Minimizing the drinking age from 21-18years
Minimizing the drinking age from 21-18 years. Minimizing the drinking age from 21-18 years would reduce the excitement in rule-breaking to get a drink. Lowering the age limit would diminish the feeling of excitement to break the rules for taking alcohol (ProCon, 2019). Therefore, young adults do not need to hide when drinking because it is deemed taboo, as long as they drink moderately. The moment the young adults are prohibited from taking alcohol until the age of 21, they feel a syndrome of “forbidden fruit,” hence reaching for it more (Griggs, 2014). It is safer to introduce alcohol early to them, minimizing the feel like a taboo.
Drinking Age
The reduction of drinking age from 21 years has no association with lower suicide rates, destruction of public or private property, or murders. A study conducted in 2002 shows no statistics or data linked to legal drinking age and health and social problems (ProCon, 2019). Therefore, there are no grounds for the claims that decreasing the drinking age from 21 to 18 would increase these problems.
Despite young people from the age of 18-21years acknowledgment as adults, the drinking age should not be lowered in the United States due to health and social problems they would face. With dangers connected to teenage and young adult drinking, it could result in increased in excessive alcohol intake in their adult years, damage in brain development resulting in life coordination and health problems, and a way to counter the increase in traffic accidents and fatalities due to drunk driving. It will be a way to reduce health problems and deaths in future. If not reducing the drinking age will pave the way for brain development, no one has to undergo the risk associated repercussion from using alcohol. Finally, the knowledge the enactment of the law is in young adult’s favor.
Sources
Drinking Age – Pros & Cons – ProCon.org. (2019). Retrieved 11 August 2020, from https://drinkingage.procon.org/
Enstad, F., Evans-Whipp, T., Kjeldsen, A., Toumbourou, J. W., & Von Soest, T. (2019). Predicting hazardous drinking in late adolescence/young adulthood from early and excessive adolescent drinking-a longitudinal cross-national study of Norwegian and Australian adolescents. BMC public health, 19(1), 790.
Griggs, B. (2014). Should the US lower its drinking age?. Retrieved from CNN US.
Harding, F. M., Hingson, R. W., Klitzner, M., Mosher, J. F., Brown, J., Vincent, R. M., … & Cannon, C. L. (2016). Underage drinking: a review of trends and prevention strategies. American journal of preventive medicine, 51(4), S148-S157.
Richter, L., Pugh, B. S., Peters, E. A., Vaughan, R. D., & Foster, S. E. (2016). Underage drinking: prevalence and correlates of risky drinking measures among youth aged 12–20. The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse, 42(4), 385-394.