Why the Drinking Age Should Stay 21 free essay sample

This act has caused controversy for years, there even is group of 136 college presidents called Amethyst Initiative that support a lower minimum legal drinking age (MLDA). All of these college presidents have signed a petition that agrees with lowering the MLDA. The Amethyst Initiative teamed up with another Association called Choose Responsibly that also believes MLDA should be lowered. The Choose Responsibility association published an informative letter written by John McCardell expressing many arguments and reason why they believe the MLDA should be lowered. I read this article and many other articles that believe the MLDA should be lowered. I disagree with all of them for three reasons my first reason is that lowering the MLDA would increase consumption of minors and cause more binge drinking in America, my second reason is that changing the age to twenty one has saved that many lives, and the third reasons is that the drinking before 21 can delay brain development. Becoming an adult in this country should be a process young Americans should have to deal with getting freedoms and rights on age at a time. There is no way an 18 year old is mature enough to drink without learning how to handle having certain rights and freedoms first. For instance, the national alcohol related fatalities rate in 1984, before the MLDA was raised to 21was 4,612 deaths in a year. Since then in 2006, 2,121 people ages 16 to 20 died in alcohol-related fatalities on U. S. roads, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA). However some supporters of lowering the MLDA such as John McCardell argue the reason the fatalities have decreased is because of improved safety in cars. McCardell states in his article â€Å"improvements in seat-belt use and air bag improvements are the reason the number of fatalities decreased†. However, McCardell forgets to mention that traffic fatalities unrelated to alcohol have also increased 21 percent in the age group of 16 to 20 year olds during the same period of time (NHTSA). In 1984 2,915 people died in unrelated alcohol accidents and in 2006 3,537 died in unrelated accidents (NHTSA). Car safety nothing to do with the drop in alcohol related fatalities, changing the MLDA back to 21 has caused a drop in alcohol related deaths. There are some reasonable arguments that McCardell and other supporters of lowering the MLDA have. One of their biggest arguments is that a large majority of people under 21 drink any ways and many of them dangerously binge drink. This is a true statement according to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDH) 48% of 18 to 20 year olds consumed alcohol a month prior to the survey and 33 % of 18 and 20 years old binge drinking. However many supporters of lowering MLDA believe the reason these numbers are so high is because alcohol is outlawed and these young people feel the rush of breaking the law. Ruth Eng a supporter of lowering the MLDA writes in her article (Why the Drinking Age Should be Lowerd) â€Å"drinking by teenagers is seen as a forbidden fruit, a badge of rebellion against authority and a symbol adult hood. † However, if Eng s theory is correct the binge drink rates and alcohol consumption rates would lower once young adults turn 21 because it’s finally legal to drink. On the contrast, Eng’s theory is s wrong the rates actually sore higher once American citizens’ enter the age group of 21 to 25 years old, the amount of binge drinkers in this age group increase 12. % and the consumption level jump to 70%(NSDH). These statistics’ prove Engs theory that because Alcohol consumption is illegal for young adults tend to consume alcohol and abuse alcohol more often. If their theory was true the binge drinking rate for 21 to 25 years olds would not be 45. 5% in 2010. Another statistic that proves Engs â€Å"forbidden fruit theory† w rong is the statistic noted by the University of Michigans Monitoring the Future study, they found that a proportion of those 19- to 22-year-olds that binged drank two weeks prior to their surveyed in 1984 was 40. % and their current study in 2006 found that only 38. 1% binged drank 2 weeks prior to the recent survey, Which; proves that the 1984 act has decreased binge drinking by 2% in America. This drop in binge drinking rates may only be a small drop in binge drinking rates. Which, convey that Americans do have a high percentage of binge drinkers. This problem brings up another argument that supporters of lowering the drinking age bring up. Supporters of lowering the MLDA compared America to other countries that have a minimum drinking age of 18. Supporters of lowering the MLDA say that in countries where the drinking age 18 young people drink smarter. John McCardell points out some interesting statistic he states† in southern European countries ratios of all drinking occasions to intoxication occasions were quite low roughly one in ten while in the United States, almost half of all drinking occasions involving 15 and 16 year-olds resulted in intoxication. † McCardell statistic is partially correct all of the southern European countries 15 and 16 year olds do have lower rates of intoxication than Americas 15 and 16 year old except Spain. According to the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (EPAS) this southern European country reported that 25% of 15 and 16 year old in the survey were intoxicated in the previous month. In Comparison, to America were only 18% of 15 to 16 year olds were intoxicated in the previous month. McCardell also left some important information out that the U. K, Ireland, Finland, Denmark, and Austria all had higher intoxication rates in the month prior to the survey in the age group of 15 and 16 years old. All of these countries have a minimum drinking age no higher than 18 years old and are northern and eastern European countries. Getting drunk at the young ages of 15 and 16 years old is not safe at all because the brain is still developing at that age. The American Medical Association (AMA) reported in their Article Drinking Underage is D. U. M. B that â€Å"the brain goes through dynamic change during adolescence, and alcohol can seriously damage long- and short-term growth processes. They explain that the â€Å"Frontal lobe development and the refinement of pathways and connections in the brain continues until age 16, and a high rate of energy is used as the brain matures until age 20(AMA). † This is important to know because Alcohol is a chemical that damages the hippocampus and prefrontal lobe areas of the brain. This damagebeing done can impair short term memory and makes learning much harder for teens. The AMA revealed 4 research findings in their article on studies done on adolescents that use alcohol. The first research finding was that adolescent drinkers scored worse than non-users on vocabulary, general information, memory. The second finding was memory retrieval and at least three other tests Verbal and nonverbal information recall was most heavily affected, with a 10 percent performance decrease in alcohol users. The third finding was that adolescent drinkers perform worse in school, are more likely to fall behind and have an increased risk of social problems, depression, suicidal thoughts and violence. The fourth and final finding was Alcohol affects the sleep cycle, resulting in impaired learning and memory as well as disrupted release of hormones necessary for growth and maturation. After hearing all the damage that alcohol can do to a teenager’s brain it would be absurd for America to lower the drinking age, especially after hearing that countries with MLDA’s of 18 have a higher consumption rate at the age 15 and 16 years old. The age of 21 is the perfect age to start consuming alcohol because the brain has fully developed. I personally got the chills from hearing these facts because I have been drinking since I was 13 years old and been binge drinking since I was 16 years old. The AMAs’ article has started me thinking about how much brain damage I have probably given myself. Until about a year ago always believed that the age of consumption should be lowered to 18. My parents would always hear me repeatedly say â€Å"if I am old enough to die for my country why can’t I be old enough to by a beer. I did not start to realize why the MLDA being 21 is such a good thing until I was about 20 years old. I started to realize that each year I got older it became easier for me to get alcohol and if I had as much accessibility to alcohol as I do now there would be no way I would be mature enough to handle and control my partying habits. I explained this to my father a man who grew up when the drinking age was eighteen and he agreed with. My father told me â€Å"it’s a good thing they lowered the drinking age thing were way to out of hand back then† he went on to tell me all kinds of insane stories consisting of bar fights, motor vehicle accidents, and many other ridiculously wild events that involved alcohol. I feel I grew up during a much safer time period than he did because alcohol is harder to acquire and places to drink it illegally are harder to find. If the drinking age was lower than 21 I personally believe my chances of dying would have been greatly increased. Becoming adult in America should be a process; 18 year olds should have to take on responsibilities such as voting, jury duty, serving their country if at war, and learning to live on their own. These responsibilities and rights given to young adult’s help Americans mature at a steady pace. Giving a person a whole bunch of freedom and responsibilities all at once could result in chaos. The young adult may not be mature enough to handle it all. That’s why I thinking keeping the drinking age 21 is good for America. It has been proven that keeping MLDA to 21 helps prevent alcohol related fatalities, prevents young adults under 21 from binge drinking, and prevents teenagers from damaging brain development because alcohol is hard to acquire at such a young age. I believe the focus should not be on lowering the drinking age but the focus should be on coming up with new laws that prevent underage drinking. There is a problem in America with the amount of minors and young adults excessively drinking. The government needs to focus on ways to prevent the amount of young adults in this nation from drinking. .