Will Lowering the Drinking Age Solve the Problem of Binge Drinking among College Students? Research has supported the observation that young people in America consume alcohol regularly; this prevalence of use increases rapidly during adolescence, as well as a few years afterward (Wagenaar and Wolfson 37). This has come to be a problem among college students. It has been shown through extensive quantitative and qualitative research that those under twenty-one years of age are able to obtain alcohol, which allows them to binge drink. Binge drinking holds many problems for college students: alcohol poisoning, DUIs, traffic accidents, and even fatalities.
In 1984, the federal drinking age was raised to twenty-one. This ruling has yielded many positive results. The most important of these positive changes was that drunk-driving accidents and fatalities dropped drastically. Underage binge drinking was also less prevalent that it had been. Even alcohol-related injuries and accidental deaths were less prevalent (Wagenaar and Wolfson 37). Lawmakers have a moral imperative choose not to lower the federal drinking to reduce binge drinking among college students. Doing so would be irresponsible and harmful the general public, but especially to the college population. It would not solve the problem of binge drinking among college students.
However, there have also been arguments and theories that refute this belief. The parties in favor of lowering the drinking age believe that there are many reasons why the justification of the current drinking age doesn’t hold up. They say that the problem lies in the enforcement of the law and the regulation of social aspects in relation to the problem binge drinking among college students. They also state that the raising of the drinking age was not decided on fair grounds and that there are still many loopholes and gray areas in the law.
Theories claim that long-term efforts to enforce the minimum drinking age