, a sporting event, or even concert. They pregame, which is drinking large amounts in a short amount of time, because alcohol won’t be served later. Pregaming and binge drinking is more likely to lead to alcohol poisoning and death. “In fact, of all underage drinking, some 90 percent is consumed through binge drinking” (Hall). This causes an unsafe environment because it has fatal consequences that are shown everyday. Almost all underage parties occur when parents are out of

Levine provides a background of why, “the minimum drinking age of twenty-one became the law in 1984 as then-President Reagan gave in to pressure from anti-drunk driving activists.” A former President that passed the law did not even fully believe in the law he was passing, although since he is the representative of the country and many people wanted the drinking age to be older he did it. He gave into pressure like many teenagers have to do when they are pressured into drinking by their peers. In Lowering the Legal Drinking Age Could Reduce Underage Alcohol Abuse many scholars