The Pros And Cons Of Binge Drinking

Frat parties with kegs, red solo cups, and a bunch of drunk college students running around making awful decisions; this list is full of things one could find at a college party. The college party scene is one that tons are familiar with from movies and TV shows or experience. The depiction of a college party is always glorified, full of consequence-free fun. What is often forgotten is the massive amount of danger and the repercussions of the binge drinking that these college students are taking part in. According to the Addiction Center, around two out of five college students reported binge drinking at least once in the previous two weeks (“Binge Drinking”). Binge drinking is defined by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

The conversation has been going back and forth for years. The drinking age has had a long and inconsistent road throughout America’s history. After prohibition ended in 1933, the minimum drinking age began to rise and fall pretty rapidly (Daniloff). Prohibition is a time in American history when drinking alcohol was illegal for people of all ages. The legal drinking age was twenty-one immediately following prohibition. The twenty-one year old drinking age remained until the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam war, the drinking age was lowered to eighteen (Daniloff). By the seventies, the legal drinking age varied greatly from state to state. In 1984, Ronald Reagan and the government took the side of Mothers Against Drunk Driving(MADD) and forced every state to change their legal drinking age to twenty-one (“Should the Drinking”). If a state did not change their drinking age, then they would suffer a large cut to their transportation budget. Today, the drinking age remains twenty-one in all fifty states. Some believe that the drinking age should remain twenty-one while others think that lowering the drinking age to eighteen provides the brightest outlook for the

The problem that the United States deals with is not the same in other countries; numerous countries do not struggle with binge drinking among college students the way the United States does. The United States has the highest drinking age among developed countries, consequently they also have the biggest problem with college students binge drinking. Many countries have successfully implemented a lower drinking age and have proven that this method works (Wax). In these countries that have lower drinking ages, college students are able to drink casually without worry of being caught and punished. In America, students are forced to binge drink. Because they need to make sure they do not get caught with alcohol, they must drink every bit that they obtain as soon as they receive it. Being forced to be in dangerous situations to avoid legal trouble is something that nobody should be compelled to go through. Something must be done to stop the massive amounts of binge drinking that happens between college students. What is being done now is not