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Essay On Lowering The Drinking Age

1336 Words6 Pages

Drinking age - Lower it? The minimum legal drinking age(MLDA) has been perhaps the single most studied alcohol-control policy. Since 1984, the National minimum legal drinking age in the United States has been 21 years. However, Alex was only 18 years old the night he died in a fatal car crash. He had his whole life ahead of him, star of the football team and top of his graduating class. One lousy decision ended it all. He was at a party consuming alcohol and decided to drive home under the influence. While driving home, he hit a tree and went straight off a bridge. Now think, is this what you want to see happen to your children? Lowering the MLDA to 18 years old will affect the future of our generation in a negative way. It will cause an …show more content…

Allowing 18 year olds to legally drink alcohol will give middle schoolers and high schoolers easier access to alcohol. This is because many high schoolers are 18 years old their senior year. The seniors will then buy alcohol for their friends and/or siblings that are not of legal age. Studies have shown that college students ages 18-20 years old are less likely to engage in binge drinking than those of legal drinking age. Although this may be true, it is also a proven fact that “the heaviest-drinking college students are more likely to have been heavy drinkers in high school”(Wechsler, Henry, and Toben F. Nelson). If the MLDA is lowered to 18 years old then the amount of heavy drinkers in high school will increase leading to heavy drinking among college students. Many health and social consequences are brought along with an increase in alcohol consumption. For example, if you have a job or attend school and consume alcohol, it can have an impact on your performance and preparedness. Another social consequence of drinking alcohol is an increase in vandalism and homicide. Alcohol has many behavioral side effects on a person. It can cause someone to have sudden outbursts of anger and aggression. The anger then leads to physical abuse, vandalism, or even homicide. Drinking alcohol also increases the risk of health issues such as alcohol poisoning and sexually transmitted

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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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Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) laws specify the age of when a person can buy or publicly drink alcohol legally. In 1984, the minimum legal drinking age was raised to twenty-one. Many college students attend parties where alcohol is present. They should be allowed to consume the alcoholic beverages with their classmates without having to worry about getting in trouble. Eighteen year olds are adults and should be able to make their own decision on whether or not they want to drink.

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Some benefits about lowering the drinking age is 18 is the age of adulthood in the U.S and adults should have their right to makes

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Also, lowering the drinking age will cause more car accidents and other types of accidents with younger teenagers. Teenagers will get into cars with their friends to go places, and this can end up badly if the driver has been drinking. Some teenagers can not drive so if they get into cars with their 18-year-old friends who can drink, car accidents are bound to happen. Not many 15-16-year-olds are friends with 21+-year-olds, so this is not as big of a problem currently. Drinking and hanging out with friends who are only a couple years older causes even younger teenagers to drink, which is why the drinking age should not be

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The establishment of the US Minimum Drinking Age (MLDA) dates back to the year 1984 where President Ronald Reagan signed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act on July 17 firstly unifying and raising the drinking age to 21 in all 50 states. Its goal is it to effectively combat drunken driving. According to the law any state that would lower the MLDA to eighteen will face a 10% shortcut of federal funding. However since

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Prohibiting this age group from drinking in licensed locations influences them to drink in unsupervised places. Individuals will often drink in locations such as fraternities and/or parties where there are higher tendencies to participate in unsafe behavior. Despite increasing MLDA to 21 in 1984, the number of traffic accidents and fatalities that occurred within the 80s decreased less than that of countries whose legal drinking ages are already below 21 (Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered from 21 to a Younger Age?). In numerous European countries, teenagers at the age of 18 are allowed to drink in restaurants and other public places, under the supervision of trusted authority figures (Anderson). In the US, contrarily, teenagers at the age of 18 are not eligible to consume or purchase alcohol, and participate in these acts in risky areas where they are not under any supervision (Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered from 21 to a Younger Age?).

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The new law prohibits people under 21 to buy or consume alcohol in all states. If states did not rise their MLDA to 21 then they will see a cut in the federal highway founding. Later that year all 50 states and the District of Columbia rise the MLDA to 21 after being faced with strong financial incentive

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If the age is lowered down to 18 is dangerous for the young adults life and can damage their emotional state of mind. When alcohol consumption interferes with this early adult brain development, the potential for chronic problems such as greater vulnerability to addiction, dangerous risk-taking behavior, reduced decision-making ability, memory loss, depression, violence, and suicide is greater. it is important to not decrease the drinking age because it can affect so many young adults life and can really mess of their state of mind and they can become depressed and violent and can mess up their life and change them as a person. Between 1970 and 1990, the suicide rate of 18- to 20-year-old youths living in states with an 18-year MLDA was 8% higher than the suicide rate among 18- to 20-year-old youths in states with a 21-year MLDA.

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To continue, a law that is working for us in this country shouldn’t be changed. Drinking should stay a higher age since the MLDA 21 has reduced alcohol consumption by younger drinkers in the U.S. as well as younger kids in general don’t have as easy access to alcohol with the drinking age higher (Procon). Finally, alcohol consumption can cause serious health problems on kids of all ages, who drink it. If there is a kid who drinks alcohol before the body is fully developed, it can cause serious damage to many parts of the body, and is in general not a very healthy choice for someone's health in general (NYLN). It’s simple to say that with these facts, lowering the drinking age is a dangerous choice.

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While the legal drinking age is 21, that does not stop underage drinking in the United States. On July 17, 1984, President Reagan signed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. This was a law that required states to raise the drinking age to 21 or face a 10 percent cut to their federal highway funding. All of the states fulfilled the requirement and accepted the higher drinking age(Tietjen). One of the biggest that contributes to underage drinking is mainly because it is “off limits.”

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Over the years, there have been debates about lowering the drinking age in the United States to eighteen. People argue that if a person can fight in the military or vote in elections, then he or she should be allowed the right to drink alcohol. Others feel that it is not wise to lower the legal drinking age because the results would be dangerous. Although there are arguments for lowering the drinking age, there is also an abundance of research that proves lowering the drinking age would be destructive. The legal drinking age should not be lowered to eighteen because it will give high school and even middle school students greater access to alcohol, interfere with brain development, adult rights begin at twenty-one, and increase traffic accidents among the youth.

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There have been several discussions about whether the drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18. Many believe that lowering the drinking age will cause more harm than good, Others are urging this law to be revisited. Lowering the drinking age to 18 will not make things worse than the negative events that have already transpired due to underage drinking. It will help to make sense and keep consistency in our laws, create more responsible adults, and helps colleges better regulate alcohol consumption.

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The United States has seen the first-hand effects of this issue when 39 states decided to pass a law that legalized alcohol consumption at the age of 18. These decreased age requirements lead to numerous reports of alcohol-related deaths from driving while intoxicated. According to research collected by Wagenaar and Toomey, lowering the legal drinking age leads to 4.74 more deadly alcohol- related car accidents in the evening hours for each group of 100,000 young adults in a year (Carpenter and Dobkin). These results led states to rethink the overall consequences that occurred from lowering the MLDA which was followed by the ratification of National Minimum Drinking Act of 1984. This law stated that all U.S. states had to set their MLDA at 21 or they would be forced to relinquish 10% of the money they are given to support highway maintenance and construction (Toomey).

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The pure thought to get caught by the police or your parents is frightening to teens or underage drinkers and that 's why people use binge drinking. Binge drinking is defined as excessive amounts of alcohol consumed in a short period of time. Teens do this because when your illegally drinking you don 't particularly have a lot of time to drink so you just do it as fast as you can to use the time you have with your friends to get wasted but to be home before curfew. Many accidents and deaths have happened because of binge drinking, and we could lower the chances of binge drinking by lowering the legal drinking age to 18. The effects alcohol takes on the brain is the only “downside” to lowering the drinking age, but if used responsibly it 's not that big of a problem.

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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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