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Minimum Legal Drinking Age Analysis

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The article from Journal of Health Economics introduces the impact of minimum legal drinking age laws on alcohol consumption, smoking, and marijuana use. The abuse of alcohol is coming with healthy issue and some considerable spillover effects such as risky behavior, criminal activity, and alcohol related traffic injuries and fatalities. The regulation on alcohol availability in the lower the minimum legal drinking age from 21. The opponents of the MLDA of 21 argue that the age limit encourages young adults under age 21 to consume alcohol in an irresponsible manner and that lowering age would help young adults to learn how to drink gradually, safely. Many studies have investigated the effect of the MLDA law on alcohol consumption. However, …show more content…

And comparing outcomes across youths with similar income, educational levels, and other observed individual characteristic, but significant different levels of alcohol use. As the result, young adults just over 21 tend to increase their alcohol consumption more evenly by drinking on more days but consuming much less alcohol on drinking days, this effect is insignificant. The result indicates that the effect of MLDA on alcohol consumption among teens is not persistent in the long run. And after 21st birthday, the average number of drinks consumed per day starts to decrease immediately. The estimate also determines the relationship between alcohol consumption and smoking and marijuana use which complements the existing literature. According to the output, MLDA of age 21 to reduce drinking among young adults may have desirable impacts and can create public health …show more content…

Most of these studies have investigated of the changes in the MLDA that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s at the state level. However, there might be some selection biases the research faces, since states where a lower MLDA was imposed might be different in unobserved ways than those states where the MLDA of 21 was enforced. There are some unobserved characteristics that are correlated with drinking behavior such that state level alcohol consumption trends may also be associated with the MLDA law itself. If these unobserved biases at the state level are correlated with drinking behavior, then we cannot directly estimate a consistent effect of the MLDA on alcohol consumption by employing the simple changes of the MLDA law at the state level. The random discontinuity approach used in this paper alleviates this shortcoming by removing the bias from unobserved policy

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College Presidents Seek Debate On Drinking Age Summary

490 Words | 2 Pages

In the article “College Presidents Seek Debate on Drinking Age” the issue of lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 is strongly discussed by college presidents and various organizations and Universities. Even though both parties agree that alcohol abuse in colleges is an extensive problem in schools around the country, college organizations are debating with lawmakers to lower the drinking age. With the intention to reduce driving accidents and deaths due to alcohol abuse, the drinking age was elevated to 21, creating the rejection of many college students and administrators in the country. Lowering the drinking age to 18 would not have much impact in the attitude of young people since there is no much difference in maturity in 3 years. This statement is supported by a Duke University sophomore from Singapore, where the drinking age is lower.

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When the government decided to lower their drinking age from 20 to 18 years old in 1999, they correctly predicted that there would not be an increase in alcohol abuse because many teenagers already drank alcohol they obtained illegally from adults (ICAP, 2002.) This supports the philosophy that it is better and healthier to allow young people to drink at a lower age so that their habits can be controlled, and that this can be done without increasing dangerous behavior. Statistics from around the world also suggest that a decreased legal drinking age creates healthier drinkers in the long run. A study on the percentage of people older than 15 years old with an alcohol use disorder reveals that 5.48% of Americans are affected, compared to 1.07% of people in Spain and 0.5% of people in Italy (WHO, 2004). Analyzing this data shows that the rate of alcoholism is significantly lower in countries including Spain and Italy where the drinking age is lower, likely because citizens drink responsibly throughout their entire lives.

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Why The Drinking Age To 21 Is Working Essay

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According to the chart, most of the drinking is being done by teens. The chart depicts that only a small amount of youths wait until they are legal to start drinking. Lowering MLDA will encourage and increase the amount of drinking among young teens. It will also lead to an increase in risky behavior which will have dire consequences for youth. “Letting younger people drink is giving immature citizens more of the ability to make bad decisions that not only affect themselves but can also be very harmful to others”.

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However, “90% of drunk driving deaths in the United States were found in the over 21 age group” (Gruenewald). For this reason, drunk driving is not directly correlated with the drinking age. In addition, the percent of drunk driving deaths in the United States has reduced at a slower rate than European countries where they have their legal drinking age at eighteen. This suggest that if lowering the drinking age was a success in Europe, it may also be effective here in the United States to diminish the amount of drunk driving deaths. This is because people that become injured due to alcohol or alcohol poisoning are afraid to report their injuries to the hospital or authorities out of fear of illegal consequences for underage drinking.

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1599 Words | 7 Pages

"In general, the younger people start to drink the safer they are," said Heath, who has written several books and hundreds of scholarly articles on cultural attitudes towards alcohol. When introduced early, he said, "Alcohol has no mystique. It's no big deal. By contrast, where it's banned until age 21, there's something of the 'forbidden fruit' syndrome." and if the United States has learned anything from not letting people drink it is that it does not last very long and that the citizens always find a way around the system and break the laws like how gas stations still sell alcohol to minors just like most gas stations sell cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, dip, chaw, chew, chewing tobacco, vapor cigarettes, hookah, hookah pens.

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978 Words | 4 Pages

But while it has succeeded in that, it is also believed that tougher rules, such as DUI rules and seatbelt safety rules have also played a part in this decrease. However, this higher drinking age hasn’t reduced drinking, its only “driven it underground,” Gabrielle Glaser states in her NY Times article. It has been driven underground to the riskiest settings, high school parties and frat parties that are unsupervised. This age raise segregates the drinking away from adults that can model moderation in drinking. If an 18-year-old high school senior is shown by his/her parent(s) how to drink responsibly and in moderation, I believe that it would greatly help in reducing the chance of making bad decisions by overdoing it, such as driving while drinking.

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733 Words | 3 Pages

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Teenagers have been purchasing alcohol with fake ID cards, getting into bars and clubs, and drinking liquor illegally for years. Lowering the minimum legal drinking age to 18 would be a helpful and effective step in stopping binge drinking and encouraging the enjoyable act of consuming alcohol, reducing traffic accidents, and allowing those in the 18-to-20 year old age

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“In 2015, 2,333 teens in the United States ages 16–19 were killed while under the influence and 221,313 were treated in emergency departments for injuries suffered in motor vehicle crashes in 2014” (“Motor Vehicle Safety”). This statistic brought up the real debate of should the legal drinking age remain 21. To some people the legal drinking age should remain 21, and that its the smart thing to do for our society. On the other hand some people think that the drinking age should be lowered to 18 because people think that once you turn 18 your mature enough to start drinking. The drinking age should remain at the age of 21.

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1278 Words | 6 Pages

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785 Words | 4 Pages

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827 Words | 4 Pages

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1693 Words | 7 Pages

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903 Words | 4 Pages

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