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Persuasive Essay On Lowering The Drinking Age

588 Words3 Pages

The United States has one of the highest drinking ages in the world, yet more than 70 percent of teens have consumed alcohol at least once in their life. There are more and more fatalities from alcohol and many believe this problem has to do with the legal drinking age. In a way it is kind of strange that at eighteen years old a person can join the military and be trusted to defend our country and take a bullet, yet they cannot be trusted to drink alcohol. At eighteen years old that is the age where a child becomes an adult; they can vote, purchase tobacco, and join the military not to mention other things. Alcohol is always going to have the same effects on people, no matter what age after a person is intoxicated they are not the same. So it seems like many of …show more content…

The U.S. has had a history with alcohol, with prohibition and stuff, not to mention one of the highest drinking ages around the world. The legal drinking age used to be dependent upon the state you were in; so different states had different ages, though they were very similar. In the 60s and 70s the ages were lowered in many states which resulted in more and more alcohol related fatalities amongst automobiles. This makes it seem as though lowering the drinking age actually caused more fatalities, which yes, it did directly, but indirectly the laws need to be taken into account. Today if a person is caught driving while under the influence; they will get a DUI, which is very bad. Back then and even fifteen years ago the laws were not nearly as strict and it was almost acceptable to drive after drinking. Shortly after all these deaths were starting to be noticed and the national drinking age was raised to twenty one. The amount of teenage drinking incidents fell significantly and as time went on stricter laws were put in place to insure teenagers do not drink. This seems almost ironic because nearly 70 percent of teens have consumed

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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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Over the years, there have been debates about lowering the drinking age in the United States to eighteen. People argue that if a person can fight in the military or vote in elections, then he or she should be allowed the right to drink alcohol. Others feel that it is not wise to lower the legal drinking age because the results would be dangerous. Although there are arguments for lowering the drinking age, there is also an abundance of research that proves lowering the drinking age would be destructive. The legal drinking age should not be lowered to eighteen because it will give high school and even middle school students greater access to alcohol, interfere with brain development, adult rights begin at twenty-one, and increase traffic accidents among the youth.

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