Lowering the Drinking Age

1278 Words6 Pages
Lowering The Age Will Lower The Deaths “’Drinking is Fun’ and ‘There’s Nothing You Can Do About It’: The Problem With the 21-Year-Old Minimum Drinking Age” an essay by Dr. Reginald Fennell, found in the Journal of American College Health, focuses on the effects of the minimum drinking age on college students. Fennell explains the benefits of lowering the drinking and gives alternatives to the current law. This article is of interest to readers since society seems to have a strong opinion of whether the drinking age should remain the same or be lowered. When a teenager turns eighteen, they have all the legal rights of an adult with the exception of consuming and purchasing alcohol. The author feels strong about his opinion. Fennell is not only an editor for the Journal of American College Heath, but he is also a professor at Miami University in Ohio where he teaches health classes. By speaking to his college students, and also having been a student himself, Fennell knows first-hand the experiences and actions of students on college campuses. The United States seems to believe having a high minimum drinking age will keep the alcohol related deaths to a minimum; however, Holt presents predictions and statistics to put into question what really is the best solution to the overwhelming increase of alcohol related deaths in the United States. In the article, Fennell asserts his alternatives to having a minimum drinking age of twenty-one. Fennell begins the article by reliving one morning on his way to a triathlon where a college freshman arrived still experiencing the night before. Fennell became very curious as to how the underage boy obtained the alcohol because when he was an undergraduate and graduate student, the drinking age was eighteen. Fennell now chooses not to drink; not because he became an alcoholic, but because he just does not wish to. With
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