The Ideal Minimum Legal Drinking Age 1

The Ideal Minimum Legal Drinking Age

Sebastian Cousin

Jefferson Community and Technical College

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Alcohol among people under the age of 21 is a reality authorities, parents and teachers

can’t afford to pretend does not exist because it does. As time goes by the number of underage

people drinking alcohol is higher and the younger generations which are always more open

minded than the one before them, start getting into things like drinking earlier every time. The

National Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) was passed in the 1980’s; it was set to be 21

because according to the people who passed the law, 21 is an age when the person is more

responsible about their actions. Obviously underage drinking has not stopped since the law was

passed, there is more drinking in high schools from juniors and seniors and nowadays even from

freshmen and sophomores. Also now, big college parties have become a tradition in which new

students participate, parents and college authorities are aware of them and have not been able to

stop them. In these parties there is plenty of alcohol provided from fraternity brothers; sorority

sisters many of whom have fake IDs because they are under the age of 21. By setting 21 as a

minimum age for legally drinking, authorities force teenagers to drink inside dorm, houses or

underground places where there is a less controlled environment. This leads the underage drinker

not to stop until all the alcohol that is provided is gone which also leads to life threating

situations because of excessive consumption of alcohol.

A better situation would be if, the minimum drinking age is lowered to 18, and college

students and high school seniors move their rituals from dorms and houses to clubs where there

is a controlled environment. In a club, first of all, alcohol would be more expensive which may

limit the resources for a young adult to reach. Also, there is a possibility that a bartender decides

to stop selling alcohol to a certain person due to the obvious level of drunkenness that person

shows. Clubs close at a certain time in which everyone needs to get out and leave which may

also limit the amount of alcohol that is provided to each person.

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Turning 18 gives a young adult many different rights and responsibilities like

voting, serve in juries, ability to get married, sign contracts or join the military. Of course, many

take a lot of responsibility and good judgment. If a person’s vote counts toward things like

electing a president, it is because authorities believe that 18 is an age where a person has enough

judgment to pick a side on how they want their country to be handled. Deciding what

government you want to get and how you want your country to be managed seems like it would

take a responsible person to choose. Serving in a jury is a similar situation, it takes a lot of

responsibility to pick a side while being in a jury because it decides the future of a person, and

authorities think 18 year old people are capable of serving in a jury. Continuing with the list of

rights a person gets when turning 18 is the right to get married. Getting married entails many

responsibilities such as having a family, the man or the woman may become the support of the

family if not both. Being married may be the stage of a person’s life that lasts the longest before

they die which is really serious. Now a whole different thing is if teenager should get married at

such a young age. But that is not what this paper is about. Joining the military is the last right in

the list above. Joining the military is a life and death situation. A person who joins the military

will fight for their country and may be killed overseas. Defending a country again, requires a lot

of responsibility. From all the rights a person gets when they turn 18, it is shown authorities

believe the person is responsible enough to do all these things. But the same person that may get

married or die overseas is not allowed to legally have a beer in their country? The laws for 18

year old people seem to be like a book with a missing chapter where it allows them to drink

legally because according to the other laws they are capable of having responsibilities and good

judgment (Nelson, 2011).

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It is not a mystery that people under the age of 21 are drinking in hidden areas. Most of

the teenagers that are drinking have not gotten education from either their parents or teachers on

how to drink with moderation. What those teenagers have been told is not to drink at all. What

does telling someone not to do something do, well whenever they have a chance they will do it

and they will not know how to handle it. It is not different with drinking. Young adults that are

not educated or at least have some knowledge of moderating drinking will drink whenever they

have a chance or whenever they think they will not get caught from their parents or the police.

Since this “chance” does not present itself very often, teenagers will overdo their drinking when

they do it which leads to health problems. A better way to handle the drinking under the age of

21 problems is not to pretend it doesn’t happen and pretending that teenagers actually listen

when they are told not to do something. Not only for drinking but for other things in which

adults teach teenagers like sex, or driving. The best thing to say “is it better if you don’t do it, but

if you do… you should…” Going back to underage drinking, it is better for a teenager to know

how to drink responsibly and know their limits. After they drink they need to also know that they

will be responsible for their actions. As mentioned before, saying don’t do something to a person

creates a desire on that person to do it. The reasons are because of curiosity or just to go against

the rules. Drinking is not the exception; in our time for some teenagers drinking is more of a

taboo, it is a way of going against the rules and breaking the law. By making the minimum age

18, there will be less consumption of alcohol for these purposes (ProCon, 2011).

A great deal of people have gone through the stage when they are young, they want to

look older and when they are older, they try to look younger. Teenagers go through that stage in

which they try to show everyone else how mature and older they look. By having the MDLA at

21, it sends a message to people that you need to be mature and older to consume alcohol.
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Because when other teenagers see them, they may think this person is more mature than

everyone else.

Another effect of the MDLA at the age of 21 is that teens are not allowed to consume

alcohol in public places like restaurants or bars. Restaurants and bars are safe places to have a

couple of drinks because you may be limited to the amount of alcohol that will be sold to you

and also the price is not as cheap as buying it from a gas station which will limit the amount of

alcohol that person can afford. Since teenagers are not allowed to buy legally or drink alcohol in

public businesses like these, they are forced to move into dormitories and party houses where

there is not control of how much each person can drink and alcohol is provided for free from

older people or people with fake IDs. In case someone gets alcohol poisoning or something goes

wrong and it has to do with alcohol, these teenagers will be afraid of contacting authorities or

parents because of the consequences that will come along. There is no control in the places

where young adults under the age of 21 decide to drink and it is dangerous for them. Making the

legal drinking age 18, not everyone, but most of the people will move from dorms and houses to

clubs where they can buy their own drinks and have people in charge of taking care of their

customers (CNN, 2007).

In a CNN debate between Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and Choose

Responsibility, a representative from MADD said that by lowering the age from legally drinking

from 21 to 18, it will increase the number of fatal accidents on the road because of drunk drivers.

He was explaining that since the age was increased to 21 for legally drinking, there have been

fewer accidents. Well, drinking and driving is not something only teenagers can do or may get in

accidents if they do so. 21 year old people and older also drink and drive, is he trying to send the

message that when you get to the age of 21 you will have enough experience that you will be
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fine if you drink and drive? Drinking and driving is a whole different topic that relates to the

amount of responsibility a person has, it does not matter the age the person is. The statistics

shown by the MADD representative did not only include drunk drivers, but also if two people

were in the car, one drunk and one sober. Even of the sober person was driving; it counts as a

drinking accident, also, if a sober driver gets in an accident with a drunk pedestrian, counts as an

alcohol related accident. A teenager is most likely to drink and drive because of the fear of

getting caught by an authority figure or parent by asking to get a ride. A teenager is more afraid

of the consequences of getting caught than actually driving under the influence of alcohol

(2007).

Drinking is a problem among teens no matter whether it is legal or illegal. Right now, the

government spends money on having control and enforcing laws against underage drinking

instead on education on how to drink with moderation which would be cheaper and more

effective.

The law passed approximately 30 years ago setting the minimum drinking legal age to 21

years old has not worked on stopping teenagers from drinking. Young adults are still drinking in

clandestine places where they cannot get caught but with no control or safeguards that may

prevent any accident or health problem a teenager can have due to alcohol consumption.

According to authorities 18 years old are responsible enough to do other things like voting,

getting married, serve in a jury, sign a contract and serve in the military which are things that

only a responsible person would be able to handle but those same people are not allowed to have

a beer. As John Mccardell from choose responsibility says "The time has come to address the

reality of alcohol in America". The authorities can’t just think that because the law is there,
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teenagers will not drink. They need to educate young adults that if they drink they need to drink

moderate and take responsibilities. It is better to prevent if it happens than just saying don’t do it.
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Resources

 Nelson, David. ( 2011). The drinking age should be lowered. Teen drug abuse.
Gale opposing viewpoints in context. Retrieved from
http://internal.jefferson.kctcs.edu:2328/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/Viewpoint
sDetailsWindow?
displayGroupName=Viewpoints&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=OVIC&acti
on=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE
%7CEJ3010436248&mode=view

 Gruzca, Richard. Norberg, Karen. Bierut, Laura. ( 2009, July). Binge drinking
among youths and young adults in the United States: 1979-2006. Journal of the
American academy of child & adolescent psychiatry. 48. 692-702. Retrieved from
http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(09)60106-4/fulltext

 Procon. ( 2011, May 27). Should the drinking age be lowered from 21 to a
younger age? Procon.org. Retrieved from
http://drinkingage.procon.org/#background

 CNN. (2007, August 23). Drinking debate interview with mothers against drunk
driving (MADD) and choose responsibility. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufXLSRtsCGQ&feature=player_embedded