Pros And Cons Of Lowering The Drinking Age

There are many factors that go into the decision making of whether the drinking age should be lowered or not. Many different arguments take place but the main argument discussed is that at age eighteen, citizens are allowed to fight for their country but when they return from war, they are not allowed to have a drink with their friends. Others argue that the brain is not fully developed at age eighteen and the alcohol consumed can injure the brain. The question everyone is asking is, would lowering the drinking age be beneficial or cause more issues? Evidence has shown that by setting the drinking law age to twenty-one has actually been beneficial. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administrator has estimated that about 900 lives

When minors drink, they do so with less intensity and less frequently. They also are more cautious by getting a designated driver or knowing their limits. People may think the laws are unjust because at age eighteen, people are able to vote and join the military, but the government must think about the safety of the people rather than fairness. At age eighteen, the government now labels teenagers as young adults. This means they have more privileges and responsibilities. However, people at age eighteen have not yet been allowed all their privileges. The age to buy a gun is twenty-one, and the age to rent a condo when going on vacation is almost always twenty-five. It’s not until twenty-five that people acquire all their rights, and because the ages are scattered, they decided to make the drinking age twenty-one. President Reagan signed a law that made the drinking age go from eighteen to twenty-one back in 1984. Between 1982 and 2007, the rate of alcohol related car accidents among eighteen to twenty year olds has dropped sixty percent, yet the related car accidents between twenty-one to twenty-four year olds has only dropped forty-four percent. However, in 1988, the trend lines for these two groups has began to depart

Hall is a college professor at the University of Tampa that sees how her students change throughout the year because of alcohol. Hall explains how at eighteen, her students are faced to make life changing decisions everyday with alcohol. Every year about 2,000 students die from alcohol related injuries. In some cases, rape and sexual assault occur because alcohol was in the picture. About twenty-five percent of students reported that their drinking is the cause of them skipping class and failing exams which leads to poor grades. Even more serious than students failing is their health begins to get extremely bad. About 150,000 college students develop these health related problems due to drinking (Hall). In 1984, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act required all fifty states to lower their drinking age or be faced with a ten percent decrease in federal funding for their highways (Hall). This may seem like a good idea but in fact instead of helping the states with the safety of the people, the government decided to push the states to inhabit this new law. And just because they prohibited it, doesn’t mean that the market for it disappear. However, it does in fact make underage drinking a lot less safe. College students are now doing their drinking secretly in fear of getting caught, fined, and possibly going to jail or even messing up their education. This is exactly why the law should be changed to eighteen years old. No matter what, college students are going to