SHOULD UNDERAGE DRINKING OR SMOKING BE LEGAL?

829 Words2 Pages

People use alcohol for numerous reasons; peer pressure, celebration, anxiety, sadness, boredom, rebellion and insomnia are just a few. Teens fall under the category of “people”. The legal drinking age is currently twenty-one, but illegally drinking age is as low as zero. I can assure you the underage drinking age percentage would drop if the age is lowered.
Alcohol causes a lot of harm to the human body. There are also some benefits of drinking, but only on moderate levels. Moderate drinking can lower the risk of coronary heart disease and can even help aid the common cold. Even though some drinking is good for the body you have to know how much and not to exceed that level. A lot of teenagers aren't worried about their health so they just drink to get drunk. He legal drinking age law is enforced to protect young people from health problems and to lower the drunken driving accidents. They figure by the time your 21 years old you are responsible enough to know when to say when.
Young people who start smoking at an earlier age are more likely to develop long-term nicotine addiction than people who start later. So why do teens start smoking? You might ask. Most teens start smoking for two contradictory reasons: They want to be part of a peer group, while rejecting society and its norms. They want to reach out and to rebel at the same time. Teenagers also relish smoking as a sigh of independence, even impudence. The more authority figures tell them not to smoke, the more psychic rewards they get from the habit. Cigarettes a hazard to life have become very common. It is just a burning a piece of paper and tobacco, but smokers ignore and take the carbon dioxide into the lungs. People are killing themselves and harming others by smoking....

... middle of paper ...

... tried. Especially when hanging with friends, a lot of teens get pressured into doing things and one of them is smoking. Friends pressure them into smoking and that’s when they try to fit in so they won’t get teased or become ashamed because they didn’t want to try it.
I think they should change the smoking age to the same as the drinking age. Too many teens can buy cigar and cigarettes without a I.D. In the past few years the government has made every effort to reach the masses, inane attempt to curb the exploitation of tobacco use, and its acceptance among
Americas Teens. However, cigarette smoking among adolescents is on the rise. Many people comply with peer pressure because they want to impress their friends or they want everyone to think their cool or maybe it’s just fear of being rejection. Another reason people start is because they get off on the shock.

Open Document