Explain Why The Legal Drinking Age Should Remain 21

869 Words4 Pages

Dalilah Arroyo
ENC1101
Prof. Marc Love
November 6, 2014

The legal drinking age should remain 21

The debate of changing the laws on legal drinking age has become one of many controversial issues over the years. Everyone’s perspective on the legal drinking age is different than one another. The problem is not lowering or raising the legal drinking age , because no matter what the law is going to be broken in that aspect. In today society there are more young drinkers than older drinkers, and that can be …show more content…

Media and advertising for alcohol is everywhere, and is also to blame for kids drinking so early. The advertisements starts with lack of supervision of adults in the childhood going into adulthood and that can be a problem in their future. Depending on the environment raised in by the time young citizens reach adulthood they would already have an idea of what alcohol is. In my opinion I think lowering the drinking age would be irresponsible and would possibly increase the possible chance of more drunk driving death rates in the United States.
Although at the age of eighteen is when you are legal to vote, to marry, and smoke your first cigarette (legally). I still think consuming alcohol is a huge responsibility. I don’t think at that age alcohol should be made legal especially if the individual is starting to learn responsibility. A person's brain does not stop developing until in their twenties. During this period, alcohol negatively affects all parts of the brain, includcognitive and decision-making abilities as well as coordination and memory. Lowering the drinking age would have dangerous long-term consequences. Early teen drinkers are not only more susceptible to alcoholism but to developing the disease earlier and more quickly than others. According to usnews.com the neurotoxic effect of excessive alcohol use is a danger to these key regions of the maturing adolescent brain. I understand that in other countries such as Mexico the law …show more content…

Doing my research on livescience.com setting the legal drinking age to 21 has saved about 900 lives yearly on the road per year. Also teen drinking and driving rates have dropped by 54 percent over 20 years, and the biggest declines were seen between 1982 and 1995. The legal drinking age of 21 has proven to save lives by reducing negative effects in people who consume alcohol legally here in the United States. It also has proven to reduce the risk of drunk driving and decreasing violence involving alcohol, and has proven to deliver a positive