Should the legal drinking age be lowered?

Many justification for lowering the legal drinking age follow a certain logic. Many rights and responsibilities that come along at 18 seem serious, but against the discretion of knowing when to drink and having the right to drink responsibly, it seems to many Americans the drinking age is illogical. With respect to variable levels of responsibility while drinking and driving, critics of the legal drinking age claim that the age limit drives students and teenagers into participating in off-road or private drinking behaviors.

Many citizens feel an unfair limitation have been placed on legal drinking. Most people serving in the American military are at age 18 and actively recruited at this age. Yet in many states the legal drinking age is 21 or over. Many critics of the legal drinking age cite that a government that requires killing of another human being at age yet proscribes legal drinking and consumption of alcohol. The national debate regarding the 21 year old drinking limit is an ongoing topic amongst high school and college student ages households.

Responses to these concerns cite the use of alcohol as a stimulant and the likelihood for students to become separated from education goals after underage drinking occurs. The drinking age debate spans the concern for behavior that occurs when underage drinking is present that is dangerous because drinkers fear getting caught, and concern for behavior that occurs when underage drinking is present that is preventable due to abstinence. Underage drinking has been an ongoing concern for health and welfare of young students.

Another significant idea based around criticism of the legal drinking age is that alcohol is widely used as a coping mechanism. It is possible that alcohol can be consumed and enjoy imbibing legally. U S is the country with the highest drinking age. Why is the United States so uniquely against drinking over the age of 21? History shows that serious statistics of drug and alcohol related fatalities were brought about by a curtailment in teenage drinking due to the drinking age being elevated.

The drinking limit itself is questions. Youth Prohibition claims raising the drinking age saved lives, yet critics claim that binge drinking age and underage drinking continue and parents continually assists underage drinking by hosting events in their homes or on their property to shield underage drinking from authorities. Popular feeling feeling runs high that of abuse of underage drinking occurs because the opportunity to drink is rare enough that binge drinking occurs. And many underage proponents of lowering the drinking age legally, who cite the worthiness of age 18 to go to war, likely are not participating in military actions.

Critics of the current legal drinking age point to countries abroad and in Europe where drinking is a popular cultural pastime for Oktoberfest, vintage wine drinking, and regional festivals and celebrations. However little is known about abuses of alcohol by minors and underage drinkers in foreign countries. Yet what is unclear is that Europeans and others abroad, who share the same binge drinking and alcohol abuse behaviors in the same alarming patterns Americans do, might not have avoided these habits with a raised legal drinking age.

The Minimum Drinking Age Act reduced or prevented roads and highways federal funding unless a higher drinking age was established. this was done in concert with awareness of campaigns to inform the public about underage drinking and driving fatalities while drinking and driving by advocacy groups like MADD(Mothers Against Drunk Drivers). Given that much older adults routinely suffer acutely and chronically from alcohol addiction, the government has acted responsibly in elevating the legal age.

The problem with underage drinking currently is the practice of closeted or private underage drinking. As long as parents do not care to police their offspring or positively affect their values, the law is irrelevant. Fatalities due to underage drinking will occur as long as drinking in an of itself is practiced as a recreational pastime. It is unforeseen whether this would stop occurring if the legal drinking age were lowered. If the logic of this argument is followed, the deaths would simply re-occur on highways, streets, and freeways.

Drinking while underage, challengers to the legal drinking age limit state, is that the law has made the drinking of alcohol a taboo and thus "forbidden fruit". But opponents claim the drinking would continue with the chronological bar lowered, driving the problem of underage drinking into high schools where it is present already. When teenagers are on cruises or at wedding, winks are exchanged as teenage drinkers indulge.

The criticism that the drinking age of 21 maltreats young people because they are not inured to drinking and not experienced enough to "party" knowledgeably holds little weight at funerals. Yet the flip side of this lighthearted enjoyment is the hardcore hazing and alcohol related problems that pop up in the headlines and police and law enforcement officers see every day.

It is one thing for those who want to challenge the current legal age to claim no more hazardous injuries or deaths might occur, quite another to be accountable should the opposite be true. An occasional glass of wine supervised by an entire wedding party or family during a cruise creates one type of drinking situation, a series of 5 to 10 drinks consumed in seconds creates a completely different set of circumstances and outcomes.

Yet critics of the current drinking age would blanket all circumstances of underage drinking under a harmless repeal of the drinking age, instead of acknowledging how many deaths had to occur before MADD and other agencies gained ground getting legislators to support their cause. Those age 18 currently serving in combat would probably agree that the seriousness of any fatality, and the risk of losing a life, would override any urge to drink precipitately.

For more information on legal age and discussion visit: http://www.LegalAge.com