The number one argument by supporters of the 21-year-old limit is that it reduces alcohol related traffic deaths. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has estimated 16,000 lives have been saved as a result of raising the legal drinking age to 21 (Straszheim). An argument against that statistic by those who don’t believe it is that there may be other reasons for the reductions in traffic fatalities, such as safer roads. Another argument is that young people start drinking long before they turn 21 even with the age limit (Goodale). Although the first fact proves that it has helped our safety on the road, what it doesn’t prove is that even though 16,000 lives have been
As you can see, the seriousness of alcoholism is by far worse than what most teenagers may think it is. Lowering the drinking age that the law requires in California will not make anything more useful. Drinking at a young age could be harmful towards you, your brain, and also to others. Permitting a minor to use alcohol will also increase the percentage
Researchers say “American young people engage in “binge drinking” far too often”. This is all caused from a twenty-one drinking age. The easiest way to eliminate this would to be lowering the drinking age where young adults can be monitored and learn how to drink the safe way. If young adults were allowed to drink in bars whenever they wanted, or if they could buy alcohol from a liquor store without finding someone to go on a booze run for them, then binge drinking would become less
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
Although the demand of alcohol is relatively inelastic, the demand of a specific drink, pre-mixed alcohol is relatively elastic since consumers can simply find other alcohol drinks like rum-coke as a substitution. Q1Q2 amount of consumers who give up pre-mixed drinks will not just give up alcohol. Instead, they change to other kinds of alcohol drinks, which will still lead them to the negative consequences like hurting themselves after getting drunk. The tax on one specific kind of alcohol drink is then avoided by the teenagers. This is the reason why the alcohol-related visit to hospital doesn't really reduce even after the heavy tax.
Raising the drinking age seems to be creating more problems than resolutions. Wasn't the purpose of raising the drinking age to save lives? Teens are going to drink regardless of what the legally age is. There seems to be less complication with the lower drinking age. Lowering the age will allow teens to drink with supervision.
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. As a result, the Mother’s Against Drunk Driving and federal experts in health regulation have consistently fought to prevent the alcohol industry from altering the drinking age (Kirszner, Mandell 458). Furthermore, it is unethical and immoral practice for parents to be allowing minors to consume alcohol, as this is also illegal and detrimental to one’s overall growth and development. Although some countries in Europe may argue otherwise, intoxication levels are higher in Britain, Denmark and Ireland,
Raising the Drinking Age They say that the consequences of drinking are based on who and how often that person dranks. Since the 1980’s, the legal drinking age has been 21. However, over the years people have debated on what age to allow people to drink. Their question has remained; Can changing the age benefit the public health and safety? Many suggested lowering it to 18 or 19 because it’ll help young adults be more responsible and they're legal adults.
Prohibition had not stopped people from drinking; neither will a law stating a legal age limit. Many teens have tried alcohol at least once in their life, even some as young as 5th grade. There is a lot of peer pressure, and the idea of looking and being 'cool' is what makes these teens try alcohol. However, lowering the drinking age to eighteen would decrease that problem, of course it would not stop those under eighteen from drinking, but that can be somewhat controlled by parents and adults in the lives of the youths. If the age limit was lowered the alcohol would no longer be a forbidden, therefore it would not be as appealing as it would normally.
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).