Underage drinking
is a widespread problem in the U.S. Since the 1980s, the legal drinking age has
been 21 – enforced at the state level, but heavily encouraged at the federal
level. The initial idea was to stop highway fatalities for young drinkers,
according to TIME on June 6, 2008.
For most of the rest of the world, the legal drinking age is just
18. For a country that legally
recognizes people as adults at the age of 18 (they can vote and enlist in the
military), strict discipline is imposed if anyone under the age of 21 is caught
drinking alcohol. Legal trouble from MIP’s can span months, and keep kids from
pursuing certain degrees in college.
The
aforementioned TIME article describes a new insight to the drinking age
debate. Former Middlebury College
President John McCardell Jr. is promoting the cause to lower the drinking age
to 18 – by providing the youngsters with a license to drink if they complete 42
hours of education on the history, chemistry, psychology, and sociology of alcohol. He argues that by bringing underage
drinking out in the open, there would be less abuse of the drug. Whereas now, underage kids are forced
to drink behind closed doors completely unsupervised. If out in the open, there would be less binge drinking,
fewer untreated alcohol poisonings, and better supervision of new drinkers.
However,
against the cause of course is M.A.D.D., or Mothers Against Drunk Driving. On September 14, 2012, PolicyMic
published an article criticizing efforts to lower the drinking age. They cited three main reasons to keep
the legal drinking age at 21.
First, drunk driving is highest amongst 18-25 years olds. M.A.D.D argues that if the age were
lowered, even more drunk driving accidents would occur in the 18-20 year old range. Second, with binge-drinking and alcohol
poisonings so prevalent on college campuses already, the article contends that
by lowering the drinking age, it would subject more kids to the harsh effects
of alcohol. Last, alcohol would
only increase the impulsive nature of youngsters. The potential for violent behavior would increase if more
people had legal access to alcohol.
Personally,
I do agree with lowering the drinking age. As a minor, I hardly had any trouble getting alcohol. But what endangered my safety the most
was trying to hide it from my parents and law enforcement. Rather than call my parents to pick me
up from a party, I would drive home under the influence and hope I didn’t see
any cops. Minors are going to
drink. It goes along with the
age. I agree with John McCardell
Jr.’s idea of educating people before allowing them to drink. If I had known a sliver of the dangers
alcohol poses, I believe I wouldn’t have engaged in binge drinking like I
did. Now that I am old enough to
legally drink, I find that I don’t drink near as often as I did when it was
illegal for me. The risk factor is
gone, and so is the major enticing elements that drinking provides. By lowering the drinking age, the risk
factor would be gone for thousands of kids, and so would a large portion of the
dangers surrounding underage drinking.
No comments:
Post a Comment