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Keeping The Drinking Age Essay

821 Words4 Pages

If our country already experienced a lower drinking age and it’s terrifying impact on people’s lives, why would we want to experience it again? The minimum legal drinking age is one of the most researched laws in the United States today. The minimum legal drinking age should stay at the age of 21. There are many different reasons and facts to support the idea of keeping the drinking age the same, which include binge drinking in colleges, alcohol use in other countries, and drunk driving statistics. One of the reasons the United States is looking to lower the drinking age is the problem of binge drinking in college. Discussing college life, the topic of parties and booze is often talked about. But do people always consider the affect alcohol …show more content…

“According to the MADD website, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that the law has saved about 900 lives a year” (Cary 15). If you figure the math involved out, the law has saved over 29,000 lives. The United States’ original purpose in lowering the requires age was to improve the number of drunk drinking people and crashes involving alcohol, which at the time the legal drinking age was 18 years old. The minimum legal drinking age of 21 law influenced the decrease of alcohol-related accidents containing citizens under the age of 21 (Saylor 331). The drinking age is saving lives, why would we change it? Drunk driving has decreased over the years and became less of a problem. “Laws making it illegal for someone under age 21 to purchase or possess alcohol have led to an 11 percent drop in alcohol-related traffic deaths among youth. From 1988 to 1995, alcohol-related traffic fatalities for youth ages 15 to 20 fell by 47 percent” (Degutis 3). Since the minimum legal drinking age was changed to 21, the results of drunk driving have lessen. The law is the only thing keeping the old problem from happening

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Pros And Cons Of Drinking Age To 18

627 Words | 3 Pages

Imagine a world where you drive to work, have a fiance, vote for your government, and possibly have to go to war, but you aren’t old enough to have alcohol. In case you’re living under a rock, this is the world you are living in right now. In 1984, congress passed the Drinking Age Act. This act made all state 's minimum drinking age 21.

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Pros And Cons Of Lowering The Drinking Age 21

539 Words | 3 Pages

So one time when my parents and I are going for a drive, there was a man who zoomed passed us and was driving like crazy. For instance innocent people could have gotten hurt by drunk drivers. Indeed Minimum Legal Drinking Age 21 decreased the number of fatal traffic accidents for 18-20 year olds by 13%. This saved approximately 27052 lives from 1975-2008. When the age for drinking age is 21 or older this can save a lot of people in so many ways possible.

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Military Drinking Age

974 Words | 4 Pages

Whether it’s a college student or someone in the military, underage drinking is a serious problem and lowering the drinking age to 18 would only allow these problems to grow at a much faster rate, including those in the military. More and more teens would die from the effects of drinking alcohol and mixing it with their lives. Lowering the drinking age to 18 would not only affect the drinkers, but also those around them and even those who are not even born yet. The overall cost of lowering the drinking age outweighs the benefits. There is already so much being lost both in dollar value and in human value with an estimated 36 billion dollars being lost and over 13,000 lives lost (Testorff 3).

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Persuasive Speech: Lowering Drinking Age

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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Minimum Legal Lowering Age

888 Words | 4 Pages

Although some say lowering the minimum legal drinking age, or MLDA, will only cause more underage drinking and harm the adolescent brain, the MLDA should be lowered to 18 because the legal age of adulthood is 18, and lowering the legal drinking age will cut down on underage drinking, increase responsible drinking, and decrease drunk driving accidents. In Illinois, teenagers get a permit one year before they can legally drive a car on their own, this teaches responsibility and accountability while driving, so why do we not learn how to drink responsibly? Why, on our 21st birthdays do we all go out and get so blackout drunk that our friends have to carry us home? The issue here is that teens are not taught how to drink responsibly so there

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Essay On Lowering The Drinking Age

388 Words | 2 Pages

Underage drinking is a gigantic problem in the world we live in today, especially in the age range of 17-20 year olds. It is caused by teens wanting to be “cool” and have a sense of “freedom”. But lowering the drinking age would destroy a MLDA ( Minimum Legal Drinking Age) age that has been set at the age of 21 that since 1933. As a consequence, reports from 1970 show that there were more teenage car accidents due to setting the MLDA lower than 21. So not only would lowering the MLDA destroy the MLDA that has been since 1933 but also cause tragedies all over the USA.

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Arguments Against Lowering The Drinking Age

738 Words | 3 Pages

It has instead pushed underage binge drinking into private and less controlled environments, leading to more health and life-endangering behaviors by teens. If the legal drinking age was lowered, those teens would be able to drink in a more controlled and much more safe environment where they can be monitored and supervised. Then they will be less likely to harm themselves or others. The second argument that is used is that there are fewer drunk driving accidents in countries with lower drinking ages. In quite a few countries around the world, the legal drinking age is already 18.

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Essay On Lowering The Drinking Age

595 Words | 3 Pages

In the 1970s, the drinking age had been lowered to 18, in all 50 states, due to demand and influence by other states. This had increased the drunk driving rate by 30% and during this time, it caused the highest drunk driving accidents in a lot of the American history (Issues & Controversies). This isn’t something that needs or wants to be repeated by lowering the drinking age once again. To start, one reason to not lower the drinking age is it could increase the chances of drug use. If the MLDA was lowered from 21 to 18 it would cause people to irresponsibly drink in nightclubs, not be as safe when in this environment, and could also easily increase the risk of drug use (Procon).

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Essay On Why The Drinking Age Should Stay At 21

733 Words | 3 Pages

“If the legal age were lowered in the US it would have to come with much more education in this area, not just the shock-value of Every 15 Minutes” said Ulrike Skillman, math teacher at Saugus. Skillman suggests the lowering of the drinking age will have to come with more alcohol education and that is the exact purpose of a “drinking license.” Which would allow 18 year olds to consume alcohol, with strict regulations, then take classes to officially receive a “drinking license” at 21 years old. The license would replicate a driver’s license, but be geared toward consuming alcohol.

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Drinking In Religion

769 Words | 4 Pages

This law changed to 21 because all states would “lose a certain percentage of federal highway dollars” (“Frequently Asked”). Not only that but the rates of excessive drinking went up, along with drunk driving. Driving alone is hard enough, especially if the person is a new driver, but add alcohol and there is a very deadly mix. Being able to legally drink at the age of “21 decreased the number of fatal traffic accidents for 18- to 20-year-olds by 13% and saved approximately 27,052 lives from 1975-2008” (“Should the Drinking Age”). Since there have been less drunk driving accidents when the minimum age for drinking changed to 21, it is a safer environment if the drinking age is left at 21 instead of being

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Essay On Lowering The Drinking Age

1070 Words | 5 Pages

Lowering the drinking age: risky or safe? When teenagers turn 18, they are told that they are adults and are sent into the world. They go to college, get a job, marry or join the military. They do grown-up things like vote, pay taxes and become parents, but they can 't go to the bar for a beer.

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Essay On Why The Drinking Age Should Be 18

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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Persuasive Essay: Should The Drinking Age Be Changed?

619 Words | 3 Pages

Not only has lowering the drinking age lowered to death rates but its also changed to lives of many. The legal drinking age should not be lowered because of all the aspects that its has already improved. There is no point in fixing something that isn't broke. Changing the legal drinking age should not be changed because it doesn't lower binge drinking, it helps with traffic deaths, and also lowers other acts of risky behaviors. One of the points that has been clearly stated is binge drinking and how if its was legal then people such as college students wouldn’t be faced with the temptations of it, but binge drinking was a problem before the legal drinking age was changed to twenty-one (Deguits 3).

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Pros And Cons Of Underage Drinking

763 Words | 4 Pages

With 21 as the minimum drinking age studies have shown there have been more lives saved from drunk driving accidents.” This law has saved over 18,220 lives in 1975-1998” (Karen Arnold-Burger 50). Now why does less drinking driving accidents occur when drinking

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Argumentative Essay: Lowering The Drinking Age

1300 Words | 6 Pages

Across the country, college students participate in an illegal activity known as underage drinking. The drinking age in America is an ongoing debate of whether it should be kept at 21, or reduced to 18. While some believe lowering the drinking age would make drinking for young kids safer, others presume the opposite. According to Alexis Aguirre, a journalist at the Texas State University Star, “The legal drinking age should be lowered to 18. Once 18, a person is legally considered an adult and should be able to drink.”

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