Minimum Drinking Age
The Minimum Drinking Age Should Remain at 21
INTRODUCTION:
Imagine a man who is in his mid-forties, he has a nice house and nice car, with 2 beautiful children, ages 14 and 18. He is one of those parents who has done everything and anything for his kids, as any parent would. He has gone through all the hard times of raising them and taking care of them, and they are almost on that brink of becoming adults. Then one Friday night, he gets a call at 2:45 in the morning. It’s the police. They start off with “We regret to inform you….” And proceed to tell him that his 18-year-old son, the one who had just mowed the lawn earlier that day and taken out the trash, his pride and joy, was now dead. They say the cause of death was that he had been drinking, …show more content…
and proceeded to drive home anyways. He swerved off the road into a tree just one mile from the house. The devastation that follows this tragic news is something that no one should have to go through. Unfortunately, this exact situation has happened, and continues to happen. Since 2013, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), has reported that 27% of fatal car crashes, in Michigan, are due to drivers with a BAC of over .08 and were operating the vehicle while drunk. Underage drinking is very harmful for the body, including the brain, liver, heart, and kidneys. In order to reduce DUI, keep teenagers healthy, and reduce deaths from drinking and driving, the minimum drinking age should stay at the current age of 21.
BACKGROUND
First, some background for why the law for minimum drinking age was first created.
From when the United states first became an independent country, there was no national drinking age, anyone could drink at any age until 1919, which is when the prohibition was put into place. The prohibition was the 18th amendment to the US Constitution, which did not allow anyone of any age to drink at all in the US. That amendment was not very popular with citizens and in just 10 years, the 21st amendment of the Constitution was ratified and therefore ended the prohibition. Most states at this time decided what the drinking age should be for their respective territories. The majority of states had the age at 21, however there were still a few that had it at 18. This stood for about 30 years, until the late 1960’s. At this time, almost all states lowered the drinking age down to 18, and it went horribly. There was a large spike in alcohol related car accidents, and driving while under the influence was, scarily, close to the norm. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), 60% of all traffic fatalities were alcohol related and approximately two-thirds that occurred with people between 16 and 20 years old. So, in 1984, Ronald Regan signed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which was a law that required all states in the United States to change the minimum age to 21, if it was not already there. Some states did not agree with this and decided to keep it there, figuring there was …show more content…
nothing the President could do. They were wrong and it showed quickly, the President threatened states who hadn’t moved the age back up to 21, that they would cut the federal highway funding by 10%. No state could withstand this cut and try to maintain and replace and fix road with this cut, so that effectively got all states in the US to the minimum age of 21, and it has been there ever since.
PHYSICAL/MENTAL PROBLEMS
Alcohol in excess and/or frequent doses can cause life threatening, long term problems. It causes damage to the liver, kidney and effect the brain in limiting response times and the triggers that occur in the brain. The top cause of death in America from drinking is cirrhosis of the liver, which is when alcohol sits in in your liver for an extended period of time, it scars the inside of the liver and causes damage and wear and tear on the liver. The liver takes alcohol, and turns it into a nontoxic substance, which takes some time. This down time of sitting in the liver is what causes these problems. Alcohol can also damage the pancreas. Alcohol can sometimes cause the pancreas to produce toxins to break down the alcohol that cause the pancreas to not function properly and block it from doing its job of producing insulin to break down sugars. Also, drinking can cause the pancreas to become inflated, which can create problems with your digestive system as it also regulates the metabolism and aids with digesting food. To stay with digestive problems, approximately 20% of alcohol is absorbed in the stomach, and most of the remains are absorbed in the small intestine, where it is then transferred to the liver. Negative effects of alcohol depend on the age, size of the person, gender, and consumption levels, but age is the most important factor of these categories. There is a reason that the drinking age is 21: The effects on the body are only amplified and stronger for someone who is underage, as you are still developing physically and mentally. Your brain is the most important part of your body, hands down. It tells your heart to beat, tells you to move, to react, to think, and also to speak. Your brain is a complex organ that is one of the last parts in your body to stop developing and growing. The way alcohol affects the brain is by altering the neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers that send messages to your body that control behavior and memory if enough alcohol is consumed. By drinking, you are literally killing neurotransmitters that relay signals to control your body, and it can cause memory loss.
PHSYCOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
Drinking at a young has been shown to increase the likelihood of developing psychological problems later on in life. “Young people are also particularly vulnerable and there is a strong empirical link between alcohol use and suicidal ideation, suicidal attempts and completed suicides amongst people under the age of 24. In 2002, 716 15-24 year olds in the UK committed suicide, with many thousands more contemplating or attempting it and it is estimated that one third of suicides amongst young people are committed whilst the young person is intoxicated. Young men are particularly at risk: suicide is the biggest single killer of young men aged under 35 in the United Kingdom. In 2002 there were 5,882 suicides of which 1,515 were young men between the ages of 15 and 34, as opposed to 380 women between the same ages” (3). It shows that by underage drinking, there are more suicides and more attempts at suicides due to drinking. The younger we lower the age, the more teens there will be who try and end their lives. Another direct correlation that occurs with underage drinking is depression. “At least two thirds of alcohol-dependent individuals entering treatment show evidence of anxiety, sadness, depression and/or manic-like symptoms. Over a 12-month and lifetime basis, alcohol dependence and major depression co-occur in the general population at levels higher than chance. Similarly, amongst those in the general population who drink alcohol, higher volume of consumption is associated with more symptoms of depression. Among patients in treatment for alcohol abuse and dependence, the prevalence of major depression is higher than in the general population60. Higher prevalence of alcohol use disorders has been documented for patients in treatment for depression” (3)
Not only does underage drinking affect the brain in mental health, it affects it in school.
DRINKING AND DRIVING
There are lots of misconceptions about what the differences are between a DUI and a DWI. A DUI is driving under the influence, and is when you drive with a blood alcohol limit (BAC) of over the legal limit, which in the majority of states is .08. A DWI is pretty much the same thing as a DUI in terms of driving with a BAC over the limit, but when you get prosecuted for a DWI, the consequences are much worse. These results are things like jail, confiscation of your license, and alcohol treatment; while DUI is usually just loss of license for a shorter amount of time and probation. On average there are 900,000 people arrested per year for DUI/DWI and a third are repeat offenders. One way that we can fix the repeat offenders problem is by making them pass a breathalyzer to be able to start the car. This system has been implemented in the past, and it has been successful. There has been research done and statistics found, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, that by the minimum drinking age, post being lowered and then re-raised back up to 21, has saved approximately 18,000 lives on the highways. There have also been other studies done that have caused a 19% decrease of fatal crashes of young drivers. MADD has recently come out and said the minimum drinking age at 21 has been saving on average around 1000 lives per year.
MOVES PROBLEM YOUNGER PEOPLE
If we were to lower the minimum age that is legal to drink down to 18 for example, the problem of underage drinking will not go away, that problem will just be shifted down to an even younger generation. There will be kids, even younger than the current general age group that underage drinks, who will begin. Will they start at 16? 13? It would make the access to alcohol so much easier for younger kids, just making the problem worse. Kids don’t know what is good for them and what is bad for them, they just want to have fun without thinking of the consequences.
BINGE DRINKING/COLLEGE
What is binge drinking? “For adults, binge drinking means drinking so much within about 2 hours that blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels reach 0.08 g/dL, the legal limit of intoxication. For women, this typically takes about 4 drinks, and for men, about 5. But, according to recent research estimates, it takes fewer drinks for children to reach these BAC levels” (1). College is a huge time for underage drinking. For many people it is their first time and in most cases, the first time is also the most dangerous. I have had experience in dealing with people who have drank for the first time, and they do not know their limits. When you first start drinking, that first night usually does not end well. College is one of the most popular times for binge drinking, which is even worse for your body. Binge drinking overloads the kidney and liver with alcohol to try and distill get out of the body as fast as possible. Underage drinking is a problem that has begun to be perceived as not an issue that affects lots of people, well “people ages 12-20 drink 11 percent of all alcohol consumed in the US” (2). This fact goes to show that over one tenth of all alcohol consumed, is by people that are not legally allowed to be consuming, and of that 11 percent of all the alcohol consumed, 90% of that is consumed while binge drinking. I have seen underage drinking occur in college, and what the side effects are, first hand. I have a few friends who drink, and they seem to have a good time with it, however I know that underage drinking has lots of side effects that are not worth it. For example, I have a friend, who has a sister that is 4 years older than him. She goes to Michigan State University, a pretty well-known party school, and she wanted to drink. My buddy was 16 at the time when she was drinking and he asked her if he could join them because he wanted to try it. She said yes, because she wanted him to experience his first time with family and in a safe place rather than at his first college party or somewhere that is not as good a place. I was talking to this friend, and he says he had friends who started earlier than him and that was one of the reasons he started. “The role of social media played a big factor in sort of peer pressuring me into drinking” he said, “I saw all my friends drinking and posting pictures online, but I had never done it. That made me want to try it, and luckily my sister was cool with me trying it out with her.” He says he didn’t really enjoy it all that much his first time, but he has grown accustomed to it, and now he continues to drink because he like the feelings it gives him, the confidence and the floating feeling along with the carelessness. After I told him about some of the effects of underage drinking and all the negative things that can happen to your body, he says he doesn’t really care about them and that he will continue to drink. He likes the effects and the times he’s had with alcohol and says he doesn’t regret them other than a few instances where things got kind of out of hand. After that I asked him about if he plans to continue to drink after he turns 21, he responded with “I think I will drink after its legal, but I don’t know if I will as much or as heavy. I don’t know it’s kind of fun to do it while it’s not legal, it’s thrilling and a good time with some friends if your hiding it. Yes, it will be nice to be able to go to the bar and get a beer with some friends, but it’s pretty fun drinking at a friend’s house knowing that we shouldn’t be doing it.”
CONCLUSION:
The minimum drinking age should remain at the age of 21 for many reasons, like how dangerous and how often drinking and driving occurs in teenagers, how bad the effects of alcohol are for your body, and your mind.
There will always be people who want to drink underage, and if we were to lower the legal age thinking that we can avoid the problems of dealing with young people drinking, that is wrong. Underage drinking will only get pushed down on to even younger people which is even worse for a 15-year-old to be drinking rather than a 19 or 20-year-old. If not for just the scientific facts of the damage underage drinking does, think back to the proposal at the beginning of this paper, imagine what that would be like to lose a child. I know I would not want to go through that, and I hope you wouldn’t want to
either.
INTRODUCTION:
Imagine a man who is in his mid-forties, he has a nice house and nice car, with 2 beautiful children, ages 14 and 18. He is one of those parents who has done everything and anything for his kids, as any parent would. He has gone through all the hard times of raising them and taking care of them, and they are almost on that brink of becoming adults. Then one Friday night, he gets a call at 2:45 in the morning. It’s the police. They start off with “We regret to inform you….” And proceed to tell him that his 18-year-old son, the one who had just mowed the lawn earlier that day and taken out the trash, his pride and joy, was now dead. They say the cause of death was that he had been drinking, …show more content…
and proceeded to drive home anyways. He swerved off the road into a tree just one mile from the house. The devastation that follows this tragic news is something that no one should have to go through. Unfortunately, this exact situation has happened, and continues to happen. Since 2013, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), has reported that 27% of fatal car crashes, in Michigan, are due to drivers with a BAC of over .08 and were operating the vehicle while drunk. Underage drinking is very harmful for the body, including the brain, liver, heart, and kidneys. In order to reduce DUI, keep teenagers healthy, and reduce deaths from drinking and driving, the minimum drinking age should stay at the current age of 21.
BACKGROUND
First, some background for why the law for minimum drinking age was first created.
From when the United states first became an independent country, there was no national drinking age, anyone could drink at any age until 1919, which is when the prohibition was put into place. The prohibition was the 18th amendment to the US Constitution, which did not allow anyone of any age to drink at all in the US. That amendment was not very popular with citizens and in just 10 years, the 21st amendment of the Constitution was ratified and therefore ended the prohibition. Most states at this time decided what the drinking age should be for their respective territories. The majority of states had the age at 21, however there were still a few that had it at 18. This stood for about 30 years, until the late 1960’s. At this time, almost all states lowered the drinking age down to 18, and it went horribly. There was a large spike in alcohol related car accidents, and driving while under the influence was, scarily, close to the norm. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), 60% of all traffic fatalities were alcohol related and approximately two-thirds that occurred with people between 16 and 20 years old. So, in 1984, Ronald Regan signed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which was a law that required all states in the United States to change the minimum age to 21, if it was not already there. Some states did not agree with this and decided to keep it there, figuring there was …show more content…
nothing the President could do. They were wrong and it showed quickly, the President threatened states who hadn’t moved the age back up to 21, that they would cut the federal highway funding by 10%. No state could withstand this cut and try to maintain and replace and fix road with this cut, so that effectively got all states in the US to the minimum age of 21, and it has been there ever since.
PHYSICAL/MENTAL PROBLEMS
Alcohol in excess and/or frequent doses can cause life threatening, long term problems. It causes damage to the liver, kidney and effect the brain in limiting response times and the triggers that occur in the brain. The top cause of death in America from drinking is cirrhosis of the liver, which is when alcohol sits in in your liver for an extended period of time, it scars the inside of the liver and causes damage and wear and tear on the liver. The liver takes alcohol, and turns it into a nontoxic substance, which takes some time. This down time of sitting in the liver is what causes these problems. Alcohol can also damage the pancreas. Alcohol can sometimes cause the pancreas to produce toxins to break down the alcohol that cause the pancreas to not function properly and block it from doing its job of producing insulin to break down sugars. Also, drinking can cause the pancreas to become inflated, which can create problems with your digestive system as it also regulates the metabolism and aids with digesting food. To stay with digestive problems, approximately 20% of alcohol is absorbed in the stomach, and most of the remains are absorbed in the small intestine, where it is then transferred to the liver. Negative effects of alcohol depend on the age, size of the person, gender, and consumption levels, but age is the most important factor of these categories. There is a reason that the drinking age is 21: The effects on the body are only amplified and stronger for someone who is underage, as you are still developing physically and mentally. Your brain is the most important part of your body, hands down. It tells your heart to beat, tells you to move, to react, to think, and also to speak. Your brain is a complex organ that is one of the last parts in your body to stop developing and growing. The way alcohol affects the brain is by altering the neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers that send messages to your body that control behavior and memory if enough alcohol is consumed. By drinking, you are literally killing neurotransmitters that relay signals to control your body, and it can cause memory loss.
PHSYCOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
Drinking at a young has been shown to increase the likelihood of developing psychological problems later on in life. “Young people are also particularly vulnerable and there is a strong empirical link between alcohol use and suicidal ideation, suicidal attempts and completed suicides amongst people under the age of 24. In 2002, 716 15-24 year olds in the UK committed suicide, with many thousands more contemplating or attempting it and it is estimated that one third of suicides amongst young people are committed whilst the young person is intoxicated. Young men are particularly at risk: suicide is the biggest single killer of young men aged under 35 in the United Kingdom. In 2002 there were 5,882 suicides of which 1,515 were young men between the ages of 15 and 34, as opposed to 380 women between the same ages” (3). It shows that by underage drinking, there are more suicides and more attempts at suicides due to drinking. The younger we lower the age, the more teens there will be who try and end their lives. Another direct correlation that occurs with underage drinking is depression. “At least two thirds of alcohol-dependent individuals entering treatment show evidence of anxiety, sadness, depression and/or manic-like symptoms. Over a 12-month and lifetime basis, alcohol dependence and major depression co-occur in the general population at levels higher than chance. Similarly, amongst those in the general population who drink alcohol, higher volume of consumption is associated with more symptoms of depression. Among patients in treatment for alcohol abuse and dependence, the prevalence of major depression is higher than in the general population60. Higher prevalence of alcohol use disorders has been documented for patients in treatment for depression” (3)
Not only does underage drinking affect the brain in mental health, it affects it in school.
DRINKING AND DRIVING
There are lots of misconceptions about what the differences are between a DUI and a DWI. A DUI is driving under the influence, and is when you drive with a blood alcohol limit (BAC) of over the legal limit, which in the majority of states is .08. A DWI is pretty much the same thing as a DUI in terms of driving with a BAC over the limit, but when you get prosecuted for a DWI, the consequences are much worse. These results are things like jail, confiscation of your license, and alcohol treatment; while DUI is usually just loss of license for a shorter amount of time and probation. On average there are 900,000 people arrested per year for DUI/DWI and a third are repeat offenders. One way that we can fix the repeat offenders problem is by making them pass a breathalyzer to be able to start the car. This system has been implemented in the past, and it has been successful. There has been research done and statistics found, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, that by the minimum drinking age, post being lowered and then re-raised back up to 21, has saved approximately 18,000 lives on the highways. There have also been other studies done that have caused a 19% decrease of fatal crashes of young drivers. MADD has recently come out and said the minimum drinking age at 21 has been saving on average around 1000 lives per year.
MOVES PROBLEM YOUNGER PEOPLE
If we were to lower the minimum age that is legal to drink down to 18 for example, the problem of underage drinking will not go away, that problem will just be shifted down to an even younger generation. There will be kids, even younger than the current general age group that underage drinks, who will begin. Will they start at 16? 13? It would make the access to alcohol so much easier for younger kids, just making the problem worse. Kids don’t know what is good for them and what is bad for them, they just want to have fun without thinking of the consequences.
BINGE DRINKING/COLLEGE
What is binge drinking? “For adults, binge drinking means drinking so much within about 2 hours that blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels reach 0.08 g/dL, the legal limit of intoxication. For women, this typically takes about 4 drinks, and for men, about 5. But, according to recent research estimates, it takes fewer drinks for children to reach these BAC levels” (1). College is a huge time for underage drinking. For many people it is their first time and in most cases, the first time is also the most dangerous. I have had experience in dealing with people who have drank for the first time, and they do not know their limits. When you first start drinking, that first night usually does not end well. College is one of the most popular times for binge drinking, which is even worse for your body. Binge drinking overloads the kidney and liver with alcohol to try and distill get out of the body as fast as possible. Underage drinking is a problem that has begun to be perceived as not an issue that affects lots of people, well “people ages 12-20 drink 11 percent of all alcohol consumed in the US” (2). This fact goes to show that over one tenth of all alcohol consumed, is by people that are not legally allowed to be consuming, and of that 11 percent of all the alcohol consumed, 90% of that is consumed while binge drinking. I have seen underage drinking occur in college, and what the side effects are, first hand. I have a few friends who drink, and they seem to have a good time with it, however I know that underage drinking has lots of side effects that are not worth it. For example, I have a friend, who has a sister that is 4 years older than him. She goes to Michigan State University, a pretty well-known party school, and she wanted to drink. My buddy was 16 at the time when she was drinking and he asked her if he could join them because he wanted to try it. She said yes, because she wanted him to experience his first time with family and in a safe place rather than at his first college party or somewhere that is not as good a place. I was talking to this friend, and he says he had friends who started earlier than him and that was one of the reasons he started. “The role of social media played a big factor in sort of peer pressuring me into drinking” he said, “I saw all my friends drinking and posting pictures online, but I had never done it. That made me want to try it, and luckily my sister was cool with me trying it out with her.” He says he didn’t really enjoy it all that much his first time, but he has grown accustomed to it, and now he continues to drink because he like the feelings it gives him, the confidence and the floating feeling along with the carelessness. After I told him about some of the effects of underage drinking and all the negative things that can happen to your body, he says he doesn’t really care about them and that he will continue to drink. He likes the effects and the times he’s had with alcohol and says he doesn’t regret them other than a few instances where things got kind of out of hand. After that I asked him about if he plans to continue to drink after he turns 21, he responded with “I think I will drink after its legal, but I don’t know if I will as much or as heavy. I don’t know it’s kind of fun to do it while it’s not legal, it’s thrilling and a good time with some friends if your hiding it. Yes, it will be nice to be able to go to the bar and get a beer with some friends, but it’s pretty fun drinking at a friend’s house knowing that we shouldn’t be doing it.”
CONCLUSION:
The minimum drinking age should remain at the age of 21 for many reasons, like how dangerous and how often drinking and driving occurs in teenagers, how bad the effects of alcohol are for your body, and your mind.
There will always be people who want to drink underage, and if we were to lower the legal age thinking that we can avoid the problems of dealing with young people drinking, that is wrong. Underage drinking will only get pushed down on to even younger people which is even worse for a 15-year-old to be drinking rather than a 19 or 20-year-old. If not for just the scientific facts of the damage underage drinking does, think back to the proposal at the beginning of this paper, imagine what that would be like to lose a child. I know I would not want to go through that, and I hope you wouldn’t want to
either.