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Essay On Keeping The Drinking Age In America

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Recommended: Why legal age to drink should be 18

The debate about whether the legal drinking limit in America is the right age has been going on for decades. Only July 17, 1984, Ronald Reagan who was president at the time signed the national minimum drinking age act. This meant that the states had to raise the drinking age to Twenty-One. Americans are able to vote, drive, join the army, and get married but aren’t allowed to drink because of the law. It is unclear why the responsibility of drinking alcohol has more strict laws over these other responsibilities. The U.S. Age limit being the highest in the world means that there is a high possibility that drinking becomes more attractive to the younger generation as a result. This outcome of the national age limit makes Americans feel younger …show more content…

The age of 18 sides with many other age limit laws for different activities. A lower drinking age may solve many problems within colleges in America. This is a global issue as every country has to weigh up the pros and cons of having a certain age limit to drink. As of the age of 18, you are legally classed as an adult which makes you legally responsible for your actions and choices you make meaning all consequences are placed on you. Therefore, the drinking age should be lowered because college students are at high risk of binge drinking, as well as alcohol is still very easy to buy and be consumed by many people under the age of 18. Which causes our younger generations to drink in unsafe environments versus alcohol-friendly …show more content…

This is understandable as often this is when students have moved away from home and have the freedom to do what they want without their parents present. Some high-risk drinking events tend to be more prevalent in young adulthood. For example, homecoming, athletic events, spring break, pregame partying, and graduations have all been associated with excessive drinking among college students. This goes to show how the younger generation is very willing to drink. In 2002 the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse issed a Call to Action to adress drinking on college campuses, based on findings of an expert panel. There is a high possibility that this is a result of the national drinking limit being so high. Because this makes it more attractive to drink and almost rebel against the law in a certain sense. There are many negative effects to binge drinking, both long term and short-term effects. Binge drinkers tended to score higher on measures of depression and anxiety and reported lower positive mood than non-drinkers. Clearly these effects are not going to be positive. To minimize the amount of binge drinking a key factor would be to decrease the drinking age as this would lower the eagerness to drink among a younger generation. These facts portray that the first-time students have the freedom and are able to do things at their own will, they

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In Beth McMurtrie’s article “Why Colleges Haven’t Stopped Binge Drinking”, colleges have been and are continuing to drop the ball when it comes to stopping binge drinking by college students. McMurtrie begins the article by explaining the impact that binge drinking has on the lives of students involved. Some colleges are beginning to overlook the problem completely. It appears that the whole problem has been purposely overlooked in many instances for many different reasons. There are those out there that believe that binge drinking and college life go hand in hand and that these that partake of such will get it under control when they are ready.

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In addition, if lawmakers consider lowering the drinking age because it would lead to more violent and destructive behavior such as academic failure. Alcohol interferes with many ways of

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(White) Also, “Consequences of college drinking include missed classes and lower grades, injuries, sexual assaults, overdoses, memory blackouts, changes in brain function, lingering cognitive deficits, and death” (White) Finally White says, “When the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) issued its first report on alcohol misuse by college students, research advances have transformed our

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The drinking age was specifically set to age 21 to prevent mental impairment to American youth from drinking too early. In reality the brain does not reach full maturity until at least age twentyfive. If America wants to keep its people as healthy as possible, the drinking age should be released to twentyfive. None of the reasons for why the drinking age should be adjusted matter except for the level of development the brain has. For this reason the drinking age should be no less than 21 years

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It has always been a part of cultures everywhere around the world and there is nothing different in today’s world. One major argument against raising the drinking age is that lowering the age does not reduce the fatalities attributed to drunk driving, on the contrary the amount of deaths increase as the drinking age is lowered. The article states that people who are younger still have a developing mind and they are still careless in the activities they do. According to the article the 21 age limit for alcohol has saved over 23,000 people since the drinking age was raised in 1975. Another major argument is that kids or teenagers will do what they want regardless of the rules that are in place.

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But while it has succeeded in that, it is also believed that tougher rules, such as DUI rules and seatbelt safety rules have also played a part in this decrease. However, this higher drinking age hasn’t reduced drinking, its only “driven it underground,” Gabrielle Glaser states in her NY Times article. It has been driven underground to the riskiest settings, high school parties and frat parties that are unsupervised. This age raise segregates the drinking away from adults that can model moderation in drinking. If an 18-year-old high school senior is shown by his/her parent(s) how to drink responsibly and in moderation, I believe that it would greatly help in reducing the chance of making bad decisions by overdoing it, such as driving while drinking.

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One main point that is argued is that younger brains are more susceptible to alcohol consumption and by lowering the drinking age, it would be approving the damage that alcohol causes in the developing brain. Emotional development, organization, and planning are all affected by alcohol consumption. Though it’s true that kids will still likely drink, that doesn’t mean society needs to approve of that decision. Another argument that is used is that more people drinking could create more unsafe environments. When people have too much alcohol, their decision-making skills are extensively lowered.

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Newly-legal drinkers often purchase alcohol for their underage peers, creating a "trickle-down" effect. Surveys show that the most common source of alcohol among 18- to 20-year olds is their 21- to 24-year-old peers. Binge drinking peaks among 21- to 25-year-olds at 45.9%, while the binge drinking rates of those aged 12-17, and 18-20 are 35.7% respectively. Allowing 18 year olds to purchase and drink alcohol can make it way easier for middle schoolers. and high schoolers easy access to alcohol because the 18 year old can purchase it for them and give it to them.

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An issue that has yet to be solved is “Should the minimum drinking age be lowered from twenty-one years to eighteen years?” People have been in controversy over this topic since the late 1900s. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed in 1984, which required states to raise the legal age to purchase and possess alcoholic substances to twenty-one. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1991 after the Act was passed, the rate of alcohol consumption among people eighteen to twenty years of age dropped from fifty-nine percent to forty percent; the rate of alcohol consumption among people twenty-one to twenty-four years of age dropped from seventy percent to fifty-six percent (www.cdc.gov). More than fifty scientific

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Although, according to research mentioned in “Pro/Con: Should the Legal Drinking Age be Lowered to 18?” when the drinking age was raised to twenty-one years of age the teen alcohol-related deaths decreased (a). This caused the lower twenty’s age group’s alcohol-related fatalities to increase(a). In other words, this study demonstrates that the high legal drinking age doesn’t save as many lives as Americans are led to believe. It shows that Americans don’t know how to drink responsibly.

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The legal age of consuming alcohol in the US is 21 and has been since the 1980’s. Students that graduate high school to go on to college turn the legal age of adulthood within those few years. Many researchers claim that lives are saved by the drinking age being so high, but then the number is much higher for lives lost when an adult turns the legal age, the fatalities have been postponed not saved. Having the legal

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In some countries, like in Europe the drinking age is set at 18. Even though people in the US think this is insane, this set age has more positive effects than people think it would. It is known that binge drinking is a problem in the US since it has the highest rate in the world for binge drinking. In Europe, teenagers get their license at age 18, and some drinking ages are lower than that, they figure out how to control their drinking before the drive. Unlike in the US, kids drink and then drive because they either have to be home by curfew or they are too scared to call their parents for a ride, and admit they had been under the

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In fact, the law may increase the amount of eighteen to twenty year olds who do drink. It has been shown that, especially in college-age students, there is a tendency to not do what they are told, on the contrary, they will do the exact opposite. The problem with the drinking age being twenty-one is that some students drink purely out of defiance). The number of fatalities is down in all age groups, not just teenagers, and cars driven now are much safer than the cars that were being driven in the early 1980’s, and teenagers are much safer drivers, which can be attributed to the decreased amount of fatalities. Also, in other countries that have lower drinking ages, the number of fatalities has

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The reported issues that accompanied most drinking appeared to be associated with those individuals that were engaging in binge drinking not just ongoing

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Across the country, college students participate in an illegal activity known as underage drinking. The drinking age in America is an ongoing debate of whether it should be kept at 21, or reduced to 18. While some believe lowering the drinking age would make drinking for young kids safer, others presume the opposite. According to Alexis Aguirre, a journalist at the Texas State University Star, “The legal drinking age should be lowered to 18. Once 18, a person is legally considered an adult and should be able to drink.”

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