Controversial Issues: Lowering The Drinking Age

Improved Essays
Controversial Issue: Drinking Age According to a recent poll, over 135 U.S. colleges have signed the petition to lower the drinking age to eighteen. It is common fact that majority of college students consume alcohol on a weekly bases. Although many believe that anyone under the age of 21 is prohibited from consuming alcohol in the United States, underage drinking is allowed in eleven states for educational purposes, twenty-nine if done on private property with parental consent, in sixteen for medical purposes, and twenty-six states for religious purposes. The controversy of lowering the drinking age has been and still is a major debate within our political system. The drinking age should in fact be lowered for several reasons, which are but …show more content…
This reasoning still stands valid because in fact, it can be debated that the reason many teenagers drink illegally is because of the concept of rebellion. By lowering the drinking age, less and less young adults will have the urge to drink. In a News Weekly article, Jeffrey A. Tucker made a claim that “The drinking-age law would surely be a winner in a competition for the least obeyed law. The notion that this law is accomplishing anything to actually stop or even curb teen drinking is preposterous. Instead, we see all the unintended effects of Prohibition: over-indulgence, anti-social behavior, disrespect for the law, secrecy and sneaking and a massive diversion of human energy.” It is very common amount college students to consume alcohol for social gatherings even if that student is under the age of twenty-one. Fewer crimes would be committed as well because there would be no need to obtain the alcohol illegally. It is becoming more common to purchase “fake ideas”, so essentially by lowering the drinking age, identity fraud would be lowered as …show more content…
In the case of lowering the drinking age, the argument that can be made is that a person is too young to drink at the age of eighteen and is not mature enough. Although understandable, this argument appears invalid because of reasons previously mentioned. A person is old enough to live on his or her own, or even get married, than he or she is mature enough to handle the consumption of alcohol. Another argument could be that alcohol leads to violence, therefore should not be consumed by young adults. This too is false due to the fact that violence with the consumption of alcohol is most commonly seen between middle-aged men rather than young adults. Although opinions can be created on why the drinking age should remain twenty-one, the argument clearly isn’t strong enough not to change it to eighteen years

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Alan Greenblallats

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Setting the drinking age to 18 will make 18 year olds feel more comfortable and responsible drinking without having the thought that they are doing something wrong. McCardell, a former president of Middlebury College, says the problem is, “... That underage kids don’t actually consider themselves underage”. (Greenblatt, 13) 18 is the age where people start taking things more responsibly and having to go behind the law to drink, when they can make authoritive decisions, does not help them to be more comfortable. One may defend that 18 is not a good age to start drinking because they will not be responsible with it. “The people who are advocating going down to 18 should ackowledge that they’re willing to risk an extra thousands death per year and double that number of injuries”.…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This fact leads to a bigger desire of the under aged students to consume alcohol and they too got the opportunity to get it from the older students. Lowering the drinking age in this case may not affect the number of people consuming alcohol, but it would affect the amount of alcohol drank by under aged drinkers, because if an eighteen year old does not know when he will be consuming alcohol next time he will be drinking as much as he can that if he gets trouble he gets it for a reason. The Dartmouth study of 2007 shows this relationship, by the fact that in the last month less underage people consumed alcohol in the States, than in Europe, but when they drank they drank more than people in European…

    • 862 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    For these reasons, they suggest the drinking age might be lowered. MADD and others, however, argue against lowering the drinking age, noting that…

    • 161 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The argument of whether the legal drinking age should be lowered has been in great opposition. According to Brandon Grigg’s article “Should The U.S Lower Its Drinking Age”, published in CNN. A 2007 Gallup poll found that 77% of Americans opposed lowering the drinking age in all states to 18. I'm in favor of that and believe that lowering the drinking age will result in more harm than good.…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    People think that it will be worse if the age is lowered because they think teens of ages 15-17 will than start drinking. A teen with the age of 15-17 years of age are commonly surrounded by parents or, can be easily identified anywhere. Finally, this country has a lot of different cultures. Alcohol is influenced in some of the European cultures. In Italy, wine is served with dinner to the whole table.…

    • 1707 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    If the legal drinking age were to be lowered, young adults below the age of eighteen would more than likely still show defiant behavior. Those who are eighteen years of age could still be attending high school, therefore having an influence on those seventeen and under. These students would be able to have access to alcohol and most likely binge drink when it is available to them. Therefore lowering the legal drinking age can not be supported by these…

    • 1819 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    colleges and universities around the united states think that the drinking age should be lowered to 18. they said it should be lowered because they think that outlawing alcohol for 18 year olds is making the problem worse. these colleges and universities say that allowing alcohol consumption at the age of 18 might decrease the death rate from alcohol. If you are over the age of 18 you are considered an adult and have to act like one. If you look at the countries that have the drinking age at 18 then you would see that there is less accidents, less parties, no students are leaving their classes to go get drunk because when it is lowered to 18 than no teenager has to hide it.…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hence, these types of behaviors usually affect the society causing leading to dysfunction within the community. Also the “trickled-down effect,” known to sociologist, is another reason why the age should not be lowered. This effect would only allow the eighteen year olds to purchased alcohol to their even younger counterparts. Therefore allowing even younger teens to have access to…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Also a lot of deaths can be prevented from consuming too much alcohol if the age is lowered because there are laws in some states that prevent anyone who partakes in underage drinking and reports their medical problems to authorities will not be punished. This would motivate underage drinkers to seek aid instead of getting injured or…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Although 18 year olds are considered adults, some think that they are still not mature enough to make to correct choices about alcohol. Those who think that keeping the drinking age at a higher minimum are trying to keep the demand for alcohol down and are also trying to keep the roads safer from drunk drivers. People between the ages of 18 and 20 will have just started college for the most part and don’t need alcohol interfering with their studies and their ability to succeed in life. Condoning the drinking of newly formed adults would only cause chaos and cause more fatalities. To MADD the cost of drinking outweighs the benefits since the highest numbers of fatalities in the United States are due to alcohol related deaths.…

    • 1057 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A reason why people may think the drinking age should be lowered is they believe that someone underage will binge drink because they never know when they will be able to drink again. Binge drinking is when you drink a lot at one time and usually in excess. A study conducted in the United Kingdom showed every country had significantly higher levels of binge drinking then the United States. The only country lower than the United States is Turkey, where the Muslim country forbids alcohol use. The use of alcohol available to minors will introduce it more into high…

    • 1073 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Teandrya Harris 5/7/15 Eng-112 In today’s society the government has a strict policy against underage drinking. On July 17, 1984 The National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed by the United States Congress. This act permitted anyone under the age of 21 to purchase or consume any alcohol in all 50 states. This act has had quite an impact of over the years on America’s youth.…

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Drinking age should be lowered to the age of 18 There is no taboo subject in America quote like underage drinking. The principal problem is not the age of drinking, but the hidden binge side of it. When it comes to the law, there is always an opinion. A reform should be made about the age of drinking for numerous reasons in my personal viewpoint.…

    • 1092 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When a person wants to settle down from a long hard day or week they tend to grab a drink and relax. Eighteen year olds should be able to enjoy the pleasurable activity with others and not be denied. Lowering the drinking age could also help the economy in the long run by increasing revenue. Stated in the article, “Minimum Legal Drinking Age Pros and Cons” (2014), “Revenue would increase for private business owners, and greater amounts of tax revenue would be collected by the government.” (p.1).…

    • 1198 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In contrast, lowering the alcoholic drinking age from 21 to 18 will irresponsibly allow a greater segment of the population to drink alcohol in bars and nightclubs. Raising the alcoholic drinking age decreases drinking among young people, it promotes fewer dropout rates and protects adverse birth outcomes, and alcohol drug dependence. Truly,raising the alcoholic drinking age is an effective law that protects young people…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays