College Binge Drinking College is a time of discovery and learning. It is a time when students develop new ideas and form new habits. One of these habits is drinking binge drinking. College students in fact drink more than their peers who are not in college (Wechsler 987). Problems arising from college drinking have risen proportionally by 7% since 1998 (Hingson 15).
Many alcohol advertisements are placed in different types of media that are popular among adolescent.” They spend billions of dollars in developing an advertisement to capture the publics’ eye, especially the young adolescents. The alcohol industry target a specific group mainly teenagers, but they don’t realize is that all of the colorful effects, the music, and the atmosphere of fun and excitement makes the teenagers want to take a shot or two. At John Hopkins University made a estimate, “the likely effects of several alcohol policies on youth drinking behavior in the U.S. population concluded that a complete ban on alcohol advertising would be the most effective, resulting in 7,609 fewer deaths from harmful drinking and a 16.4% drop in alcohol-related life-years lost.” Banning alcohol commercials can affect the life of young adolescents and adults by not having the influence or the temptation in front of you will decrease the amount of drinking in teens. Commercials have a lot of power over a person’s judgment persuading them to act like different
College Drinking: The Price to Pay for Higher Education College students spend approximately 42 million dollars yearly on alcohol(Pedersen, Fall 2002, p. Pg 26). College drinking is a growing problem among colleges and universities across the country. It has been estimated that at least ten percent of college students are problem drinkers, or "pre-alcoholics." This problem is a serious one. Each year, more and more students resort to college drinking for a number of various reasons.
These are just a few of the problems that happen today to our teens. When young teens drink alcohol, they are more likely to abuse it more than people above the legal age; this is demonstrating that teens are more prone to alcohol abuse and should not be allowed to consume alcohol. Allowing teens to drink alcohol give them a higher chance of academic failure, and will negatively affect the
Plans to Eliminate College Binge Drinking Nearly half of today’s college student population is stumbling through the college years due to binge drinking. Binge drinking on college campuses isn’t just an issue of public health, but it’s one of self-interest. Failure to act in the face of foreseeable harm places schools at risk for damaging their academic reputations and liability lawsuits in millions of dollars. Also, students experience a wide variety of alcohol related problems including hangovers, blackouts, and engaging in unplanned sexual activity. According to Lini Kadaba’s article, Colleges Hitting the Bottle Binge Drinking Remains High, but Initiatives at Area Schools Raising Awareness, “College binge drinking is remaining in colleges due to the intractable problems that contribute to 1,700 student deaths, 599,000 injuries, and 97,000 cases of sexual assault, or date rapes.” (24).
Alcohol drinking ages are largely debated in American society. Many presidents of colleges have called attention to the idea of lowering the drinking age in American society from 21 to 18. A drinking age of 18 would help college presidents to watch for the needs of their students and to better attend to these needs. A younger legalized drinking age could result in a variety of repercussions, both positive and negative. A drinking age of 18 would be beneficial to American society and would be more congruent to other existing laws in the United States.
With this frame of mindset, it’s extremely important for the federal government to uphold and keep the drinking age at a constant. As teenagers mature into young adults, peer pressure and social influences become factors that may contribute towards irresponsible decisions. Since 1984, the federal drinking age was raised to 21, which tremendously benefited teens and young adults in the United States (Kirszner, Mandell 458). Drinking is among the greatest misleading decisions made among individuals at parties, especially in college, so it’s always necessary to maintain responsibilities. Currently, college students mainly drink due to the convenience of accessibility to obtain substances from older acquaintances or friends who also enjoy having a good time.
In 1984 the Minimum Drinking Age Act of 21 was passed and made into a law that you have to be 21 to drink alcohol because the brain was thought to be fully developed. In 2013, a college professor thought that the age should be 18 because during an experiment with alcohol the kids appeared mature. Research shows that alcohol is the cause for 28% of college dropouts and also accounts for an average of 85,000 deaths. The drinking age should remain at 21 due to the fact that if lowered to 18, it could result in more drunk driving accidents and heavier drinking. First off, lowering the drinking age to 18 could result in more drunk driving fatalities.
The other way is helping adolescents, teenagers, and young adults only to associate themselves with peer groups that can only positively influence their values and behaviors when growing up. Advertisements should also be made in such as the way they only reach their intended target market while at the same time encouraging people to drink responsibly. New and better laws, policies and strategies should be introduced and fully implemented, so as to discourage and control the consumption of alcohol by individuals below the legal drinking age limit (Bonnie & O’Connell 67). Nevertheless, under age drinking can be associated with undesirable consequences such as brain damage, death, depression, aggressive behaviors, injuries, and violence, among others. It is therefore only rational and prudent if all the relevant stakeholders, starting with the government up to the teenagers to join hands so as to discourage and control underage drinking.
Professor Zapolski mentions of a survey that reports,“ High school seniors, about 20 percent binge drinks, consuming more than 5 drinks in one occasion.” This shows how much an high school student will and can drink before reaching 20 years old. Professor Tina Watson states a research done by Christopher Carpenter and Carlos Dobkins who suggested, “ Arrest rates for violent and nuisance crimes rise sharply at age 21 though at least age 23.” Both claims that drinking at the legal age has caused a rise in crime and criminal behavior in young adults. Yet, many think that lowering or keeping it the same age will benefit and educate young adults. Professor Steinberg believes, “ Lowering the drinking age to 19, which would help solve the problem of illegal drinking on campus.” Steinberg claims lowering the age to 19 will prevent illegal activities on campus. Professor Glaser expresses.“ America’s 18 -year-old have the right to vote, marry, buy a gun and join the military."