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Essay On Lowering The Drinking Age

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Drinking Age In 1984 the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed that officially raised the drinking age to 21 years old from being 18 years old. Ever since 1984, lowering the drinking age has been a controversial subject throughout American history. Personally, I believe that the United States should lower the legal drinking age to 18 years old again. One of the main reasons why the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed in the first place was because of drinking and driving. The Alcohol Policies Project says that the Arizona Department of Public Safety found that fatal accidents increased over 25% while traffic accidents increased more than 35% after the state MLPA was lowered from 21 to 18 (CSPI). Also, according to MADD more than 25,000 lives have been saved in the U.S. thanks to the 21 Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MADD). Since the drinking age changed to 21, car …show more content…

A way to resolve this issue would to be to actually lower the drinking age. This is because I believe if the legal drinking age was lowered to 18 then teenagers would learn their alcohol limit at a younger age. By lowering the drinking age, we are teaching teens their limit and how to control themselves versus them figuring out the hard way further on in life. “Teaching people to drink responsibly before they turn 21 would enormously enhance public health. Now, high school and college kids view dangerous binge drinking as a rite of passage,” says Gabrielle Glaser (ProCon). Also, ProCon says prohibiting this age group from drinking in bars, restaurants, and other licensed locations causes them to drink in unsupervised places such as fraternity houses or house parties where they are prone to binge drink and participate in other unsafe behaviors (ProCon). By allowing 18-year-olds to drink legally in supervised places this will give both the teens and parents comfort and potentially diminish binge

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