Should the Drinking Age Be Increased or Decreased - Essay Example

? Information] Drinking Age (Should be Increased or Decreased) Around the same time each year, there are millions of American kids out there that graduate from high school. After graduation the real celebrations start by getting drunk and massive parties, it even ends up with police involvement and arresting of students. These legal issues take a lot of time to resolve sometimes months and years as well. Every year this debate arises whether the legal drinking age should be abolished or lowered. As per the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, United States of America has the highest legal drinking age as compared to any other country in the world. It is stated in the act, along with other enforcements that the states should legislate or enforce the minimum legal drinking age to be twenty one years old. It is also stated under the Federal Aid Highway Act, that the state that fails to mandate or enforce the twenty one years old law of drinking age, is at risk of losing ten percent of the federal funding for highway appointments. There have been several controversies related to the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. The law was effective in 1984, when President Reagan signed this law for implementation, many people are convinced that the most influential supporter for the act was Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) (Stefan, K, pp.25). Even if it is true or not, there is one thing very apparent that was the act was imposed as a law due to extraordinary support from the groups of special interests among which MADD was one of them. From a very long time, drinking has been considered as a government lack of control issue. During the year 1919, a prohibition was effective which imposed a ban on everyone from drinking alcohol regardless of age group. It was considered as a criminal offense to manufacture, possess, sell or drink alcoholic beverages. The prohibition was lifted by the year 1933, and once again the consumption and possession alcoholic drink was legal. It was official prompted to many states, cities and municipalities that they control drinking by creating legislation. Through several studies, it is suggested that the brain of a youngster is not completely developed until the age of twenty one that is the reason why the brain of youngster is affected differently as compared to the effects on an adult. After several discussions it was settled that the age of twenty one was ideal for legal drinking age and an act was passed, it was required by the states to increase the age of legal drinking to twenty one otherwise their percentage of funding for highways will be reduced by ten percent. The time duration provided for implementation was two years. Some of the states enforced the law, some states did not but at present all the states have implemented the law. There are additional exceptions available in the Federal law, if youngsters want to pursue employment in a place where there is dealing of alcoholic beverages. An eighteen year old is eligible to work in a restaurant, bar and serve alcohol at a liquor store, the possession of alcohol in such case is legal, but they are not allowed to consume it. In some states the prohibition are more specifically defined as compared to others, whereas some municipalities have no legislation defined in this regard related to the legal age of drinking. To date there has been a lot of confusion raised with regards to what is allowed and what is not, as the implementation varied from state to state, but it is better to be precautious by being safe and not consuming or possessing alcohol beverages under the age of twenty one. United States of America has implemented highest age of legal drinking as compared to all other countries. Russia, Spain, Ireland, Mexico, Australia and England all these countries have the legal drinking age eighteen. Portugal, Greece, Germany, Italy and few other countries have allowed the young citizen to consume beer at a young age of sixteen, whereas some of the countries have no defined legal drinking age at all. As per the Journal of American Public Health, published in the year January 2006, there were five states that have legislation pending with the suggestion to lower the legal minimum age of drinking in their state. It has been suggested that the legal age for drinking should be decreased to the age eighteen or nineteen and young adults should have permission to drink in environments where there controlled measures for example in a pubs, restaurants, taverns official functions at a university or school. In these environments, students should be taught through role models and educational awareness programs. These steps will promote a sense of maturity, and a drinking behavior that is sensible and according to the expectations. In a recent research study that was based over twenty years of observation on the youth of college age group, culture and historical drinking behavior of United States (IDEA, pp.76). In the United States, the legal alcohol purchase age limit is twenty one years old. Most of the students at college level consume alcohol in a manner that is very irresponsible. The youth these days, considers the liberty of drinking as a symbol of being adult, access to enticing forbidden fruit or a resource to act rebellious against the authority. In order to control the irresponsible drinking issues the nation has supported twice the legislation of prohibition twice during the past. It was during the State prohibition that occurred in the 1850’s and in the 1920’s the National prohibition were presented. These laws were not implemented as they were considered to be unenforceable and they would give birth to more social problems that were beyond control. The history is repeating itself today and it seems like we are making the same mistake that actually happened in the past. The prohibition was not a solution previously and it is not even working out now (Stefan, K, pp.45). The current situation of law implementation can be seen in the university students. Those students that are under twenty one are observed to be heavy drinkers; the average alcohol consumption is more than five drinks in a week. In a research it was concluded that twenty two percent of all the students are under the age twenty one among which eighteen percents are heavy alcohol consumers. The statistic revealed that there are only thirty two percent of students are under age heavy drinkers, where as the twenty four percents of them are the heavy drinkers are of the legal age. In a research that was conducted in the 1980’s and continued to present, the result have shown that there has been a tremendous decline in the accidents related to drinking and driving. There are several variables that are effective on the nation as well as the university students which have caused decrease in the per capita consumption. The decline however, started during the year 1980; it was before the national law of 1987 which was made compulsory in the states, that the legal age of alcohol purchases is twenty one. There are many factors that were the cause of decrease in the drinking and driving issue, it was only because of the law related to the legal age of purchases or the per capita consumption decrease. It includes the awareness of causes of drunken driving, programs related to designated drives, increase in the usage of air bag and seat belt, the drinking establishments offered free taxi services, speed limits were lowered, etc. Though there has been an obvious decrease in the per capita consumption and crashes of motor car but in the same time period there was increase in other problems as well for instance the irresponsible and heavy drinking among the youth of college age. In several reports on changing behaviors, there has been little change in the youngsters after the implementation of the law of twenty one years old age limit in the year 1987. For instance during the 1982 to the year 1987, there forty six percent of students that reported to have vomiting after drinking which later on increased to fifty percent after the implementation of law. There was an increase in other variables as well like ignoring class schedule because of drinking problem increased from nine percent to twelve percent, missing college because of hangover jumped from twenty six percent to twenty eight percent, the grade started to decrease because of drinking problem went from five percent to seven percent. All the issues have increased due to irresponsible drinking problems. It has been observed that most of these problems are because of underground drinking as there was no adult supervision available in the apartments and student rooms. There are student of same age group and they have no knowledge related to behavior of responsible drinking (Stefan, K, pp.45). It is on the basis of facts that we can prove that the present laws implemented of legal age limit of alcohol consumption are not working; there is a requirement of an alternative plan from other ancient cultures and experiences. There are certain societies in which there are less problems related to drinking for example Greeks, Italians, Jews, Muslims and Chinese. All these societies have somewhat similar characteristics. The role of anti alcohol organization, such as the American Medical Association and MADD openly oppose if parents allow minors to have alcohol under supervised environment for example a beer on the couch, glass of wine at dinner or during celebrations. They have set punishments for parents like prison time; for parents who throw supervised parties and access is provided to minors of alcohol. This is a very strict approach as drinking in a supervised environment leads to safer roads and building trust of youngster to drink in supervised setting rather than drinking in an unsupervised one (IDEA, pp.77). Students and adults should be clarified that alcohol is neither a magic potent nor it is a poison, as such there is no social pressure applied to drink and an irresponsible drinking behavior should not be tolerated at all. Youngster usually take great influence from their parents and adults around them, they should be good role models. It is responsibility of family, teachers and adults to set a good responsible example for the youngster. The media should also play a positive role in constituting a responsible behavior among public related to alcohol consumption. It is apparent that the law is not working increasing or decreasing age is not the solution. The current responsibility on the nation is to make amendment in the prohibition law and to promote responsible drinking techniques for people who prefer alcoholic beverages. References Stefan, K (2012), “Should the Legal Drinking Age Be Lowered?” Publisher Cengage Gale, pp.25- 45 International Debate Education Association (IDEA, 2009) “The Debatabase Book: A Must-Have Guide for Successful Debate” Publisher IDEA. Copyright. pp. 76-78 Read More