Universities+For+Lowering+the+Drinking+Age

The debate for [|lowering the drinking] age from 21 to 18 has been effect for quite some time now due to the alcohol related deaths and other contributing factors. Some are for the lowering of the drinking age, others are against the idea.

Bribed
Current US law states that if a state does not have a drinking age of at least 21, they lose their funding for federal highways. This makes the U.S. drinking age among one of the highest in the world. Looking at our culture, alcohol plays a major role especially among young adults. Although the law does restrict the sale of alcohol to a minor under 21, this does not keep it out of their hands. In most cases, a minor most likely can acquire alcohol just as easy as someone over 21.

21-Not So Good Afterall
 As a result of the current drinking law, once someone under 21 has acquired alcohol, they are forced to keep it underground or a way from adults. Because of this, parties were alcohol has a large presents, a responsible adult might not find out about the party until the damage is done. The law has proven that you are never going to stop drinking. This leaves us with only one option, shifting the culture so that drinking is more widely accepted by the older adults so that the younger adults don’t go underground to drink without responsible adults around. Also, if the drinking law was lowered to 18, drinking would not be such a huge deal as someone grows up. If alcohol was more present, this could curve the want to drink big every time you have the opportunity to drink. Underage teens would drink alcohol casually instead of cramming as much alcohol down their throat to see who can consume the most. []

Responsibility
 Out of all the countries in the world, the United States has the highest drinking age, which comes to quite a shock to me. Legislators argue that men and women who are old enough to vote, get married, adopt children, purchase firearms and defend our country can be trusted to drink responsibility. They already have a wide variety of responsibilities, what’s one more?

The Law
The current law had forced the underage teens to hide and sneak alcohol, which means lawmakers and responsible adults have no control over underage drinking. The best thing to correct this enormous problem is to lowering the drinking age, I admit it would be chaos at first, but then it would mellow out and this “underground” [|underage drinking] would no longer be a problem.

"The Hanging Fruit"
A big question is that lowering the drinking age to 18 will put alcohol in the hands of 15 year old just as the drinking age of 21 has in 18 year olds, also known as the “hanging fruit”. However 18 year olds have easy access to alcohol despite the law, as do most high school students. Nearly three quarters of 8th graders can say that it is fairly easy to get their hands on alcohol. If the young people already have access to alcohol why not lower the drinking age?

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