Minimum Drinking Age

Superior Essays
Small town, Saturday night, midnight… high school teens bring the booze to the biggest party around. The problem is it’s illegal and it’s an addiction. Alcohol consumption of young adults seems to be an everlasting issue at hand, but the negative effects of underage drinking are obvious to see. The U.S. Congress “passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984, establishing 21 as the minimum legal purchase age” for a reason. (“21 Legal Age” 1) As underage drinking often causes health issues and risks of drinking & driving in today’s society, the United States government should maintain the minimum drinking age at 21 years-old as opposed to lowering it.
In general, alcohol consumption of any age is unhealthy and dangerous, but more so
…show more content…
Over and over schools try to advocate that alcohol intake under 21 is bad and harmful, but kids still partake in it. “Schools are torn on whether to ban alcohol or introduce ‘safe’ drinking habits.” (“Liberating a Drinking Culture” 2) The school knows the law so why don’t they figure out a way to show kids to abide by it? Furthermore, schools need to show these kids they aren’t missing out on anything. Alcohol can ruin students ability in the classroom. So “schools must show students how to live a good life, full of healthy relationships and learning-and free of the notion that liquor is a liberator.” (“Liberating a Drinking Culture” 2) Education is one of the most important aspects in our society. So lets educate the youth on something so simple about why the law is what it is. College may be a more mature school experience, but it still doesn’t mean underage drinking is okay. Source A is a political cartoon that refers to the fact that students don’t see the issue with drinking and they will do anything to get alcohol no matter what age. They will use literally any excuse, in this case to help studies, to get the legal age changed. If education starts sooner and the legal drinking age is sturdily kept at 21 instead of lowering it to 18, then the issue at hand would …show more content…
There’s just one thing… driving and drinking at the same time don’t mix! Driving takes 100% attention or the chance that yourself or another person getting injured or even killed is highly likely. The facts say that “every day, almost 29 people in the United States die in alcohol-impaired vehicle crashes- that’s one person every 50 minutes in 2016.” (“Drunk Driving” 1) This is because teenagers have trouble making fast decisions while intoxicated. Drinking and driving is as dangerous as it sounds. Mothers Against Drunk Driving states that every two minutes a person is injured in a drunk driving crash. “If students are driving back from parties and not driving sober, there is a high chance that they or someone else will get injured.” (Fox 2) Students under the age of 21 are unable to control their judgement in situations like this. If this is the case, maybe the law should be enforced stronger. Usually when an act is destructively repeating with damage it’s put to a stop. So what’s the real question were asking? Well “how many times do we read in the news where someone gets behind the wheel of a car, gets in a wreck and kills themselves and/or others? It happens more than it should.” (“21 for a Reason” 2 ) If the drinking age is lowered, drunk-driving accidents will significantly increase and so will the deaths of teens and innocent victims. A few weeks ago at school, Save a Life Tour

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In her Article, “Lower the Drinking Age Back to 18: We Don 't Have Students Teach Each Other to Drive, Why Is Alcohol Different?” Elizabeth Glass Geltman describes why the legal drinking age should be reduced from 21 to 18. According to Geltman, both students and parents alike feel the frustration of the law; parents aren’t able to lawfully educate their children and students aren’t able to responsibly know their limits. The article comes after one University chose to ban hard liqueur on campus rekindling the age old debate. Between those that oppose and those that support the law, the topic appeals to a reader’s logos, pathos, and ethos in a variety of ways.…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Drunk driving deaths have actually steadily decreased in the past thirty years (CDC “Teen Drinking and Driving”). As many people argue that lowering the drinking age is fatal, lowering the drinking age could have the potential to save lives (CDC). Lowering the age would reduce the amount of people that become injured due to alcohol or die by alcohol poisoning because people fail to report their condition to the police or the EMT’s out of fear of legal consequences for underage drinking. Currently, in many states there are laws protecting those people who report alcohol poisoning; nevertheless, not many people are aware of these laws. Most people don’t report alcohol poisoning because they don’t want the word to come around to their parents.…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    By allowing young adults to legally purchase and consume alcohol, it would be easier to educate them about safe and responsible drinking practices. Instead of resorting to underage drinking in uncontrolled environments, 18-year-olds can learn how to consume alcohol in moderation and understand the potential risks associated with excessive drinking. Lowering the drinking age would shift the focus from prohibition to education, which could lead to better outcomes in terms of public health and safety. Another important aspect to consider is the potential economic impact of lowering the drinking age.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Binge drinking, the consumption of an excessive amount of alcohol during a short period of time, is a very dangerous situation that many college students participate in before going out to a party because of the fact that they cannot legally purchase alcohol while they are out. Abba argues that If the drinking age were lowered to 18, the majority of college students would be able to purchase alcohol while out, lessening the pressure to have to get drunk beforehand. This would also give students the ability to spread out their alcoholic intake throughout the night and allow them to drink in more controlled environments with security present. While this point is quite accurate it does not completely solve the problem at hand, instead, it just would encourage the consumption of alcohol. College students are not the only underage people that choose to drink, in fact, a study found that 25 percent of eighth-grade students, 40 percent of tenth-grade students, and 53 percent of high school seniors have consumed alcohol(Marcovitz).…

    • 1635 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Age doesn’t make a difference in Drinking Under the Influence (DUI) accidents or fatalities of drinking behind the wheel. In fact, there are absolutely no correlations between the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) being 21 in America versus other places, such as Italy, that have a MLDA of 18 and lower. Furthermore, multiple studies taken everywhere have noted that moving the imbibing age to 18 years does not have an impact of deaths relating to alcohol besides DUI’s, such as Alcohol Poisoning. Concluding that if the MLDA was to be moved down to a lower age, we would gradually start to avail the economy with its debt issues only furthermore due to more people of an age group drinking.…

    • 1128 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Lowering The Drinking Age

    • 2045 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Alcoholism, death from alcohol poisoning, and drunk driving are problems that exists in today’s world. Most if not all of these problems involve minors and can be linked to drinking underage. Every state in the union has a legal drinking age of twenty-one years old. The purpose of this law is to keep minors out of danger: away from drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, and injuring the brain before it is fully developed. Unsafe situations are created by the current laws by it’s ineffectiveness to eliminate underage drinking, driving while drunk, and deaths from alcohol poisoning.…

    • 2045 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Lowering the drinking age to 18 would cause even more drunk driving. People age 16 to 20 are 17 times more likely to die in a vehicle crash when they have a blood alcohol concentration of .08 percent than when they have not been drinking alcohol. Keeping 21 the minimum legal drinking age has prevented teen drinking and…

    • 1284 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For our first lecture, we are going to discuss lowering the drinking age. Think about this, all of you kids can vote, drive a car, fight for our country, and even fly a plane at age 18, so why shouldn 't you be able to legally drink alcohol? Admittedly, alcohol may cause harmful effects on your body and brain while under the age of 21, but prohibiting the sale of alcohol to responsible young adults causes a huge increase in college campus drinking, raises the…

    • 1174 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the past years there been teenagers that have zero tolerates and brings worries of getting caught drinking or worse. The drinking age of 21 has driven student partying to less public, and thus more dangerous, venues. To avoid being caught drinking illegally, students frequently party off campus. With less oversight from adults, heavy drinking, brawling, and sexual misconduct are more likely to occur. These prohibitions or laws make use not wait and makes teenagers more likely to do bad decision it causes more of us to be immature because of the worries of not getting caught drinking.…

    • 1100 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sixty –one percent of the countries in the world set their minimum legal drinking age at eighteen or nineteen. In my opinion, the legal drinking age in…

    • 514 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Proponents of lowering the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) from 21 argue that it has not stopped teen drinking, and has instead pushed underage binge drinking into private and less controlled environments, leading to more health and life-endangering behavior by teens (“Drinking”). Binge drinking is defined as consuming large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. Binge drinking is very common with people under the age of twenty-one because anyone underage cannot drink publicly, so they drink at house parties and other private areas. It can lead to extremely dangerous situations that can be life-threatening and can result in the need…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Binge Drinking Essay

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages

    By lowering the legal drinking age, young adults would be able to learn about the responsibilities and effects of alcohol at a younger age. With the many views and opinions people have on the matter of alcohol, there is no way to come to a conclusion on what is considered “right” or what is considered “wrong.” However, the United States must find a way to keep the abuse of alcohol among college students under control, or these problems will continue to grow and become…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This showcases how politicians take interest in teen drinking in which judgement is ultimately swayed by the people that give them money. Ironically, the main reason to legalize underage drinking or even considering the issue should be based solely on the safety of those within drinking age. Reid also mentions how we try to wait until teens are responsible enough to use alcohol to legally be able to consume it; however, letting teenagers start drinking earlier lets them become more responsible. Reid argues that all those in favor of leaving the drinking age at twenty-one are trying to protect teens from their downfall.…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Second, the minimum drinking age of 21 reduces deaths associated with alcohol. “Underage drinking is a leading contributor to death from injuries, which are the main cause of death for people under age 21” (“Underage Drinking” National Institutes of Health). “Over 300,000 deaths have been prevented as a result of reductions in alcohol-impaired driving, more than the reduction attributed to increases in the use of safety belts, airbags, motorcycle, and bicycle helmets combined” (“Rebecca (Beckie) Brown, 1940-2012”). Death does not only result when drinking and driving, but alcohol unintentional injuries. Researchers found that “1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor-vehicle…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Drinking Age Trend

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Currently, the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) starts at 21. Established in 1988, this law has not only saved over 25,000 lives, but also the number of auto-related accidents for 18-20 year olds decreased by 13% (Procon.org). Restricting the legal drinking age at 21 and up prevents the trend of car crashes from shifting downward. Besides a decrease in car accidents among new adults, a MLDA of 21 will also save many lives. Furthermore, if the US lowered the legal age to 18, the trend of traffic accidents will lower in age, and consequently, auto-related deaths and fatalities…

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays