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Lowering The Drinking Age To 18 Essay

821 Words4 Pages

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. lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 years in all states could increase the number of suicides in the 18- to 20-year-old population by approximately 125 each year. Decreasing the drinking age can make some young adults to become sad and depressed and they end up having suicidal thoughts, which then increases the number of suicides every year. …show more content…

Newly-legal drinkers often purchase alcohol for their underage peers, creating a "trickle-down" effect. Surveys show that the most common source of alcohol among 18- to 20-year olds is their 21- to 24-year-old peers.Binge drinking peaks among 21- to 25-year-olds at 45.9%, while the binge drinking rates of those aged 12-17, and 18-20 are 35.7% respectively. Allowing 18 year olds to purchase and drink alcohol can make it way easier for middle schoolers. and high schoolers easy access to alcohol because the 18 year old can purchase it for them and give it to them. Just like how people buy guns and give it to a felon who are not allowed to have gun

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There is a stigma that if the drinking age is lowered there would be motor vehicle accidents and more health problems. Lowering the drinking age to 18, would help eliminate the thrill of breaking the law on drinking until able to drink at 21. Since drink is not allowed, many young adults will hide and drink in basemnets, dorm rooms, home, etc, to hide the fact that they drink. This leads them to drink as much as they can in a short amount of time which is not healthy. In a New York Times article by John Cloud (2008), in many other countries but the United States at 28 you are considered legal to do things such as adopt a child, or vote.

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They looked at the youth suicide rates of states with a MLDA of 18-20 and compared it to the youth suicide rates in states with a MLDA of 21 years old. After looking at the results of the time series of the different states, the results showed a large association between the legal drinking age and youth suicide. Between 1970 and 1990, states with a legal drinking age of 18-20 experienced an 8% higher rate of youth suicide than the states with a legal drinking age of 21. Based off of these results, it was concluded that lowering the minimum drinking age would increase the youth suicide rate, with their estimate of 125 more per year. (Birkmayer, 1999).

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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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It can cause depression and he or she can develop criminal behavior which can lead to death. It has been shown that when the drinking age is lowered teens increase drinking. When Arizona lowered their age to nineteen, teenage drinking increased by thirty-five percent. Car accidents have been known to come from alcohol and research has proven that with the age being twenty-one, suicides, DUIS, and crime rate have decreased

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Underage drinking happens in the United States because it is not hard for an underage person to obtain alcohol. A study shows that 48.4% of people from the ages of sixteen and seventeen have tried alcohol and 52.2% of people between the ages of eighteen to twenty have tried alcohol (Reboussin, 2006). This shows the availability of alcohol to adolescents even with laws aimed to prevent this. This same study asked the questioned sample if they believed that most of their peers in the community drank alcohol and 72.7% answered yes. This stat represents that sixteen through twenty year olds know that they have easy access to alcohol.

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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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Why should we allow 18 year olds to be able to drink if there minds and bodies are still developing? There are no safe drugs, alcohol is one of those drugs that is dangerous to the people’s health (Tamura). Science has proven that starting to drink at a younger age affects education and traffic accidents. This essay contains only a few of the many side effects of lowering the drinking age to 18.

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Having the legal drinking age set to 21 has not stopped teens from drinking. Although adults drink more often than people under twenty one, when underage drinkers do drink they drink a lot more than adults. This is because it is harder for people under twenty one to obtain alcohol. The United States government should consider lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18. Teenagers in the United States are no strangers to irresponsible drinking.

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When it comes to drugs, many people fail to use them within limits, in spite of their knowledge and education. Since alcohol is one of the easiest drugs to access, it has become a popular aspect of social life in America. It does not seem as harmful as illegal drugs at a superficial level, but in reality, alcohol is very dangerous. The drinking age should not be lowered to eighteen to stop underage dangerous drinking because it will likely result in an increase of sexual assaults, car crashes, and brain damage in the adolescent. First of all, reducing the drinking age would mean that women are more likely to be taken advantage of and abused sexually.

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With our culture today, teenagers are in the habit of over drinking at whatever chance they get. Many high schoolers are seen illegally getting alcohol and having to consume all of it in order to not get caught with it. This practice is extremely dangerous and can lead to serious health repercussions. In the US over “150,000 students develop health-related problems from drinking”(Hall 1). This shows how serious the problem is today and is partly due to the drinking age.

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If the drinking age is lowered, these risks will only increase in young adult because they are not still fully developed. Having an early onset of alcohol consumption also can lead to an increase of health issues both physically and mentally in young

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If the drinking age was lower, Americans could drink in moderation with guidance from trusted adults. This matters because the Amethyst Initiative’s 130 college presidents say that since drinking underage is illegal, teens drink in private places with no supervision or guidance in drinking safely (b). This causes about forty percent of teens and students to develop bad drinking habits by the time they get to college according to Bret Sokolow, president of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management (f). The legal drinking age should be lowered to eighteen because it is the lowest legal adult age. Young adults can take this opportunity to learn how to live and drink

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416 Words | 2 Pages

Imagine the effect it would have on teenagers. This is why the alcohol age should not be lowered from 21 to 18. First of all, underage drinking is risky and unsafe, and that’s a no-brainer. Studies indicate that when the drinking age is 21, those younger than 21 drink less and continue to drink less through

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1118 Words | 5 Pages

Young adults from the ages twelve to twenty drink eleven percent of the alcohol consumed in the United States of America. Even though the youth may not drink as often as adults do when the young adults do consume alcohol they can drink a lot more. “The reason this happens is that more of the youth consumes more than ninety percent of their alcohol by binge drinking”(NIH)! Kids start at an early and become alcoholics and have a higher chance of dying sooner than the usual. I feel like if we drop the age limit for drinking, we will see a lot more binge drinking, alcoholics, and either now or later our average age for life will drop lower.

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827 Words | 4 Pages

In some countries, like in Europe the drinking age is set at 18. Even though people in the US think this is insane, this set age has more positive effects than people think it would. It is known that binge drinking is a problem in the US since it has the highest rate in the world for binge drinking. In Europe, teenagers get their license at age 18, and some drinking ages are lower than that, they figure out how to control their drinking before the drive. Unlike in the US, kids drink and then drive because they either have to be home by curfew or they are too scared to call their parents for a ride, and admit they had been under the

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