Why Should Legal Drinking Age Be 21

The stark comparison between the two schools was (and still is) this: the school that allowed barrels in dorms with a liberal drinking policy had minor problems, essentially what you`d expect on a college campus. Volume, parties in dormitories, occasional fights, etc. My school with the dry campus had much more excessive alcohol consumption and many cases, especially freshmen, who were taken to the hospital to pump their stomachs. The rigor forced people to go underground and consume drinks with a much higher content. Everclear was a popular drink with 95% alcohol. This extreme behavior was almost unknown at the nearby college, which allowed beer. Alcohol is marketed enthusiastically, easy to obtain, cheap, and existing laws are not consistently enforced. Combine these factors with a widespread belief that alcohol is a benign, fun, sexy and positively status-defining drug, and it becomes a pervasive force in culture; One that is very attractive to young people. High-risk alcohol use and alcohol abuse are complex problems that no strategy can solve, but higher MLDA is an effective approach. A survey for the Center for Alcohol Policy found that 86 percent of Americans support the legal drinking age at 21. [54] Numerous state and national surveys from the 1970s (when states raised the legal drinking age) to the present have shown overwhelming public support for MLDA 21.

[30] [31] [32] Perhaps if parents stopped spoiling their children and let them live a little (i.e., stop hovering over them), drinking at a younger age would not be a problem. It is difficult to isolate this problem. Most people don`t know how to drive, there are too many drivers on the road, roads are poorly maintained and poorly lit, pedestrians run around all the time, and the police don`t enforce traffic rules, but stay there and do nothing in these unnecessary construction works. This company is. It does not make sense to compare to places like Canada, where the drinking age is lower, because it is all a mess. MLDA 21 encourages young adults to acquire false identification documents and use them to obtain alcohol. At a time of national security concerns, including terrorism, illegal immigration and other threats, it would be better to have fewer false identity documents in circulation and more respect for the law. [17] This article is Bologna, I have been to Europe several times and discovered that a lower drinking age discourages excessive alcohol consumption. The United States has one of the highest rates of car accidents in the world, despite the high age of alcohol consumption. Some countries do not even have a minimum drinking age and manage to have much safer roads because children learn the pros and cons of drinking alcohol from an early age. Instead of cracking down on something teens would do anyway, we should teach them how to drink alcohol safely and responsibly. Not to mention that the United States could even be one step closer to a free country.

Even communist North Korea has an alcohol drinking age of 18 (not that I approve of it). 100 of 102 analyses (98%) of a meta-study on the legal drinking age and traffic accidents found a higher legal drinking age, which is associated with lower rates of road accidents. [19] In the 30 years since the introduction of MLDA 21, drunk driving deaths have decreased by one-third. [50] The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that MLDA 21 saved 31,417 lives between 1975 and 2016. [50] According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, underage drinking accounts for 17.5% ($22.5 billion) of consumer spending on alcohol in the United States. [16] The 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicates that 24.8% of adolescents aged 14 or 15, 46.7% aged 16 or 17 and 68.3% aged 18 to 20 drink alcohol. [49] Adolescent alcohol use kills 4,300 people each year, more than all illicit drugs combined. References Sacks JJ, Gonzales KR, Bouchery EE, Tomedi LE, Brewer RD.

2010 National and state costs of excessive alcohol consumption. Am J Prev Med 2015; 49(5):E73 to E79. Research shows that adolescents are more sensitive than adults to the effects of alcohol on learning and memory.xiii and clearly shows that delaying alcohol consumption reduces the risk of damaging the developing brain, a developmental process that continues into the early 20s. xiv The hippocampus handles many types of memory and learning and is the part of the brain that is most damaged by alcohol consumption in adolescents. Those who drink more and for longer periods of time have significantly smaller hippocampuses up to 10 percent.xv A 2014 study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs confirmed this: Although many young people do not take into account the age of alcohol consumption, evidence shows that it has reduced alcohol consumption and saved lives. Take care of it? Oh yes, they`ve really crossed the line now! When 18-year-olds are fighting for your country, paying taxes and all the other things that adults do, the worst mistake is to tell them that the drinking age is 21 and to take care of it, the worst mistake you can make. The same 18-year-old you claim is too young to drink could be the smart enough person to find a cure for cancer, or they could even be the same person on your trial jury who votes “guilty.” So the next time you say to act accordingly, remember that a drinking age of 21+ is biased, hypocritical, and a form of prohibition. Wake up America. In a 2002 meta-study on legal drinking age and health and social problems, 72% of studies found no statistically significant association, although it was claimed that lowering the MLDA to 18 would increase suicide and criminal activity among adolescents. [19] I disagree that 21 does not work. The # of alcohol-related deaths has increased. There are many countries that are old enough to drink at 18 or 19 and that is not a problem.

So an 18-year-old can join the army and risk his life, but not drink beer? It`s not true. Parents should have the opportunity to show their children responsible consumption habits. The only reason the number of impaired driving incidents has decreased is that the penalties have become tougher and are better enforced. By making children wait until 21 years old, the cap of excessive alcohol consumption is fortunately much higher. I have been to other countries where the law is 18 and they drink responsibly. So number 21 doesn`t work. Prohibition has never worked in the past and does not work today. Europe had a younger drinking age for years and it worked. According to a meta-study on MLDA, 87% of studies found a higher legal drinking age, which is associated with lower alcohol consumption. [19] Studies show that when the drinking age is 21, those under 21 drink less and drink less in their early twenties, and adolescents who do not drink before the age of 21 tend to drink less in adulthood. [42] The number of 18- to 20-year-olds who drank alcohol in the past month increased from 59% in 1985 – one year after Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act – to 39% in 2016. [49] [51] So raising the legal drinking age effectively reduced the number of road deaths among 18- to 20-year-olds by ~16%, right? If people between the ages of 21 and 24 experienced a 44% drop in deaths during that period, but were still legally allowed to buy alcohol, then I suspect there were other factors (increased highway enforcement, educational programs, etc.) that caused such a drastic drop.

Drinking and driving rates among teens have dropped 54 percent over the past two decades, and the largest declines were recorded between 1982 and 1995, a period that included changes in federal law pushing all states to raise their drinking age to 21. How about lowering the drinking age while improving public transport? As far as I know, this is only based on vehicle-related deaths. Yes, with the older drinking age, lives are saved, and that`s good, of course. But doesn`t that indicate some kind of cultural problem with alcohol when we all have these problems with excessive underage drinking? Shouldn`t those who drink learn to drink socially and learn that getting drunk/should never be the goal when you go out? 76% of bars sold alcohol to obviously drunk diners [43], and about half of drivers arrested for drunk driving or drunk in motor vehicle accidents drank in licensed establishments [44] [45] [46]. Neighborhoods with a higher density of bars, nightclubs and other alcohol outlets are more likely to suffer from assaults and other violent crime. [24] [25] “If we decide to lower the legal drinking age, there will be consequences,” says William DeJong, lead author of the study and professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.
This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience. By browsing this website, you agree to our use of cookies.