Essay On Lowering The Drinking Age

I will be arguing that lowering the drinking age minimum of the United States is possible due to outdated rulings based off religious pretenses.

The legal drinking age is a hot button topic that draws many critics from a multitude of different backgrounds. According to an ICAP report about legal drinking ages in March of 1997; 26 countries had drinking ages of 18 without exceptions and only three had drinking ages not including the United States. While some would argue that the drinking law needs to be lowered from 21 to 18, this turns out to be the case in many of the states of the United States. It turns out that the United States is within an 8% minority of countries that have the highest minimum drinking age at 21. 71% of the rest of the

However, before Prohibition alcohol regulation was simply directed at the business end. A strong wave of religion and family values led to the eventual Prohibition of all alcohol. After the waves of reformation, the drinking age was established from a range of 18 to 21 depending on state. This would define many of the precedents currently in place. If the end of Prohibition did not come with strict regulations, then it wouldn’t be until 1984 when even tighter regulations were put on states. The federal government would revoke some highway funds if they did not abide to a 21 year age limit. However, this was championed by the Mothers Against Drunk Driving, who claimed their goal is to reduce drunk driving deaths. However, the string of logic to a lowering of the minimum age is constantly pointed to starts that we only have since 1984. While studies are currently being conducted to determine how directly age plays a role in drunk driving, there are multiple studies on measures such as seat belts that have research backing the concept. The drinking age was spurred by strong lobbying and a group guided by one goal. However, it seems as though a drinking age could be removed altogether if responsible operation was still achieved. We have driving age laws and licensing, so I would suggest that alcohol usage can simply be