Lowering Drinking Age Essay Example for Free

Lowering Drinking Age Essay In the United States government, there are many politicians that have to make difficult decisions that affect its citizens in their everyday lives. One frequently asked question by the people in America today is why does the government believe 21 is the proper age to legally allow drinking of alcoholic beverages. Over 200 countries in the world do not have a legal drinking age. Many say if you are tall enough to stand at a bar, you are old enough to get a drink. In America, would lowering the drinking age to 18 decrease or increase the number of college students binge drinking? What if we gave our youth the proper education about alcohol? Then, if they did decide to drink, could they act as responsible adults having that knowledge? Another question frequently asked is would lowering the drinking age to 18, increase or decrease highway fatalities? We as a nation have tried prohibition twice trying to control irresponsible drinking problems in the past. So, should we take a risk and try to come up with a plan to lower the drinking age to 18? Or, alternatively, should we keep the legal drinking age at 21? When a person turns 18 years old in America, they are considered an adult in society. They now have the responsibility to fight in wars, to vote, to serve on a jury, to legally get married and so forth. A person who is 18 can do all these things. So, why is it that they do not have to right to choose if they want to drink a bottle of beer or a glass of wine? Do you really think drinking a beer is an act of greater responsibility and maturity than voting or going to war for your country? I feel that the youth in our nation is not getting the proper education on the facts behind alcohol. Thus, when a person does decide to drink, they do so irresponsibly. Most people who drink irresponsibly find themselves moving like zombies once intoxicated. One approach to this issue is requiring an individual who is 18 years old to attend an alcohol education class. This would be similar to the requirements for getting your drivers license. In the alcohol education class, they would teach you facts, have group meetings with people who have been alcoholics in the past (AA meetings), conduct tests throughout the course and a final at the end to ensure a thorough understanding of drinking responsibly and the consequences of not doing so. When completed, the person would receive a license allowing he or she to go into liquor stores, pubs, bars, etc. to purchase alcohol products that they want. However, if they choose to violate the license in any way, it will be taken away. If you are the kind of person who does not like to drink alcohol, good news! You do not have to take the class if you do not want. I do think this class would be good in helping our youth understand the harmful affects that alcohol can have on our bodies and how dangerous it can really be if you are not responsible with it. As students go to college, studies have shown that more and more students are â€Å"binge drinkers† today than ever before. A binge drinker is someone who consumes five or more alcoholic drinks in a given sitting. Dr. John McCardells is the founder of a group called the Amethyst initiative. They have a theory that by lowering the drinking age it will actually reduce the number of binge drinking on college campuses throughout the United States. Over 100 of our nations top colleges such as Duke, Ohio State, Dartmouth are all calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age to 18. This debate has been going on for quite some time now. Lets stop scratching our heads and come up with an approach to this situation. There have been deaths in the past when an underage person drank too much and died because his or her friends did not want to call the cops because they knew they would have been in trouble. A similar incident as this happened to a student named Gordy Bailey. Gordy was a freshman at Boulder College in Colorado. Boulder is a school known for its party scene. He planned to join a fraternity called Sigma Chi and in order to do so, he had to drink ten gallons of hard liquor or wine. They are not sure how much Gordy actually drank that night but estimated that he had 15 to 20 shots in under a half hour. After they were done drinking, they went back to the fraternity house and by the time they got there Gordy was to the point that he could not even walk. His fraternity friends did not dare to call the police in order to get help and risk getting in trouble for underage drinking. Unfortunately, the decision that they made was not the right one. They called the police the next morning but it was too late. Gordy Bailey died that night from alcohol poisoning. Had the drinking age been 18, Gordy’s fraternity friends could have called the police to get him medical attention. There are many situations that occur every year which are very similar to Gordy Bailey’s story. However, many do not think we should take a different approach to this problem. Mark Beckner, the Chief of Police in Boulder, Colorado, is one of the few Chief of Police in America who agrees with Dr. John McCardells theory and supports lowering the drinking age. In an interview with 60 Minutes he said, â€Å"We can’t enforce something that unenforceable and all we are doing is doing is pushing drinking more and more underground, essentially making it very dangerous. † People need to learn that prohibition does not work, we should know this already from the past already. Let us not let history repeat itself yet again. † A person’s life is no less precious off the road than it is on the road. There is an organization called MADD, which stands for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. MADD is an organization that opposes the idea of lowering the drinking age. One of the biggest issues they have regarding lowering the drinking age is highway fatalities that involve a drunk driver. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines a fatal crash as alcohol-related if a driver had a estimated blood alcohol level of 0. 01 or above. Alcohol-related traffic fatalities, better known as drunken driving fatalities, were the key factors behind the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. Yes, over the years, statistics have shown that the number of alcohol-related fatalities have decreased and this is true for all ages, not just people who are under 21. Statistics show that approximately 1,000 people from the ages 18 to 24 die a year from alcohol-related accidents. However, the numbers are very similar with people who are dying behind closed doors. I believe the drinking age should be lowered to 18 because if someone can go to war and die for his or her country, he or she should be able to have the right to choose if he or she wants a beer or a glass of wine. Based on facts, the current prohibition laws are not working. We need to come up with an alternative approach. We have tried prohibition in the past and learned very quickly that it was not very productive. Let us learn from our mistakes and put an end to pushing our youth to drink further and further underground. In other countries, alcohol is not seen as a poison, there is little or no social pressure to drink, and irresponsible drinking is never tolerated. Parents and other family members teach their kids at home how to drink in a responsible manner. Since the 21 year old drinking law is not working, maybe we could approach this situation as people would in a different country.