Raising Legal Drinking Age

Let them drink. In 1984 the United States of America (U.S.A) passed the Drinking Age Act which caused all the states to raise their legal drinking age to 21. The U.S.A is one of the only countries in the world to have their drinking age at 21, in the majority of countries in Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa it is 18 and for some it is lower. Even America’s neighbors Canada and Mexico have lower age limits. It’s time for America to catch up. The minimum drinking age should be lowered to 18 because the age of 21 has not done anything to discourage underage drinking, it infringes upon their civil liberties, and it gives time for teens to ease into drinking.

The 21 and Over law was created to prevent youths from drinking alcohol, but it has not. Teens are drinking more now than ever with the average age at which a person has their first alcoholic beverage being 14 years old. This is 7 years before they are legally allowed to, the 71% of high school seniors had consumed alcohol within the last year, while 94% reported that it was 'fairly easy' or 'very easy for them to obtain alcohol”. This is a ridiculously high number of teens drinking alcohol and with it, almost unanimous among the high school seniors surveyed that alcohol is not hard to come by is a clear indication that the law not only does nothing but means almost nothing to the citizens of America. Adding to the problem of underage drinking is that it doesn’t stop with their first taste it follows them through their lives and the law has not done anything to prevent it. “According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2015, 58% of full-time college students had drunk alcohol in the past month”. Teens are not just drinking to be considered ‘cool’ while in high school they are doing it to have fun which naturally follows them to college where most young adults can now do it even more without having to fear their parents finding out. Then once those young adults are old enough to legally drink they become the ones buying the alcohol for their underage friends. This makes the law unenforceable and it will continue to be as long as older college students don’t see or have a problem with buying and giving underage drinkers alcohol. According to the CDC, 11% of the alcohol consumed by Americans is consumed by those between the ages of 12 and 20 with 90% of that being consumed via binge drinking. Not only are teens drinking, but they are also drinking large intervals of alcohol at a time in unsafe areas. This is the very thing the law is supposed to stop but instead, all it has done is create an even less safe environment than had the drinking age not been raised to 21. The 21 and Over law is not only ineffective but creates more of an unnecessary danger and needs to be done away with.

The law is not only ineffective it also unnecessarily restricts 18-year-olds civil liberties. Upon turning 18 in the United States of America a person is granted several new civil liberties. These include: being able to enlist in the military, vote, donate blood, become an organ donor, work full time, gamble (in some states), get special driving permits, be allowed to drive late at night, consent to sex with other adults, apply for loans, apply for credit cards and build up creditworthiness, get piercing and tattoos, change their name, file a lawsuit, get married, adopt, establish a will, buy spray paint, fireworks, and porn, be selected to serve on a jury, and even purchase and use tobacco products in most U.S. states. These new adults are trusted to use good judgments in all of the aforementioned things, yet, not to use those same judgments to purchase and drink alcohol. This becomes a bigger issue when you look at those willing to serve and die for their country as stated by Jason Gibbs, a spokesman for former Vermont Governor Jim Douglas, “Philosophically, it’s difficult to reconcile the notion that you can enlist in the military, save your country, go to war, but not go into your local pub and get a draft beer”. If the country can trust someone to be an adult and a good citizen, it must trust them to make good decisions on alcohol.

Throwing someone into the deep end of a pool to teach them how to swim is considered a poor way to teach them, yet this is exactly what the U.S.A is doing to its young adults in regards to drinking. Most 21-year-olds are out on their own at college when they legally become able to drink, assuming they are an outlier and have not illegally been drinking. Suddenly, they have a multitude of choices with little experience of how it will affect them, and what their tolerance is. This is a recipe for disaster and becomes much worse when it is considered that most begin experimenting with alcohol when they are much younger. They do this in secret with their friends, who know just as much about how the alcohol will affect them as they do themselves. Their counterparts in Europe, however, are eased into it. “European 18- to 20-year-olds are able to foster a more responsible and civil culture of drinking, and they tend to drink more in settings that are easier to control if anything happens”. By allowing them to learn their limits while in safety with their parents, they are then set up for success as they leave to go to college and live out on their own. This also helps to flush them out from the shadows so if they do drink too much help can find them sooner. “Europe's drinking culture preaches moderate, responsible alcohol intake, according to David Hanson, a sociology professor emeritus from the State University of New York at Potsdam''. This leads to a far different atmosphere around drinking than what is seen in America’s colleges. European views of heavy drinkers are often negative with them thinking that uncontrolled drinkers are stupid and that the behavior is unacceptable. While in America most college party games are centered around how to get drunk as fast as possible, and those who can drink the most are celebrated. For example, watch as college students play Beer Pong, Flip Cup, Kings Cup or watch as friends cheer each other on as they Shotgun a beer or do a Beer Bong. If the drinking age was lowered to eighteen teens could openly try alcohol in safety and moderation with parents and society watching.

Those who are in favor of keeping the 21 and Over law argue that it helps stop drunk driving teens and alcohol negatively affects the brain of those under 21. The law does help stop teens from drinking and driving but it only delays the issue. The same studies that are used to show the drop in drunk driving car accidents for 16-20-year-olds also show a steep increase in accidents for 21-24-year-olds. To truly help solve the problem of drunk driving it needs to start by teaching the youth how to drink responsibly, something that the current law does not allow for. There is no shortage of data on the negative health effects of alcohol on the human body and mind. These negative health effects don’t magically stop when a person turns 21. While it can and does affect brain development in youth, it only does long-term damage when there is a drinking problem such as binge drinking and these effects can happen to anyone of any age. “Recent cross-sectional studies suggest that binge drinking, as well as alcohol use disorders in adolescence, are associated with disruptions in white matter microstructure and gray matter volumes”. Making drinking taboo for young adults it only makes them more likely to misuse alcohol leading to a higher chance of negative health effects. Both counter-arguments given are serious matters that should not be overlooked but right now the law that is in place to fix them is not working, it is merely delaying and exaggerating the problems respectively.

It’s time to get rid of the 21 and Over law and replace it with something that works. If the legal age was lowered to 18, it would get rid of the majority of underage drinking. It would uphold 18-year-olds civil liberties, and it would give teens time to experiment with drinking in a safe environment. Whenever there is a social change in America, it comes from the people as it did for voting rights for 18-year-olds and for the 21 and Over law, now it's time for a new social change- repealing the 21 and Over law and letting them drink.

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