“Teen alcohol use kills 4,700 people each year - that’s more than all illegal drugs combined” (Hingson) more teens are killed by one of the commodities that the most people do. Everyone makes a big deal about how our kids are overdosing on drugs and are doing gateway drugs that will lead to hard drugs, but yet all those combined don 't account for the death toll of alcohol. Why is that? Some would say it is because alcohol is so harmful and abusive to the human body. Others would argue that the reason is because there is no safe way to do it. Kids want to drink so they go out in the woods, over to a buddies house when his parents are gone, or any way to do so without being able to be seen in public. Then when that kid has …show more content…
With all the tickets fines and laws made and given out for underage drinking it still happens in large quantities. The 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that among high school students, during the past 30 days “33% drank some amount of alcohol, 18% binge drank, 8% drove after drinking alcohol, 20% rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol.”(Kann) How are we going to say we are protecting our kids when this is what we find out is being done in high school students alone. What do we think those numbers would be in college when kids have friends over 21, they don 't have parents present, they have extreme stress, and they are just now finding out what freedom feels like. These kids are not drinking in some place they can all spend the night they are not all at a safe place to stay and or crash, so they have to have a way to …show more content…
If the drinking age was 18 parents would also be more open and accepting to kids drinking at those ages even if they still live at home. How is a frat brother going to drink when he comes home from college when his parents don 't approve? If at the age of 18 you can join the military, you can sign papers for yourself, and you can choose to smoke or do tobacco products (which account to even more deaths and health issues than alcohol). How many parents actually know their kids drink “About one in seven teens binge drinks, yet only 1 in 100 parents believe his or her teen binge drinks” (Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality). So if the kids parents don 't know how are kids doing it? If you binge drink you are not driving, you are not calling your parents to pick you up, so how are kids getting away with it? There are few safe way to get away with this currently illegal action that is part of adolescents