If the age is lowered, young adults won't binge as often making it safer and not something that's done to be “cool”. Learning how to drink at a younger age allows responsibilities to be taught before kids are sent to college. Lowering the high drinking age in the United States will reduce the irresponsible drinking habits amongst the youth in America.
Teenage Drinking Raising the drinking age to 25 years old will prevent teenage drinking. “The strongest evidence for reducing alcohol-related harm is by increasing the price and reducing the availability”(Raising legal). Alcohol is a dangerous drug that causes accidents and deaths every year. Every year there are records of driving while intoxicated for under age drinkers. So raising the age of which you can consume alcohol will result in less accidents and deaths caused by drinking.
Therefore, the social cost of alcohol is greater than the private cost. These factors give a justification for government intervention to deal with some issues related to alcohol, by putting an age limit on its use. The first reason why the drinking age should not be lowered is the obvious health issue. Despite popular belief, the drinking age was not only set to prevent teens from drinking and making bad decisions. It was set because teenagers can develop serious health issues.
Newly-legal drinkers often purchase alcohol for their underage peers, creating a "trickle-down" effect. [34] Surveys show that the most common source of alcohol among 18- to 20-year olds is their 21- to 24-year-old peers. [35] MLDA 21 helps prevent underage binge drinking by making it harder for people under 21 to obtain alcohol. Binge drinking peaks among 21- to 25-year-olds at 45.9%, while the binge drinking rates of those aged 12-13, 14-15, 16-17, and 18-20 are 1.5%, 7.8%, 19.4%, and 35.7% respectively. [23][36] MLDA 21 exerts valuable social pressure on potential underage drinkers.
Why Not Eighteen? Why is it legal for an eighteen-year-old to be able to sacrifice their life for their country, to get married, and to vote, but illegal for them to drink? The controversy and arguments for lowering the drinking age have been debated for years. Beginning with the early 1900s, the eighteenth amendment was ratified and had outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States following the Prohibition Movement. However, this amendment was ineffective in its enforcement and people continued to smuggle and consume alcohol as freely as they wanted.
Lowering the drinking age, I feel would be the best solution to solving the underground drinking problem, it would allow for drinking to be more “open.” Having the drinking age at 21 allows for there to me more difficulty in keeping track of the kids who use it because they do it secretly and tend to abuse it more. If the drinking age was lowered across the world, I think there would less binge drinking amongst the teens and would allow for the elders to have more control over the consumption of alcohol. Drinking at any age under 18 should not be allowed but once you turn 18 you should be allowed to drink legally. When one turns 18 they assume adult penalties, are allowed to vote, die for their country, and even get married. So why can’t they enjoy a few beers legally?
They learn how to control their drinking and what to expect from the effects of the alcohol (Nayak 141-142). This may be true for some parts of the world, but it does not deem overall success in achieving overall healthy drinking habits. It still leads to harm development and early age drinking still has potential to raise the risk of alcohol abuse in adult life. As an example, by Wechsler and Nelson, most European countries have lower drinking ages, this has resulted in a rise of drinking problems among teens and the amount of binge drinking is doubled that of the U.S. When New Zealand lowered their drinking age in 1999, they were definite increases in the number of emergency injury influenced by alcohol, as well as the higher rate of
An average person must wait until age 16 to start driving, age 18 to marry without parental consent, and age 35 to become president (Minton). The age limit for alcohol is based on research which shows that young people react differently to alcohol. This means that typically anyone is able to acknowledge to lower the drinking age. In Rober Voas' article "There's no benefit to lowering the drinking age, " he states that lowering the age for drinking alcohol would just make matters worse, along with a paragraph that states: "I keep hearing the same refrains: 'If you're old enough to go to war, you should be old enough to drink,' or 'the drinking-age law just increases the desire for the forbidden fruit,' or 'lower crash rates are due to tougher enforcement, not the 21 law,' or "Europeans let their kids drink, so they learn how to be more responsible,' or finally, 'I did it when I was a kid, and I'm OK.'"
This may cause them to land up being in a situation like the one presented in the two adverts. They do not reflect my experience of alcohol as I myself do not drink excessively. I believe that one should respect the age limit of drinking as it is there for a reason. However I do believe that both these adverts apply to teenagers all around the world as it's not just British teens getting drunk but it's teenagers from all around the world who face the same
Secondly, If US could change the drinking age to 18, less people will abuse alcohol. It doesn’t have sense wait to have Twenty years old the age that you're considered an adult under the law, and have the same right to drink alcohol at 18, If the age were lowered that would help promote a culture of responsible alcohol use. 18-year olds person would often go to bars rather than house parties, and wouldn't feel like they had to hide what they were doing. In turn, this would lead to less fatality from alcohol abuse. Also, lowering the drinking age would be a good thing not only for the economy, but also to prevent so many young people from breaking the law so much.