Drinking Age Should Be 18 Essay
When you turn 18 you are old enough to fight and die for your country, vote, purchase cigarettes and get married. But at your wedding you wouldn't even be able to participate in your own champagne toast. Some adults like to say that you aren't mature enough or physically able to handle drinking until you are 21.When you are 18 you are judged mature enough to vote, hold public office, serve on juries, serve in the military possibly die for your country, fly airplanes, sign contracts and so on. Why is drinking a beer an act of greater responsibility and maturity than flying an airplane or serving your country at war? The truth is that its not. Your body and mind improve all through out life. A 21 year old is different from an 18 year old,
…show more content…
just as a 41 year old is different from a 38 year old. Youth Prohibition activists ignore the fact that maturity is a gradual but uneven process that continues throughout life and is not complete on one's twenty-first birthday. Moreover, they ignore the proven medical fact that the moderate consumption of alcohol is associated with better health and greater longevity than either abstaining or abusing alcohol. The simplest way to prove this argument is for you to look in your medicine cabinet or go to the drug store. Every single over the counter medication defines an adult dose for ages 12 and up. Not 21, but 12. If the FDA can determine that a 12 year old is developed enough to have an equal dose of Tylenol, Sudafed, Dramamine, or Zantac 75, then an 18 year old is developed enough to have a glass of wine with dinner. Alcohol, a substance which is considered extremely harmful to young adults, really isn't that bad and it even has its benefits. In Arthur L. Klatsky's Drink to your Health, he describes the benefits of alcoholic consumption, as it is in some ways, beneficial to the human circulatory system. Beer in fact has been found to contain ingredients in which are highly beneficial for the strengthening of the human bone structure. In an article in Health & Medicine Week, it shows how minor alcoholic consumption can help to prevent heart disease, among other diseases. This, along with many other studies taken has already proven the fact that the consumption of alcohol can be beneficial. Why then, does our government prevent its youth from enjoying some of the benefits of alcoholic beverages? After all, it is well known that young adults suffer from unusually high levels of stress.
If nothing else, they should have the right to relieve themselves from the many stressful situations they suffer from. Alcohol can potentially cause problems for all people. This is a fact and it doesn't matter if your 21 or not. If a person wished to ban alcohol for the entire population equally, there really would be no reason to stand in their way. Wanting or believing that the drinking age should be lowered doesn't mean that you are "pro-alcohol", rather it makes you "pro-youth" because the main thing is that you find it hypocritical that adults point their finger at youth while holding a beer in the other hand. It is time we recognize, and discuss the truth about alcohol rather than creating a young scapegoat for society to blame their alcohol troubles on. Through education, gradual entry, and a relaxing of strict no-use policy towards youth will make drinking safer for people of all ages. One of the most misguided facts out there was that raising the drinking age saved about 20,000 lives though drinking and driving fatalities. This is an over used statistic that is circulated and usually not stated completely by the Youth Prohibitionist movement. The truth is as researchers Peter Asch and David Levy put it, the "minimum legal drinking age is not a
significannot
-or even a perceptible-factor in the fatality experience of all drivers or of young drivers." In an in-depth and unrefined study Asch and Levy prove that raising the drinking age merely transferred lost lives from the 18-20 bracket to the 21-24 age group. The problem with the 20,000 lives saved statistic is that it looks only at deaths for people aged 18-20. This is like rating the safety of a car by looking only at the seat belt and ignoring the fact that the car frequently tips over while driving. Raising the drinking age may have reduced deaths 18-20 but resulted in more deaths among people 21-24. In the United States, the decision was made in 1987 to raise the drinking age to 21. While there is clear evidence of a reduction in road traffic deaths among young people since the change of the drinking age, there is no hard results that show that the new drinking age was solely responsible for that reduction. The decrease in road traffic deaths can be partially attributed to things such as stricter traffic laws, changes in the economy and attitude of the general population, and the enforcement of seatbelt laws. Based on statistics gathered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, from the years 1987 through 1996 when alcohol-related traffic deaths for people under 21 reduced by 43%, the alcohol-related deaths to the general population also decreased by 28%.One major difference between alcoholic consumption laws in the United States, and Europe, is that many countries in Europe allow their youth to buy and consume alcoholic beverages at a relatively low age. A statistical analysis taken from the German government shows that the percentage of German population involved in traffic fatalities caused by alcoholic consumption was extremely low, whereas the legal drinking age in Germany is only 16 years old. The United States however, with its drinking age of 21, has a relatively high percentage of alcohol related traffic fatalities. Logically, the United States government should lower the drinking age to increase the maturity levels of its youth, and to introduce knowledge of the effects of alcohol at a younger age. To prove that a lower drinking age is not detrimental, other countries have lower drinking ages and sometimes none at all and these countries have very few problems with drinking. In a study done by the International Center for Alcohol Policies of 65 major countries, 50 have a minimum drinking/purchasing age of 18 or under. Five countries from this case study have no minimum drinking age, and only five others have a MDA of 21. These countries are Belarus, Egypt, Honduras, Ukraine, and the United States. However, things are not always this cut and dried in other countries. In the United Kingdom, for example, the minimum purchasing age and the minimum drinking age are 18. However, children over five may consume any alcoholic beverage in their home with parental consent. In this way, alcohol becomes part of the culture in the U.K. and decreases the problems related to binge drinking among teenagers and young adults. Binge drinking is actually a large problem for American highschoolers and collage students. Many students before they go out "pregame", which means to drink before going to the party a normal pregame for most would be to have 3 or 4 beers or 5 or 6 shots. This amount of alcohol introduced to the body that fast usually leads to alcohol poisoning. Then while at the party they drink a lot do to peer pressure, the need to drink to get rid of the evidence or just because they enjoy drinking and don't know when they can drink again so they drink as much as possible. This leads to another good point as to why the drinking age should be lowered. If it was 18 the majority of now underage drinkers would be able to drink at a bar or restaurant which would reduce the number of unsupervised parties in the basements, the uses of beer bongs, and even the number of alcohol poisoning cases and alcohol related deaths. There would be less reckless and unsafe parties if you could go to a karaoke bar or a pool hall no need for a beer bong because there would be other activities and games to participate in and other ways to drink. There would also be less alcohol poisoning because bartenders no when to cut you off can tell you when you should have something to eat, they break up any fights that could break out do to being drunk and insist you take a cab home so you don't drive drunk. Lowering the drinking age would also stimulate the economy because not only would more people be buying beer and liquor but more people could gamble in casinos because the only reason you cannot now is because they serve drinks on the casino floors. My final reason that it should be lowered is that when you are told you can't have something you just want it more so telling people under 21 especially the 18-21 bracket that can do basically everything except run for president that they cannot drink will just make them want it more which means when they do have opportunity to drink they will drink as much as possible have 8 or 9 beers rather then the 2 or 3 they may drink if they were allowed to have a drink whenever they wanted. And that is why I think the drink age should be lowered to 18.
just as a 41 year old is different from a 38 year old. Youth Prohibition activists ignore the fact that maturity is a gradual but uneven process that continues throughout life and is not complete on one's twenty-first birthday. Moreover, they ignore the proven medical fact that the moderate consumption of alcohol is associated with better health and greater longevity than either abstaining or abusing alcohol. The simplest way to prove this argument is for you to look in your medicine cabinet or go to the drug store. Every single over the counter medication defines an adult dose for ages 12 and up. Not 21, but 12. If the FDA can determine that a 12 year old is developed enough to have an equal dose of Tylenol, Sudafed, Dramamine, or Zantac 75, then an 18 year old is developed enough to have a glass of wine with dinner. Alcohol, a substance which is considered extremely harmful to young adults, really isn't that bad and it even has its benefits. In Arthur L. Klatsky's Drink to your Health, he describes the benefits of alcoholic consumption, as it is in some ways, beneficial to the human circulatory system. Beer in fact has been found to contain ingredients in which are highly beneficial for the strengthening of the human bone structure. In an article in Health & Medicine Week, it shows how minor alcoholic consumption can help to prevent heart disease, among other diseases. This, along with many other studies taken has already proven the fact that the consumption of alcohol can be beneficial. Why then, does our government prevent its youth from enjoying some of the benefits of alcoholic beverages? After all, it is well known that young adults suffer from unusually high levels of stress.
If nothing else, they should have the right to relieve themselves from the many stressful situations they suffer from. Alcohol can potentially cause problems for all people. This is a fact and it doesn't matter if your 21 or not. If a person wished to ban alcohol for the entire population equally, there really would be no reason to stand in their way. Wanting or believing that the drinking age should be lowered doesn't mean that you are "pro-alcohol", rather it makes you "pro-youth" because the main thing is that you find it hypocritical that adults point their finger at youth while holding a beer in the other hand. It is time we recognize, and discuss the truth about alcohol rather than creating a young scapegoat for society to blame their alcohol troubles on. Through education, gradual entry, and a relaxing of strict no-use policy towards youth will make drinking safer for people of all ages. One of the most misguided facts out there was that raising the drinking age saved about 20,000 lives though drinking and driving fatalities. This is an over used statistic that is circulated and usually not stated completely by the Youth Prohibitionist movement. The truth is as researchers Peter Asch and David Levy put it, the "minimum legal drinking age is not a
significannot
-or even a perceptible-factor in the fatality experience of all drivers or of young drivers." In an in-depth and unrefined study Asch and Levy prove that raising the drinking age merely transferred lost lives from the 18-20 bracket to the 21-24 age group. The problem with the 20,000 lives saved statistic is that it looks only at deaths for people aged 18-20. This is like rating the safety of a car by looking only at the seat belt and ignoring the fact that the car frequently tips over while driving. Raising the drinking age may have reduced deaths 18-20 but resulted in more deaths among people 21-24. In the United States, the decision was made in 1987 to raise the drinking age to 21. While there is clear evidence of a reduction in road traffic deaths among young people since the change of the drinking age, there is no hard results that show that the new drinking age was solely responsible for that reduction. The decrease in road traffic deaths can be partially attributed to things such as stricter traffic laws, changes in the economy and attitude of the general population, and the enforcement of seatbelt laws. Based on statistics gathered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, from the years 1987 through 1996 when alcohol-related traffic deaths for people under 21 reduced by 43%, the alcohol-related deaths to the general population also decreased by 28%.One major difference between alcoholic consumption laws in the United States, and Europe, is that many countries in Europe allow their youth to buy and consume alcoholic beverages at a relatively low age. A statistical analysis taken from the German government shows that the percentage of German population involved in traffic fatalities caused by alcoholic consumption was extremely low, whereas the legal drinking age in Germany is only 16 years old. The United States however, with its drinking age of 21, has a relatively high percentage of alcohol related traffic fatalities. Logically, the United States government should lower the drinking age to increase the maturity levels of its youth, and to introduce knowledge of the effects of alcohol at a younger age. To prove that a lower drinking age is not detrimental, other countries have lower drinking ages and sometimes none at all and these countries have very few problems with drinking. In a study done by the International Center for Alcohol Policies of 65 major countries, 50 have a minimum drinking/purchasing age of 18 or under. Five countries from this case study have no minimum drinking age, and only five others have a MDA of 21. These countries are Belarus, Egypt, Honduras, Ukraine, and the United States. However, things are not always this cut and dried in other countries. In the United Kingdom, for example, the minimum purchasing age and the minimum drinking age are 18. However, children over five may consume any alcoholic beverage in their home with parental consent. In this way, alcohol becomes part of the culture in the U.K. and decreases the problems related to binge drinking among teenagers and young adults. Binge drinking is actually a large problem for American highschoolers and collage students. Many students before they go out "pregame", which means to drink before going to the party a normal pregame for most would be to have 3 or 4 beers or 5 or 6 shots. This amount of alcohol introduced to the body that fast usually leads to alcohol poisoning. Then while at the party they drink a lot do to peer pressure, the need to drink to get rid of the evidence or just because they enjoy drinking and don't know when they can drink again so they drink as much as possible. This leads to another good point as to why the drinking age should be lowered. If it was 18 the majority of now underage drinkers would be able to drink at a bar or restaurant which would reduce the number of unsupervised parties in the basements, the uses of beer bongs, and even the number of alcohol poisoning cases and alcohol related deaths. There would be less reckless and unsafe parties if you could go to a karaoke bar or a pool hall no need for a beer bong because there would be other activities and games to participate in and other ways to drink. There would also be less alcohol poisoning because bartenders no when to cut you off can tell you when you should have something to eat, they break up any fights that could break out do to being drunk and insist you take a cab home so you don't drive drunk. Lowering the drinking age would also stimulate the economy because not only would more people be buying beer and liquor but more people could gamble in casinos because the only reason you cannot now is because they serve drinks on the casino floors. My final reason that it should be lowered is that when you are told you can't have something you just want it more so telling people under 21 especially the 18-21 bracket that can do basically everything except run for president that they cannot drink will just make them want it more which means when they do have opportunity to drink they will drink as much as possible have 8 or 9 beers rather then the 2 or 3 they may drink if they were allowed to have a drink whenever they wanted. And that is why I think the drink age should be lowered to 18.