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Effects of teen drinking essay
Effects of teen drinking essay
Dangers of teenage drinking essay
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One of the greatest debates of the world is the legal drinking age of adolescents. In some counties there is no legal age, however in others the, legal drinking age is extremely high. Because the age restriction is different all around the world, it leads to an immense debacle. In today’s society, it is necessary that the United States government lowers the drinking age from 21 to 18. The world nowadays is enormously different from when they first changed it, causing the age to not correlate with today’s society. In addition, there are numerous other legal rights 18 year olds have that make the drinking age stand out. If the legal age for drinking was lowered then the outcomes will be positive, for example, there would be less illegal drinking …show more content…
As long as adolescents are informed about what is right and wrong, the drinking age being at 18 will not affect amount deaths due to alcohol. In fact, many high schools courses are being taught to teach adolescents what is right and wrong in different situations that involve alcohol. These classes usually start in middle school and go all the way to high school, and even college. They teach adolescents what binge drinking is and how it is extremely dangerous. Online lessons started in in 2001 where “outside the Classroom, Inc. introduces AlcoholEdu, a three-hour online course designed to educate college students on the dangers of excessive drinking” (ProQuest Staff). Teaching young adults how drink responsibly at a younger age allows them to learn what is right and wrong as their brain is developing. This allows them to be aware when they start drinking, instead of allowing them to make stupid mistakes on their …show more content…
However, the drinking age does not cause problems in colleges. In fact, “college environments that afford easy access to low-cost alcohol, have few policies restricting accessibility to alcohol, and have lax enforcement of existing policies create the conditions for heavy drinking among college students” (Wechsler and Nelson). The problem of alcohol is not that there is an age restriction, it’s the easy access of alcohol. With easy access of alcohol, creates the possibly of binge drinking to occur, which is most prevalent in colleges. Binge drinking occurs because of the new freedoms young adults have. They are finally away from their parents and they can do whatever they like whenever they like, unlike before. It does not matter if the legal drinking age is 18 or 30, college students are going to drink with an age restriction or
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.
In the contents of this paper, four points of view will be discussed on an extremely controversial issue that has an effect on a large percentage of citizens in the United States. The issue at hand is whether the legal age to consume alcohol should be lowered from 21 to 18, and will state a pro and con side, as well as 2 stakeholders for each side of the argument. The stakeholders on the pro side are as follows: Underage consumers of alcohol, businesses that sell and the companies that produce alcohol. The people on the con side of the argument that would want the legal age to remain at 21 include State and Federal Law Enforcement Agencies, as well as the demographic of Parents that would prefer to keep their children from being exposed to alcohol at a potentially young age. As you continue to read the stakeholders opinions and arguments will be explained, after which the author’s personal opinion will be advanced. After doing my own in depth research on the topic, the legal age to consume alcohol should remain at 21 as set by the United States Congress when they passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act (NMDAA) in July of 1984. This act punished every state that allowed persons below 21 years of age to purchase and publicly possess alcoholic beverages by reducing its annual federal highway apportionment by ten percent. (National Minimum Drinking Age Act) This caused all fifty continental U.S. states to set their legal drinking age to 21, and it has remained there for thirty years.
For decades, certain people have been contemplating on how to go about the issue of underage drinking; people of the government, parents, and other individuals concerned in global affairs. The problem is, the issue of underage drinking and the nationwide ineffectiveness of the drinking age law of twenty-one isn't debated and discussed as much and as aggressively as it should be. And the main components of discussion ought to be the matter of binge drinking among teenagers and college students, drinking issues and statistics in foreign countries, and finally, possible solutions for this problem. The main point is that the states of our country can only attempt to enforce the law rather than try approaching the problem in any other way. So for that reason, states should be allowed to figure out and experiment on possible ways to solve this matter on their own without government interference.
Each year, about 5,000 teens are killed or injured in traffic crashes as a result of underage drinking and about 1,900 are due to car accidents. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and U.S. Department of Transportation) In the newsletter, safety in numbers by National highway traffic administration and U.S department of transportation “Of all the people who died in motor vehicle crashes during 2012, 31 percent died in crashes involving a drunk driver, and this percentage remains unchanged for the past 10 years” (Vol 1, 2013). Crashes involving alcohol include fatal crashes in which a driver had a BAC of .01 g/ ld. or higher (Underage Drinking Statistics)). Deadly crashes involving alcohol are twice as common in teens compared to people 21 and older. This is because teens’ judgment skills are harmed more by alcohol. Teens who drink not only risk hurting themselves, they risk hurting their friends, family, and even strangers when driving intoxicated. Teens and parents both need a strong reminder that underage drinking is illegal and can have disastrous consequences. According to Health Day News, “one study found that in 2011, 36 percent of U.S. college students said they'd gone binge drinking (five or more drinks in one sitting) within the past two weeks, as compared to 43 percent of college students in 1988. Since 2006, the current law has reduced the rate of drunk driving crashes among young Americans” (Preidt, 2014 and DeJong, 2014). This proves that lives have been saved after the legal drinking age increased. According to an article in Time Magazine called “Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered?”, “lowering the drinking age to 18 would stop infantilizing college students, but it would probably kill mor...
College student drunkenness is far from new and neither are college and university efforts to control it. What is new, however, is the potential to make real progress on this age-old problem based on scientific research results. New research-based information about the consequences of high-risk college drinking and how to reduce it can empower colleges and universities, communities, and other interested organizations to take effective action. Hazardous drinking among college students is a widespread problem that occurs on campuses of all sizes and geographic locations. A recent survey of college students conducted by the Harvard University School of Public Health reported that 44 percent of respondents had drunk more than five drinks (four for women) consecutively in the previous two weeks. About 23 percent had had three or more such episodes during that time. The causes of this problem are the fact that students are living by themselves no longer with parents or guardians; they earn their own money; students need to be a part of a group, be accepted; and they have the wrong idea that to feel drunk is “cool.”
There would be a lot of benefits to having the drinking age change to eighteen. The amount of binge drinking would lessen, and the out rage to drink would also decrease. According to Smith, ?Reports of binge drinking come from all types of campuses across the country. In 1992, researchers reported that more college?s students
The controversy on the proper drinking age is one that has been repeatedly discussed and researched over the years. Its common to hear the argument “If someone is old enough to take a bullet for their country, they should be allowed to drink alcohol.” But is that enough justification? Some would say no. “According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) it is estimated that in 2004 there were more than 1,700 student deaths, 599,000 injuries, and 696,000 assaults annually associated with excessive drinking” (Fennell 247). Given these numbers, would lowering the drinking age really be the best thing for America’s youth?
Despite the problems that would arise, many people are beginning to feel that the drinking age should be lowered from twenty-one to eighteen. Studies have been made; however, no hard evidence suggesting lowering the minimum drinking age would help have surfaced. Although there are countless studies of how alcohol has many harmful effects on teenagers, there is a great deal of negative criticism about what if the drinking age is lowered. Some would say the morally right decision is to not allow teens the chance to hurt themselves. Everyone is entitled to having his or her own opinions and beliefs. However, the overall health of the youth of our country seems a little more important than some personal belief. The drinking age should not be lowered due to the fact drunk driving, juvenile delinquency, and alcohol-related medical issues related to teens will increase.
I most definitely don’t think the legal drinking age should be lowered. Teenagers and those younger than 21 already have so many changes going on and so many new responsibilities. It’s the time when you start figuring out how to do things on your own and how to be responsible for yourself. There is also just so much learning and molding of a person going on in their younger years. I don’t think adding intoxication to this list of new things would have the most positive outcome. Besides, our bodies are still developing before 21. There could be considerable damage done because our systems are just not ready to handle alcohol consumption. Granted, it’s not uncommon for someone underage to not adhere to the law. The video posted discussed the
One on-going debate that has caused quite the argument between researchers, and that has been going on for decades in America, has been if the minimum legal drinking age should be lowered from age 21 to 18 for U.S. citizens. It has been clear that there is a drinking problem amongst this age range, for excessive drinking contributes to more than 4,300 deaths a year among those who under 21 in the U.S. (Fact Sheets, 2016). The debate in this argument circles around pinpointing the right method to combat this drinking problem. On one side, there are top professional researchers and institutes that believe that the MLDA, or minimum legal drinking age, should continue to stay at 21. They believe that this is the most appropriate MLDA, because they believe teens younger than this age don’t know how to handle alcohol responsibly, which could ultimately result in harm to themselves or others. On the other side of this argument are those who believe the MLDA should be lowered to around 18 or 19 years old. Proponents of this argument
Traffic accidents and fatalities are most common to newly drinkers, regardless of the age that they start drinking. Since, accidents happen to new drinkers no matter what the age, there should be no problem with lowering the drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one. A man that was found to be a new drinker, Richard Thomas Warren, age thirty, of Milton was driving near an intersection on Santa Rosa streets at 12:42 a.m. when he crashed into the front entrance of an attorney’s office. This man who hasn’t been drinking for very long, this proves that no matter what age you start drinking,whether its eighteen or thirty, you can make the same mistakes and lowering the drinking age will not be a very big concern if it is lowered to eighteen.
Ruth C. Engs says “The legal drinking age should be lowered to about 18 or 19 and young adults allowed to drink in controlled environments such as restaurants, taverns, pubs and official school and university functions. In these situations responsible drinking could be taught through role modeling and educational programs. Mature and sensible drinking behavior would be expected. This opinion is based upon research that I have been involved in for over twenty years concerning college age youth and the history of drinking in the United States and other cultures.” Most people are aware that most college students drink and go to parties, lowering the drinking age and showing them how to drink safely is the responsible thing to do. Letting younger people know how much they can handle and knowing how to drink responsibly would make it where less and less people would go out and do something stupid. Going out with one of your friends and having a drink is not a bad thing if anything it shows how responsible you can be knowing your limits and not going over that. That's like going out to eat, some people are addicted to fast food. If Mcdonald's stopped serving overweight people because they could become addicted and be severely unhealthy it's the same way with alcohol. There will always be people that go overboard with everything and those people are the ones that spoil it for everyone. Since 18 year olds have the right to
In fact, lowering the drinking age might even decrease the amount of younger people who struggle with binge drinking. Most people who are younger than 21 are only able to drink at parties with alcohol, which leads to them binge drinking. If they were able to drink legally, they might drink more often, but they would be less likely to binge drink all at one time (Underage Drinking). Kids from the ages of 12 to 20 consume close to 11 percent of all alcohol consumed in the United States and of that 11 percent 90 percent is consumed by binge drinking (Underage Drinking). Lowering the drinking age would decrease the amount of young people binge drinking and be much safer for them. In European countries with a legal drinking age as low 18 only 10 percent of all drinking occasions result in intoxication while in the United States nearly 50 percent of all drinking occasions result in intoxication
Most people in the United States drink alcohol, either for socializing purpose or to forget the negativity in their lives. Especially freshmen students who are spending their first time away from home, away from their childhood friends and school. They will be dramatically searching for a way to socialize and make new friends to start a new life. The current minimum legal drinking age should not be lowered under the age of 21 because drinking under that age could be really harmful to teenagers.
The topic of this argument is drinking underaged. Drinking underaged simply means consuming alcohol under the legal drinking age which is 21, not 18. Drinking underaged is important in society for the simple fact a lot of teenagers are doing it without thinking twice about it. Teens should definitely know what they are getting themselves into and the repercussions of them drinking. It should be a class on what drinking at an early age can do to age. A teenagers body hasn't even fully developed to even digest alcohol in the correct manner. It should definitely be illegal not only for 18 year olds to drink but adults who purchase it for them. If an adult purchase an alcoholic drink for a teenager and they have complications due to it, the adult should also face penalties just as much as the teen. Teens should wait until they know how to control themselves under the influence of alcohol and know their boundaries. This is very much relevant in today's society because underaged drinking is at an all time high. Teens are going out to parties with their friends and drinking without their parents even having a clue what they are up to. In today's society it's so easy to sneak and drink for the simple fact some stores don't even check I.D. If teenage drinking isn't stopped now it will only become a bigger problem as time