Underage Drinking: Pros and Cons

The main issue is today’s society is underage drinking. There has been a lot of controversy on this subject from many different sides of the issue; there are some people who believe that the drinking age should be lowered from twenty-one to eighteen years old as it was during the Vietnam war, the old-school mentality was “old enough to fight, old enough to drink.” The con side disagrees however stating that lowering the drinking age would bring about a rise in traffic accidents, and encourage young adults to binge drink. My understanding of the pro side is that they feel that lowering the drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen or nineteen would reduce the amount of binge drinkers in college aged students, and help teach people to drink responsibly. (Holder, 2003) The pro side makes the argument that if the drinking age was lowered young adults would be LESS likely to binge drink, and young adults should be able to drink in the presence of adults, or in bars or taverns. If young adults were allowed to “learn” to drink in a safe and controlled environment they would be less likely to lose control. The pro side believes that our current approach to stop underage drinking is not working, and in fact it’s doing the exact opposite. The law doesn’t stop young adults from consuming alcohol, it is quite easy for someone under twenty-one to obtain alcohol from twenty-one year olds or from the use of fake ID’s which are quite popular on college campuses. The con side takes quite a different stance on underage drinking. They believe the concept of “binge drinking” does not start at the uniform age of twenty-one. When the legal age of drinking was eighteen and over during the Vietnam War the number one leading cause of deaths for people younger than twenty-one was alcohol related traffic accidents. One thousand lives are being saved each year from the drinking age being twenty-one or above. My understanding of the con side is that they think lowering the drinking age

Bibliography: Dillon, B. (2009, October 19). CQ Researcher. Retrieved June 3, 2011, from CQ Researcher: http://www.cq.researcher.com Holder, N. (2003, march 4). CQ Researcher. Retrieved June 3, 2011, from CQ Researcher: http://www.cq.researcher.com