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Underage drinking case study
Essays about the drinking age in the united states
Essays over legal drinking age in the usa
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About 11% of the alcohol consumed in the United States is by people ages 12-20. Every year, 4,300 underage drinkers die of drinking in excess. These are some pretty shocking statistics. How do we save the other teens who have an addiction to alcohol, or will if we don’t help them? The following possible solutions could help. We can solve the underage drinking problem by tightening ease of purchasing alcohol, increasing the price of alcohol, and creating a curfew for the purchase of alcohol. Tightening the easiness of buying alcohol is one way to potentially solve the problem of underage drinking. This can be put into play by making every potential buyer of alcohol show an ID. In a study conducted in West Hudson by the HCCDFC, 8 out of 11 stores visited did not ask for proof of age. Several years ago, Indiana passed a law that made it so, no matter what your age was, you had to show an ID when acquiring alcoholic beverages. This law could be a reality in most, if not all, of the states. This could help with controlling the amount of alcohol bought and consumed by people under 21. Increasing the price of alcohol could deter many people from buying alcohol at a younger age. Many people wouldn’t be able to afford alcohol if the price was higher. It also might force underage people to expose that they are addicted to …show more content…
There might be exceptions to this rule, such as New Year’s, and a few minutes leeway might be permitted. But if all purchases of alcohol after midnight were prohibited, it could result in less drunk driving accidents as well as less underage people getting drunk. To enforce this curfew, cashiers and store employees would simply refuse to sell anyone alcohol after midnight. This curfew would also help adults to not get in drunk driving accidents or die of an overdose. A curfew could help prevent underage people from getting
Lowering the legal drinking age would create problems such as infringing on the mental and physical development of the young drinker. As a respected author, Matt Nagin puts it, “The late teens and early twenties are formative years where character building, leadership in the community, and scholastic excellence should be emphasized. Alcohol detracts from all of these.” In other words, Nagin believes that the teen years are an imperative time of growth in a person’s life. Scientists have proven that the brain is not fully developed until the age of twenty five. If Nagin’s argument is correct, and I believe it is, then people should understand that scientists have proven the negative affects that alcohol has on the development of the brain. Alcohol has the power to kill brain cells and damage growth hormones. By making alcohol legally accessible to an eighteen year old, we are literally poisoning his or her brain.
Laws such as the ZT (Zero Tolerance) Laws could be kept in place where anyone under 21 who is pulled over, and blows a BAC of over 0% should get a DUI. The only time it should be allowed at .08% or lower would be 21 or over. To negate the possibility of alcohol abuse of minors (under 18), those between the ages of 18 and 20 could have ID’s that limited the amount that could be purchased at a single time. This would make it is more difficult for them to supply beverages to those who are
Our study found that a lower drinking age was associated with a statistically higher risk of unintended pregnancy and. worse infant health.” (Watson) Not only was unintended pregnancy the only issue happening, Watson also explains there will mostly likely be higher crime rates to last much longer, and this is all associated with alcohol. Not only does Watson explain that lowering the drinking age limit has and will cause a huge psychological impact, it will cause young adults to binge drink as they get older.
Without a doubt, the United States has been facing serious national problems with underage drinking. Depending on personal ideologies, some people might not agree that the current minimum drinking age of twenty-one is based on scientific facts rather then ideology of prohibitionism. For example, since 1975 over seventeen thousand lives have been saved since the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) was changed to age twenty-one (Balkin 167). This shows that even over a short amount of time, a higher MLDA helps decrease the risk of teen suicides, accidents and overdose deaths. However, this widely debated topic has inevitably brought attention to the plethora of supporting and opposing viewpoints. The minimum legal drinking age of twenty-one has shown significant results in the prevention of accidents and death studies across the board. Accordingly, the MLDA should remain at the current age of twenty-one.
Primarily, the drinking age should be lowered to teach responsibility and safety in young adults. The idea seems paradoxical; however, the high drinking age that is present in the U.S. today has only pushed underage drinking underground (Balko 458). In fact, America has the highest minimum drinking age in the world (Balko 459). Even though the American drinking age remains high, America still remains with an astonishingly large number of alcohol-related accidents and deaths. Is this statement a coincidence? Throughout the years alcohol has become more and more of an issue in young adults, but the correct actions are not taking place. If alcohol were to legally be put in the hands of Americans eighteen and above, these individuals would likely be forced to learn a sense of safety and responsibility. As stated by Caryn Sul...
“By lowering the minimum drinking age to 21. It would give high schoolers and even middle schoolers easier access to alcohol”. As said in drinking age ProCons.org. Newly legal drinking often purchase alcohol for their underage peers, creating a trickle-down effect. surveys show that the common source of alcohol among 18-21 year olds is there 21-24 year old peers. Believing that their is a purchase to alcohol for their underage peers meaning even if you ...
There has been an ongoing controversy in the United States on whether the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen like most of the world or if it should stay at twenty-one. Underage drinking has been a major controversial issue for years, yet why is it not under control? Teenagers are continuing to buy alcohol with fake identification cards, drink, get into bars, and drink illegally. As a teen I have proof that these things are going on not only in college but in high school as well. There are a lot of factors that come together to why the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen; the most obvious reason is too many people are drinking before they are twenty-one. Liquor stores, bars, and clubs all want to make money and if they can get away with selling to underage teens then they will. A study done by the Academic Search Premier agrees that, ?By now it is obvious that the law has not succeeded in preventing the under-21 group from drinking? (Michael Smith 1).
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.
In the United States the legal drinking age, with a few exceptions, is 21; this should be changed from 21 to the age of 18. This would help high schoolers and college students who generally commit the act of underage drinking anyways to avoid long lasting legal repercussions. This would also remove the excitement that many underage drinkers feel since for many, it would now be legal. This would help to lessen temptation and encourage today’s youth to drink in a more safe and responsible environment since it would be considered a normal activity and would no longer need to be done in secrecy.
A staggering 80% of college students consume alcohol and around half of those students are frequent binge drinkers (“College Drinking”). The excessive consumption of alcohol has became a widespread issue at universities nationwide, causing many people to wonder where the problem got its roots. However, the problem of underage drinking is not exclusive to college campuses. By the time a student graduates high school, there is a 65% chance that they will have consumed at least one alcoholic beverage. Some researchers could claim that this epidemic is due to the historical time period of Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s. The eighteenth amendment, ratified in January 1919, outlawed the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” and caused drastic changes in American society (qtd. in Anderson). The ratification of the eighteenth amendment not only affected citizens
Today, teenagers grow up in a world that glamorizes underage drinking. We see it in television advertisements, movies, magazines, snapchat stories, you name it, and we have probably seen it. In the United States the minimum limit drinking age (MLDA) is 21, but in many other countries such as Canada and almost everywhere in Europe, their MLDA is 18 or 19. Many criticize the United States, having one of the highest MLDAs, due to the fact that teenagers haven’t had the opportunity to learn how to drink safely and responsibly. In America most students reach college from the age of 17 to 19 and are drawn into the world of parties, which almost always includes alcohol. The only prior knowledge students have on the subject is what they have gathered from watching their parents, or more likely what they have seen on television or
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “In 2010, there were approximately 189,000 emergency rooms visits by persons under age 21 for injuries and other conditions linked to alcohol.” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1) This is an issue that clearly needs to be solved. In the United States, the current legal drinking age is 21. Many states lowered the drinking age to 18 after the voting age was lowered to 18 but Mothers Against Drunk Driving helped to raise the drinking age back to 21 by the 1990’s. Lowering the legal drinking age to 18 once again is a controversial issue that has many pros and cons. Many argue that lowering the drinking age encourages dangerous behaviors and negatively affects one’s health but
People drink alcoholic substances for multiple different reasons such as anxiety, peer pressure, boredom, and rebellion. Kids and young adults under the age of twenty-one believe it or not, fall in this group of people. In a small town like Burnsville North Carolina there are few things to do for fun so most the people around here like to go to parties and have a little too much fun on the weekends. The drinking age is as of now twenty-one. Studies show that if the drinking age is lowered to eighteen the number of under age drinking and drinking between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one will decrease mainly due to the thrill of illegal doing being lost. By age eighteen, nearly seventy percent of young adults say
Young people grow up seeing their parents and other adults make toast of wine and champagne at special occasions, as well as casually enjoying a few beers at a picnic. Today alcoholic beverages are frequently as common at business lunches as they are at college frat parties. Underage drinking is a huge problem which everyone must face. Underage drinking not only has devastating effects on those who drink but also on our society. "Young people illegally consume almost 3.6 billion drinks annually which is 10 million drinks each day."
As the current legal drinking age remains to be 21, adolescents today are increasingly drinking large amounts of alcohol behind the backs of others. Along with this being illegal, alcohol-related dangers within our youth like dependency, disease, and irresponsible behaviors are problems that many are finding ways to prevent by increasing awareness; some people have even suggested that raising the drinking age would be the ultimate solution. However, is the constant routine of warning adolescents and preventing them from drinking really working? Based on the vast number of anti-alcohol programs in schools and existing laws forbidding the use of underaged drinking, today, there are still increasing reports. Instead of repeatedly preventing our