Verified Document

Lower The Minimum Drinking Age. Alcohol Is Essay

¶ … lower the minimum drinking age. Alcohol is something that damages people's body and their social personality as well. The drink if taken in excess has been adverse effects and increase is the risk of assault and crime. Alcohol is directly linked to increased car crashes and fatalities as well. Due to all these reasons, it has been emphasized that the drinking age should not be lowered. Alcohol

Alcohol is something that is a temptation for all those who can't drink or aren't legally allowed. Even though it is quite a popular drink in the American culture regardless of what the occasion is or who is drinking. Sporting events have overload of beer where as wine flows freely on weddings and elegant events. Alcohol is merely an entertaining tool and it has to be there as a necessity for some. This can be explained easier if some people gather together on an occasion, they always eat. Whether it is food or snacks or a proper three course meal, food is a must. Similarly, in about seventy percent of the cases, alcohol is a must as well. Many like it either before food, during food or after food. Times when people are happy such as a celebration dinner, birthdays and weddings, alcohol is mandatory as well. Seeing how the American culture brings in alcohol in so many places, many often wonder if the drinking age should be lowered or not?

The Minimum drinking age should not be lowered below 21. The major reason for going against this that it causes a lot of damage to a person's body. The major organs of the body such as the brain and the liver are affected by alcohol. Furthermore, alcohol also causes teenagers to drive recklessly and get into fatal accidents. Alcohol itself increases risky behavior and increases the incidence of crime and assault. Seeing how alcohol is available openly in many places, many think that the drinking age should be lowered so the teenagers don't get into illegal acts. However, many other things like drugs are there in...

It affects the body and the brain on many different levels. There is a reason why 21 is the threshold set for drinking alcohol legally. Even though alcohol is attainable through illegal forms in a lot of places, it is still illegal. It is also known that getting alcohol itself or drinking it a part or something is not very hard. However, a major reason that the drinking ages shouldn't be lowered is because how alcohol affects the body. This is a very irresponsible act to take out when a person is not twenty one. The frontal lobes of the human brain are quite essential and reasonable for many crucial actions of the human mind. They are required for the proper development of the personality the way a person plans and thinks. Things like regulating emotions and organizing thoughts and actions is also a major function of the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe develops throughout adolescence and young adulthood. Everyone knows that alcohol can cause developmental issues in the growing baby during pregnancy. If alcohol can reach a baby inside the womb, surely it can affect your brain development as well. Therefore alcohol consumption at a young age causes a person to end with long lasting problems. (Birckmayer & Hemenway) A person could get addicted very easily, have reduced decision making ability and develop more risk taking behavior. It can also lead to depression, memory loss, violence and ultimately suicide. All these facts therefore tell us that starting to drink at younger age will just get the person in more trouble sooner.
As mentioned earlier, alcohol is available through various means. Even though it is available, all those means and routes are illegal. Regardless of how confident a child or a teenager is in bringing in supplies, there would be a little bit of danger and hesitation in this process. For a lot of teenagers,…

Sources used in this document:
Works cited

Birckmayer, Johanna and David Hemenway. "Minimum-age Drinking Laws and Youth Suicide, 1970 -- 1990." American Journal of Public Health, 89. 9 (1999): 1365 -- 1368. Print.

Wagenaar, Alexander C. And Traci L. Toomey. "Effects of Minimum Drinking Age Laws: Review and Analyses of the Literature from 1960 to 2000." Journal of Studies on Alcohol, (2002): Print.

Wolfson, M. et al. "Law Officers' Views on Enforcement of the Minimum Drinking Age: A Four-State Study." Public Health Rep., 110. 4 (1995): 428 -- 438.. Print.
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Lowering the Drinking Age the
Words: 2161 Length: 6 Document Type: Term Paper

The issue was a charged issue that many people felt very strongly about, i.e. race and was an allowable and supported social stigma, and yet when faced with the real life decision to break the taboo and serve Chinese people they did so with little hesitation and then effectively lied about it in self report. (Pager & Lincoln, 2005, p. 355) Drinking and driving is a seriously socially charged issue

Drinking Age Lowering the Drinking
Words: 2132 Length: 7 Document Type: Term Paper

The question isn't whether there should be controls, but which controls work best. What has proven around the world to work best is a combination of reasonable laws backed by strong social sanctions. But in the U.S. we treat our emerging adults as infants and get infantile behavior as a result…if adults would learn to temper their patronizing attitudes toward young men and women, more maturity, self-restraint, and social

Drinking Age Values and the
Words: 1913 Length: 6 Document Type: Essay

Accordingly, "the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that raising the drink age to 21 has reduced traffic fatalities involving 18- to 20-year-old drivers by 13% and has saved an estimated 19,121 lives since 1975." (T, 1) Conclusion: More than anything though, these statistics seem to confirm the fears of both university leaders and law enforcement agencies, who argue that age-based prohibition has made it more difficult to connect with, cooperate

Drinking Age Should Not Be Lowered for Many Reasons
Words: 1397 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

Against Lowering the Drinking Age In the United States, underage drinking has been cited as creating immense problems. It has contributed to numerous unnecessary youth deaths and has been the predecessor to various crimes. However, some argue that it is the illegality attached to alcohol consumption that has led to these occurrences. The latter support lowering the legal age of alcohol consumption, while opponents argue that the health risks involved are

Minimum Legal Drinking Age
Words: 2420 Length: 9 Document Type: Term Paper

America, when a person reaches the age of 18 he can die for his country, obtain credit, get married, get divorced and be charged in criminal court. By all appearances the age of 18 sets the stage for adulthood and all that it entails. In a curious contradiction to that, however, America insists on maintaining a drinking age of 21 years old. While 18-year-olds can do all of the

Drinking Age the Minimum Drinking
Words: 602 Length: 2 Document Type: Essay

While many think that if someone is old enough to go to war, one is old enough to drink, they miss the fact that going to war is a voluntary act. No one forces an individual to join any armed force. The decision is one that the individual makes for himself and there is no standing behind him or her forcing him or her to do so. The drinking age

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now