Reasons For Lowering The Drinking Age

Drinking may not be the flashiest activity to some, but it is often seen as a way to “prove” your matureness and/or you being an adult. However, the United States government recognizes that a person becomes an adult at the age of eighteen. Enabling those of that age to vote, buy lottery tickets, buy cigarettes, sign up for the military, gamble, buy a car, take out a loan, rent an apartment, pay their own taxes, be recognized as independent from their parents, and so on. On the contrary, alcohol consumption is not a “right” received until you reach the age of twenty-one. Why? Well, there are scientific, fiscal, as well as maturity reasons behind this, but is this helping the “minors” not consume, or is it promoting them to drink illegally just …show more content…
I chose this one because I wanted to see what the major reasons were to not lower the drinking age in a quick and condensed location. One of the most startling reasons to not lower the drinking age is because it is “medically irresponsible” to drink before the age of twenty-one. This is because it is believed that a person’s frontal lobe, which controls emotion, planning, and problem solving, is “restrained” in that development slows down drastically (Drinking Age ProCon.org). It is then, consequently, results in: “greater vulnerability to addiction, dangerous risk-taking behavior, reduced decision-making ability, memory loss, depression, violence, and suicide” (Drinking Age ProCon.org). There is a reason that this example is number one on the reasons to not lower the drinking age, and it is because it is the most significant. We learned in HBS class that the large frontal lobe is one of the greatest aspects in a person; it is what sets us apart from animals. The ability to make decisions and have reason is extremely important, and shouldn’t be deterred from if possible. However, since this is not a scientific-based website, even though it is an .org website, it may not be super accurate, or provide legitimate reason behind the argument about how drinking effects frontal lobe …show more content…
I chose this source because I wanted to include how other cultures and regions of the world approach their drinking regulations and how effective their methods are. This chapter talks about how in other countries when alcohol is exposed to the youth as a practical practice, it creates a more responsible response to alcohol. Heath talks about how in America, drinking is viewed as a “risky act”, however in Europe, because children are introduced to alcohol at an early age, they are more likely to be responsible than those who have to drink illegally (Heath). He goes on to specifically target why protecting children from alcohol is bad, and only encourages them to show off their maturity by drinking (Heath). The last point that Heath makes is that when the youth drinks illegally and in “hiding”, it is more likely that they will: “drinking too much and/or too fast”, leading to serve complications due to the lack of knowledge on how to drink (Heath). Only in wet cultures can this knowledge be appropriately taught for the youth (Heath). This source does a good job of showing the positive side of exposing the youth to drinking at a younger age. It focuses upon the positives that result from teaching the youth how to drink responsible and correctly; although, the source does not even mention any