Legal Drinking Age

Lowering the Drinking Age The U.S. has the drinking problem. The young people, especially the college students, drink in excessive ways that have dangerous and damaging effect. Many people say the best way for combat this problem is to keep the Minimum Legal Drinking Age, or the MLDA, for 21 years and older adults. They argue the worst thing is to encourage more young people to drink alcohol because this will cause more risky behavior and even more deaths, as from traffic fatalities. Of course, it is not positive trend for young people to drink the alcohol. But the reasons to change MLDA from 21 to younger age are not to say to the youth that they should be having the alcohol. In reality, there is problem because the young people
In U.S., high school students are drinking. Studies show majority start before having 21 years. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services records the statistic of 72 percent of Americans aged 18 to 20 report they used alcohol in the last year (Muhlenfeld par. 4). The public know about this problem. As Jessica Ogilvie states, “It 's no secret that people drink alcohol before they turn 21. Stories about binge drinking on college campuses and alcohol-fueled high school parties are as easy to find as the Facebook photos that document them” (par. 1). Second of all, attempts to stop the drinking behavior for the young people on college campus have not been success. Instead, college students do some of the most dangerous drinking. B.G. Fitzpatrick and fellow research team documents how much they are drinking these days on campus, and concludes “Heavy episodic drinking (HED) is generally conducted in private, among peers, and college students engage in the behavior in much higher proportions than do other young adults” (par. 1). Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, herself a college president, talks about how sad consequences of this behavior. She
Jeffrey Miron and Elina Tetelbaum talk about research that was comparing fatalities from accidents in states that changed MLDA from 18 to 21 as independent action and the states that made MLDA of 21 law because of FUDAA. There was big difference, with the states that made the MLDA of 21 in independent way having big life-saving change at time of law but other states having very little change (par. 7-8). Miron and Tetelbaum conclude, “The results are striking. Virtually all the life-saving impact of the MLDA21 comes from the few early-adopting states, not from the larger number that resulted from federal pressure” (par.