Lowering The Drinking Age Essay

One proposed solution to this problem is lowering the minimum legal drinking age(MLDA) to 18 years old. To many, this may seem like a counterintuitive idea but, research has shown that it might just work. In fact, lowering the drinking age might actually lead to less drinking among 18-20 year olds as they would be drinking in establishments such as bars and restaurants instead of in fraternity houses and at college parties, where binge drinking is more likely to occur. When drinking has to be hidden there is a greater incentive to drink as much as possible because it might be weeks before the next big party, but when drinking is something that can be done whenever one pleases just by going to a restaurant, it is much more likely that college

It’s not going to go away any time soon, even if it is illegal. In fact, according to a study published by the US National Library of Medicine, “42% of [college]students in a nationally representative sample report[ed] having had five or more drinks in a sitting within 2 weeks.”(5) The study also found that college students, for the most part, found alcohol “easy to obtain” and that the 18-20 year old students were actually drinking more on average than the students that were actually legally allowed to drink.(5) This is because of a college culture that promotes binge drinking at parties and other private gatherings where alcohol can be had illegally with almost no risk of legal repercussions. Because of this, people want to see the drinking age lowered to 18 years old. This way college students would be allowed to go to a bar and have a few drinks in a public and supervised space. They would be less inclined to binge drink at private parties as they could legally obtain alcohol whenever they liked and therefore would end up being safer. In a public environment, such as a restaurant or bar, the pressure and need to drink a lot is much less and therefore college students wouldn’t end up drinking themselves to death. Overall, the idea is that if college students can’t be stopped from drinking alcohol, they should at least be allowed and encouraged to engage in this drinking in a safer environment; in these places they can better learn to drink alcohol responsibly without the risk of killing