The US has the highest drinking age in the world. Should the drinking age be lowered? Some people argue that the drinking age should stay at 21, because it gives people enough time to mature both physically and mentally before consuming alcohol, while others feel that if you can die for your country you should be able to enjoy a beer.
I’m in support of lowering the drinking age, but not just because 18 year olds enlist in the military. I feel that every kid that wants to drink under age can and will and the people that don’t want to won’t. I don’t think many more kids would drink even if the drinking age were lowered. Most teens that choose not to drink make that decision based on their parents or their own moral feelings, not because they think cops are going to arrest them if they take a sip of beer. The law doesn’t have much of an affect on who drinks; it just has an affect on how they drink. In many ways the law just forces those who consume alcohol to do it in a more dangerous way. Teenagers trying to get away with drinking are more likely to binge drink. If the drinking age were lowered it would change the approach society would take on alcohol. Drinking still wouldn’t be acceptable to those who feel drinking is morally wrong, but it also give parents a chance to sit down with their kids and teach them to drink responsibly before they go out and binge with their friends.
Many adolescents go off to college having never consumed alcohol and some of them take their first sips on a college campus. I feel like these kids are the ones that don’t know their limits and end up in hospitals. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, “there were 145,000 emergency room visits for youths between the ages of 12 and 20 in 2005” (http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/quickstats/underage_drinking.htm). I feel that the only way to stop this binge drinking among teens in America is to allow them to drink.
2 comments:
And to have parents take more responsibility for teaching morals and common sense. The sad thing is that if young people could drink more responsibly, the drinking age might go back down. Everyone should work to change the culture of binge drinking. At least if there were no visible indications on this campus that drinking is a problem, the police presence would also be less heavy.
I am in complete agreement with this is post. I also think that the drinking age should be lowered to 18. What makes me so mad about this topic is not that you can vote at 18 or drafted at 18, but cannot drink. It is how naive people's parents are on the subject. If they think that there kids are not drinking than they are mistaken. Ignoring a subject is not going to fix it, and will only cause problems. Allowing 18 year olds to drink would be a smart decision on the part of the government. It might help bring down numbers of kids taken to the hospital or involved in drunk driving accidents.
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