Drinking Age
There has been a lot of debate whether the legal drinking age should be lowered or not. The Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act was passed in 1984. This law was passed to increase the legal drinking age from 18 to 21. There has been a mixed reaction over this act. There are some people who support it while there are others who oppose it. Opponents of this law believe that the federally imposed drinking law is unconstitutional. They believe that the rights of the states were overridden. However it is noted that the drive to increase the legal drinking age was made by citizen groups. The public also supported the 1984 Drinking Age act.
Teenagers usually drink as an act of rebellion. When a teenager turns 18, he/she is allowed to vote, hold public office, serve on a jury, serve in the military and hold public office. Therefore they feel that they have the right to decide for themselves if they want a drink or not.
Underage Drinking
Critics believe that the federal government has no right to take such a decision. Wheelan and Kenkel are two opponents of the current minimum age law. Kenkel proposes imposing a teen tax on alcohol, as it could be a more viable option than age restriction. He believes that it would cheaper to lower the minimum age rather than denying them the right to drink. A teen tax would be as effective as a minimum age law. It would allow an "adult" to maintain his/her civil liberties. The revenue from the teen tax could be used for alcohol abuse education.
Wheelan feels that teenagers can be easily tempted by alcohol, as it is one of their first steps towards adolescence. This could lead to grave consequences. Recent studies have proved that cases of alcohol abuse and driving accidents have risen drastically due to the adverse effect of drinking age laws. Experts believe that it is important to have a drinking age law for the sake of national health and safety.
It would be a wise decision to lower the drinking age to 18. According to wheelan, a college-age teen would most likely want to spend their evenings in clubs and bars. However they would not be able to get access to alcohol in...
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
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
This means that alcohol is made accessible to underage persons and in this way, they start consuming alcohol at a young age. It is for this reason that the legal drinking age should not be lowered, but actually increased to reduce the chances of it being made available to those who are underage. Increasing the minimum legal drinking age to at least 25 years, like India, will go a
U.S. Drinking Age stay at 21 or be lowered to 18? The 26th amendment, on July 1, 1971 was passed which dropped the least age to vote from twenty one to eighteen years old (Madison, 2006). Soon after the amendment was approved twenty nine states all over the nation began bringing down their drinking age from 21 to 18 years of age. This new freedom for young adults did not
alcohol drinking age be decreased? The controversy surrounding alcohol use in the United States has been longstanding, and dates at least as far back as prohibition when the substance was banned largely due to moral issues. Although prohibition was repealed during the midst of the Great Depression, the controversy surrounding this subject persists to this day. Currently, there is widespread debate about whether or not to lower the drinking age.
It has been the purpose of this exploratory essay to examine the question of what would happen if the military upped the drinking age for troops and as I've found out there's certain knowns, e.g. people would be (duly) outraged, and certain unknowns, e.g. effects on alcohol related car accidents involving military personnel and the rate of military suicides. What's clear is that more research and information needs to be
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