1200 word argument essay

Epilogue: Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered?

It was the morning of a University of Florida football game against the University of Mississippi, and Max, a nineteen-year-old Florida freshman, had been drinking. Two hours before the game in Gainesville, Florida, Max was so drunk that he had trouble answering a New York Times reporter who was interviewing students about whether the drinking age should be lowered from twenty-one. Speaking slowly and slurring his words, the drunk student said: “Per-son-al-ly, I do agree the age should be lowered. It will cut down on binge drinking.” Throwing an arm over another student, he continued. “But we take care of each other. We will not let anyone drink under the influence.” Realizing his mistake, he added, “I mean drive under the influence. I'm sorry. I'm drunk already. It's been a long morning.”94

It is not unusual for college students to drink heavily before a sporting event, not even in the morning. Drinking is an accepted part of college life, even though most students are not old enough to drink legally. Studies show that 8 out of 10 students drink and 4 out of 10 are binge drinkers, which means they have had at least five drinks in one session in the past two weeks. The ease with which older teenagers obtain alcohol, whether they are in college or not, renders the drinking age of 21 almost meaningless in terms of stopping them from drinking. That reality and the fact that people 18 and older are considered adults in other legal situations makes many people believe the drinking age should be 18 or 19. However, lowering the drinking age is still a hotly contested issue.

Students at the University of Kansas rally to support lowering the drinking age to eighteen. Proponents argue that if eighteen-year-olds can vote and enlist in the military they should be able to drink.

LOWER DRINKING AGE ARGUMENTS

Some people who believe the drinking age should be lowered argue that 21 is an arbitrary age to allow people to consume alcohol. In the past, Americans were considered adults when they turned 21 because it was the age at which they could vote. But the voting age was lowered to 18 on July 1, 1971, when the nation adopted the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Also, the drinking age is 18 in almost every other nation, including Australia, Canada, the People's Republic of China, Israel, Russia, and the United Kingdom. In Italy and Germany the drinking age is only 16.

Cynthia Garcia Coll, a professor of education at Brown University, grew up in Puerto Rico. The drinking age there is eighteen, and Coll said Puerto Ricans allowed teenagers to drink at family

parties to teach them how to drink safely. She claims it is foolish to prohibit older teens from drinking and then, in an instant, allow them to consume as much alcohol as they want just because they turn twenty-one: “In this country, we go from saying “No, you can't do it,' and then all at once, we say ‘Yes, you can’ without really giving them any guidance. It's not like age twenty-one is a magic time when people become responsible drinkers.”95

John McCardell is the founder of Choose Responsibility, a group that wants to lower the drinking age. McCardell, the former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, believes the higher age creates dangerous drinking patterns for young people aged 18 to 20: “It's bad social policy and bad law. Prohibition does not work. Those [under 21] who are choosing to drink are drinking much more recklessly, and it's gone behind closed doors and underground and off-campus.”96 The group, however, recommends that a lower drinking age would also be bad policy unless it was coupled with increased education about alcohol—teens would have to pass a course on drinking to gain that privilege—and strict regulation of teens who do drink.

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ZERO TOLERANCE

“The problem is the first drink makes the second easier and so on.… Your kids may drink, but they should know what your expectation is; and your expectation should be ‘no drinking until 21.’”—Jeff Levy, whose son died after a college drinking party

Quoted in Susan Larson. “Parents, Teens Discuss Perils of College Drinking Culture.” Burke (VA) Patch, July 26, 2011. http://burke.patch.com/articles/parents-teens-discuss-perils-of-college-drinking-culture .

McCardell developed this view by witnessing binge drinking on college campuses. Because teens cannot drink legally, some say that they drink more heavily when they have the opportunity. The results of binge drinking can be disastrous and even fatal because of deaths from alcohol poisoning and drunk driving accidents. In

July 2008 McCardell organized the Amethyst Initiative, which derived its name from the violet-colored gemstone ancient Greeks believed could prevent intoxication.

The effort involved college presidents who signed a letter that claimed “twenty-one is not working” and that as a result “a culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’—often conducted off-campus—has developed.” The statement also said that the higher age seemed foolish because “adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.”97 By 2011 the heads of 136 universities, including Butler, Colgate, DePauw, Duke, Holy Cross, Ohio State, and Vermont Law School, had signed the statement.

It is fairly easy for teenage college students to obtain alcohol because they attend school with so many students who are twenty-one and can buy it for them. But the ease with which older teens obtain alcohol is not confined to college students. When Hawk was seventeen, he began working for a heating and sheet metal company. After work he had no problem being served when he went to bars with older workers. In fact, Hawk said he and his fellow workers sometimes began drinking before they left their jobsite: “The foreman had brought in a chest refrigerator and always had beer for us. We downed three beers and then punched out.”98

The fact that the national drinking age of twenty-one is unable to stop older teens from drinking is the main reason most people believe it should be lowered. However, opponents of lowering the drinking age have their own strong arguments. And polls show that more people in the United States oppose a lower drinking than support it.

FEARS ABOUT TEEN DRINKING

In October 2010 Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted an online survey that showed that 69 percent of Americans support the current drinking age, while only 27 percent want to lower it. The poll numbers show the continuing fears Americans have about teenage drinking. An article in the June 2010 edition of the American Journal of Public Health supported retaining the

drinking age of twenty-one by citing new knowledge about the dangers of teenage drinking. The article's authors, Henry Wechsler and Toben F. Nelson, wrote:

The weight of the scientific evidence, evaluated by many experts and government agencies, demonstrates that the minimum legal drinking age of 21 years is effective public policy for reducing underage drinking and preventing the negative consequences that can result from underage drinking. The evidence suggests that making alcohol more available by reducing the minimum legal drinking age to 18 years will lead to an increase in drinking and related [problems]. 99

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TWENTY-ONE IS NOT REALISTIC

“Our current prohibition directed against the consumption of alcohol by young people (who can marry, serve in the military, vote, enter into legal contracts, and shoulder adult responsibilities) is clearly not working. We need to abandon this failed and demeaning folly and replace it with a proven, realistic, and successful approach to reducing drinking problems.”—Ruth Engs, Indiana University professor of applied health sciences, who has studied teenage drinking

Quoted in David J. Hanson. “The Drinking Age Should Be Lowered: Interview with Dr. Ruth Engs.” Alcohol: Problems and Solutions. www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/YouthIssues/1053520190.html .

Relatively recent discoveries have shown that teenagers who drink may damage their brains, which are still maturing, and face an increased chance of becoming addicted to alcohol. Teenage drinkers may also suffer impaired memory and greater difficulty in learning, damage that will affect them not only while they are in school but for the rest of their lives. However, the strongest argument against lowering the drinking age is the reason Congress increased it in 1984 to twenty-one by passing the National Minimum Drinking Age Act—the high number of drunk driving fatalities involving teenagers.

In 2007 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimated that the 1984 law had saved the lives of nearly twenty-five thousand Americans by making it harder for teenagers to drink and drive. Ralph Hingson heads the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). He opposes a lower drinking age for that reason: “We already did the experiment of lowering the drinking age [to eighteen in the 1970s], and traffic crashes went up. I don't think it's a good idea to go back and repeat a policy that made things worse.”100 Hingson is also a former vice president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), a powerful opponent of lowering the drinking age.

Despite strong opposition, there have been sporadic efforts since 1984 to lower the drinking age, including legislation introduced in a handful of states. None of the attempts has succeeded, but backers of a lower drinking age keep working toward that goal.

AN EMOTIONAL ISSUE

Individuals and groups on both sides of the issue have logical arguments and, sometimes, even statistical evidence to back up their stands on the issue. However, underlying philosophical beliefs and emotions people have about alcohol in general also play an important role in determining attitudes on the controversial subject. Gail Gleason Milgram has studied alcohol use for decades at Rutgers University. She claims that any issue involving alcohol will always be controversial because of the deep, divided feelings Americans have about alcohol: “We have inconsistent attitudes and behaviors about drinking, which are more complex and controversial than we like to admit. Despite the general availability of alcohol, the problems associated with its use make us uncomfortable, and we often prefer to ignore them altogether. Alcohol strikes an emotional chord in many of us.”101

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2012 Gale, Cengage Learning

Source Citation

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)

Uschan, Michael V. "Epilogue: Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered?" Teens and Alcohol, Lucent Books, 2012, pp. 87-92. Hot Topics. Gale Health and Wellness, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2572600013/HWRC?u=lincclin_tcc&sid=HWRC&xid=576c648f. Accessed 22 Nov. 2019.