Should 18 be the new 21?
by kaileycmDecember 4th, 2007 at 7:25 PM
Filed under: Other Discursive Dialogue
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"I am old enough to fight for my country but can't drink a beer?". This is a common statement heard all over the United States by people that are under the legal drinking age of 21. As soon as you turn 18 you are judged mature enough to vote, hold public office, serve on juries, serve in the military, fly airplanes, sign contracts and many other things. Why is drinking a beer considered a greater responsibility and maturity than flying an airplane or fighting for your country? The legal drinking age in the United States should be reduced to 18. Those that are over the legal drinking age of 21 probably wonder why they should care whether the legal drinking age is 18 or 21. The answer is simple. The strict laws that enforce our current legal drinking age creates many victims both under and over the age of 21. The legal drinking age causes a great deal of social segregation. Simply going out to a bar is a great deal of hassle because of being carded. Going out is an even bigger problem when some of your friends are not yet 21. If the legal drinking age was changed to 18, this would be much less of a problem because most groups of friends are segregated between the ages of 14-17 and 18-22. And lets not forget the poor parents that have to abide by these ridiculous laws when they are trying to provide safe places for their children to have parties. Having 21 be the legal drinking age causes many problems for people both over and under the age of 21. Many people argue that raising the legal drinking age has saved over 20,000 lives. This is not true by any means. "Minimum legal drinking age is not a significant-or even a perceptible-factor in the fatality experience of all drivers or of young drivers."(youth) Increasing the legal drinking age simply moved the amount of lost lives from the age bracket 18-20 to the age bracket 21-24. This statistic does not look at the 21-24 age bracket. What needs to be looked at to decrease this outrageous number is how to better solve the problem of drinking and driving. "Would lowering the drinking age to 18 just make it easier for 15 year olds to get alcohol?". This is a common question people bring up but they do not take into consideration the fact that 71% of eighth graders(usually ages 13-14) say its easy to get alcohol at the current time. Keeping the drinking age at 21 is not lowering these percentages. Obviously, the Youth Prohibitionist method that we have is not working and needs to be changed. Another common argument that people raise against lowering the legal drinking age is that your body is not developed fully until the age of 21. Once again, this is not true because your body continues to develop all throughout your life. Your body does not just stop maturing and changing once you turn 21. Yes, a 21 year old body is more mature than that of an 18 year old but it is also true that a 35 year old body is more mature than that of an 21 year old. It has been proven through numerous studies that consuming alcohol on a moderate basis is actually better for your health than completely abstaining, and is, of course, better for you than binge drinking. The next time you look through your medicine cabinet, notice that every single over the counter drug advises two separate doses, one for children under 12, and one for adults 12 and older. Or, think about the first time you went out to eat and could not eat from the children's menu anymore because you were over 12, and in some cases over the age of 10. By no means am I saying that a 12 year old is an adult, but is an 18 year old truly an adult either? |
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Show Oldest FirstI agree with mikea, I think one's maturity level is the most important factor in what age he or she should be able to drink, but there's not going to be a maturity test put in place to determine this, so even though there may be 18 year olds mature enough to drink, there are still many who aren't. Obviously there are people who are 21 who still aren't mature enough to drink (actually some people never drink responsibly, no matter how old they are), but more people are mature at 21 than they are at 18. Also, I don't see it posing a huge problem for underage people because it is so easy to get away with drinking. When underage people want to drink, they do. I personally do not care what the drinking age is. For me, it's like saying you have to be 21 to eat crackers... I don't care. Haha...
Well, here's a spin. If the drinking age was lowered to 18, should the sexual consent age be lowered also? I think that the law, being set to the age of 21, acts as a filter, not a barrier, in which many minors still circumvent. So by lowering the age, I would guess that the same filter affect would occur and that alcohol experimentation would start a few years earlier, statistically. And back to my earlier mention regarding the age of consent, after all, as the t-shirts say, alcohol has been helping people have sex throughout time, so wouldn't a lower drinking age lead to even more problems?
I believe prohibition laws regarding age should not affect those who are legally adults.
I under stand the point that most eight grades find it easy to get alcohol, but if you lower the drinking age you'll have high school students drinking and more than likely distributing to even more under age drinks who had the "Well I really don't know anybody who could get it" thing going.
you gotta remember most people turn 18 in HIGH SCHOOL. how responsible are high schoolers? how responsible are people who are 21? i know i wasnt very responsible at 18. but at 21, i am more now than i was at 18. but this argument at the end comes to responibility. in GENERAL who is more responsible?
Nice try but lowering the drinking age would only make things worse. Your argument did little to convince me of otherwise because it has been made a countless number of times. Yes youth drinking becomes slightly more worse over time, but making it more accessible will only further that problem.