The Drinking Age Should Be Lowered

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There are numerous problems involving alcohol in the world today, including alcoholism, drunk driving, and alcohol poisoning leading to death. Many of these problems involve minors and are linked to drinking underage. The legal drinking age in many states is twenty-one years old. The purpose of this law is to keep minors out of danger: away from drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, and injuring the brain before it is fully developed. The government supports the belief that people are not ready or responsible enough for alcohol until this age. However, various professors and researchers are discovering ways to disprove this belief. These people think that reducing the drinking age to eighteen would influence our country in a positive way. Not only do minors support this idea, but there are numerous people and organizations that support the idea of lowering the drinking age as well. The current drinking law is counterproductive in our society because it’s not effective in eliminating underage drinking, and leads to unsafe situations such as drunk driving and alcohol poison instigated deaths. This problem could be solved by lowering the minimum drinking age to eighteen, with a drinking license. “Either we are a nation of lawbreakers, or this is a bad law”, says John McCardell, author for the Greenhaven Press (McCardell, 2012). What McCardell is referring to is the law barring the consumption of alcohol in individuals under the age of twenty-one in the United States. John McCardell is the former president of Middlebury College, and he is also the founder of the Choose Responsibly group (Baldouf, 2007). This group is a nonprofit organization that travels around the country sharing McCardell’s proposal about the drinking age... ... middle of paper ... ...m http://www.indiana.edu/~engs/articles/cqoped.html Fennell, R. (2007, December). Drinking Is Fun. Retrieved May 2014, from Academic OneFile: http://go.galegroup.com.bakerezproxy.palnet.info/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DA- McCardell, J. (2012). The Drinking Age Should Be Lowered. (G. Press, Producer) Retrieved May 2014, from Gale Virtual Reference Library: http://go.galegroup.com.bakerezproxy.palnet.info/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=GVRL Rotunda, M. (2004). Prohibition. Retrieved May 2014, from CREDORreference: http://www.credoreference.com.bakerezproxy.palnet.info/entry/rutgersnj/prohibition Underage Drinking. (2005). Retrieved 2014, from Alcohol News: http://www.alcoholnews.org/Underage%20drinking.html Why 21? (2011). Retrieved May 2014, from MADD: http://www.madd.org/underage-drinking/why21/

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