Changing The Drinking Age To 18 Essay

Lowering the Drinking Age to 18 in the United States While it may seem to some, drinking at age eighteen is frowned upon. It is actually true that many people between the ages of 18 and 20 drink alcohol illegally without any sense of guilt. On July 17, 1984, a law was established in the United States that impacted a large number of America’s youth. The indicated law was the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. Legal drinking ages were originally determined by each state. Many states kept the age at twenty one, but several lowered the age to eighteen. The bill was created and required, “all states to raise their minimum drinking age to twenty one within two years or lose a portion of their Federal-aid highway funds; and encourage States, through incentive grants programs, to pass mandatory sentencing laws to combat drunk driving” (Koroknay-Palicz 1)
One main argument displayed by defenders of this law is that it will help keep
At the age of eighteen, a teenager is given the rights of any adult automatically with the exception of being allowed to drink alcohol and a few other minor things. Eighteen year olds are given the right to vote, to sign a contract in their name, to enlist in the armed forces without parental consent, to apply for credit under you’re their own name, get married to their significant other, and etc. Having the right to do these things makes it clear that an eighteen year old is mature enough to make life altering decisions. Many people ask, “Why are these ‘adults’ not allowed to drink alcohol until the age of twenty one?” People believe that the answer to this question is that having the minimum drinking age at twenty one will save lives and prevent people under the age of twenty one from drinking. If this law is actually doing what it was expected to do, anyone can look and see if raising the drinking age to twenty one helped any of the problems stated