Drinking Age Should Stay At 21 Essay

Research shows that brain development continues well into a person’s twenties. Alcohol can affect this development, and contribute to a range of problems. About 4,358 people under the age of twenty one die each year from alcohol related incidents. Drinking can also cause people to make poor decisions and very risky behavior. Drinking before the brain (the temporal lobe) is fully developed affects the judgement making process, I believe that the national drinking age needs to be raised from twenty one to twenty five; however the drinking age shouldn’t legally stay at twenty one. Many people believe that drinking before the age of 25 doesn’t harm them whatsoever, but the effects are huge. Drinking before twenty five can damage internal organs like the heart and liver and can cause the heart to go through cardiomyopathy. Cardiomyopathy is the heart not being able to pump enough blood to to the organs causing severe damage. Drinking causes the liver to get “fatty” which makes the liver more vulnerable to dangerous inflammation, at a young age with heart and liver problems. Giving people the right to do this to their body at such a low age shouldn’t be allowed to stay legal, it leaves long term effects that can stay with them for the rest of their lives. The …show more content…
Underage drinking has been pushed to less controlled environments and having the age set at the age of adulthood gives underage drinkers less motive to drink before the legal age requirement. “18 is the age of adulthood in the United States, and adults should have the right to make their own decisions about alcohol consumption” however, it would be medically irresponsible to let them drink so early in development, the legal drinking age is now set at twenty one, which is still before full development of the body, and lowering this legal age to eighteen poses an even greater risk towards teens and young