Drinking an excessive amount of alcohol can severely affect the development of adolescent brains. Alcohol is particularly harmful to pubescent teens. Research shows that the adolescent brain develops mostly between the ages of 12-24, in this time period if alcohol is absorbed it can harm the brain development. Professor Ian Hickie the executive director of Sydney’s University of Brain and Mental research institute has stated ‘New research in neuro-science tells us that the brain continues to develop right through until the late teenage and early adult period, Particularly in young men it may not reach adult maturity till the mid twenty’s’ in saying all this, raising the drinking age would be an effective way to help to carry out the full development of adolescents and young adults brains. This is just one of the many reasons that the alcohol legal age should be lifted to twenty-one years.
If the drinking age is raised to twenty-one the amount of alcohol related deaths and injuries will be reduced in the population of preteens and