Drinking Age Persuasive Essay

1046 Words3 Pages

I. Attention-Getter:
You're at a college party where there is alcohol everywhere. You see a couple of friends there and they're all 18-20 years old. But they're drinking regardless so you decide to join in and drink too. After a couple shots, you see one of your friends suddenly falling to the floor. Since you only had a couple shots, your mind is still clear and realize that he has alcohol poisoning. So there are two choices for you to pick, either call 911 and get in trouble for underage drinking or wait and see if the poisoning will go away. But if you wait, chances are that he might actually die before it goes away. What would you have done if you were in this situation? If the minimum legal drinking age is 18, the choice is obvious that you would’ve called 911 immediately.
II. Common Ground/Connection to Audience:
Many people believe that the drinking age of 21 protects teenagers from harming themselves but the age restriction is only causing more harm for them.
III. Credibility:
I truly believe that lowering the drinking age to 18 will lower the amount of drinking accidents and I have done a lot of research on this to ensure the safety of all of us.
IV. Preview Sentence:
I’m here to persuade you in supporting a lower legal drinking age to age 18 because 1. It would eliminate temptation of breaking law (to drink) 2. Reduce unsafe drinking activities (Binge drinking) 3. It should correspond to the age of adulthood
MAIN BODY:
I. Main point one: Eliminating the Temptation of breaking the law (to drink)
The debate of whether the minimum legal drinking age should be lowered or not has been around for many years even since the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 raised the MLDA to age 21. Prior to that, the government has t...

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Visualization:
Now let’s imagine a United States where the drinking age is lowered to age 18. What you would expect to see is that people would drink less because the temptation of drinking alcohol would be lowered. There would be a lot less alcohol related incidents because binge drinking rates decreased significantly due alcohol education and supervision. The mentality of “getting wasted” would also be gone because drinking would be treated as a normal social activity. Wow, if that really happens, drinking would be like how it is in Europe, where they have a lowered legal drinking age that actually works!
CONCLUSION:
Action:
If you want to support a lowered legal drinking age, the least you could do is to sign a petition stating that you wish to support it.

Zinger:
The problem is not a lowered legal drinking age but one that restricts us from drinking.

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