Why Is It Necessary to Set the Drinking Age to 21 - Coursework Example

Why it is necessary to set the drinking age to 21? Introduction The issue regarding the age at which drinking should be allowed has been a hot topic of debate since ages. In the United Sates at present, one should be twenty one years old to get allowed to buy and consume alcohol. Teenagers strongly support the idea to be allowed drinking at age below 21 because they get inspired by what their elders are doing. Whereas, many parents and teachers oppose this strongly because they focus on health issues that are related to drinking specially at so young an age. Alcohol does bring with it many health hazards regardless of age. However, drinking below 21 often leads to many bad consequences due to immaturity of the age. There are many laws regarding the drinking age. This paper is going to support the necessity to set the drinking age after 21 because citizens must abide by all laws that require them not to start drinking below the age of 21. Lawmakers are of the view that drinking should be legal at a higher age because as a person goes beyond his teens, he becomes responsible and knows when to drink and how much to drink. This is a very valid point because teenagers are so immature that they can easily get indulged in binge drinking which is very disastrous for health. Heavy consumption of alcohol for the purpose of getting intoxicated is, in modern terms, called binge drinking which is actually the consumption of five or more drinks in a row in a week. There are many reasons of why young people want to binge drink. The most important is peer pressure. Teenagers and students see others around doing it and they want to do it too because they are curious and because the media, bars and companies make heavy drinking sound like a fun activity. They want to feel grown up. Some disastrous effects of alcohol and especially binge drinking include affected brain activity, memory and concentration; increased emotional mood swings; inability to perceive the direction of sound; dysfunctional reproductive system; increased risk of breast cancer (Doheny, 2010); affected driving leading to accidents and family violence. Considering so many bad effects associated with drinking, it is wise to prohibit the consumption of alcohol before the age of 21. There have been many studies that show what effects alcohol produces on young developing brains (StarTribune, 2008). The findings of these studies show that adolescent brains are much more defenseless than adult brains to stand the ill effects of alcoholism. Consumption of alcohol at a young age badly affects learning, memory, thinking capacity, judgment, and decision-making capability. It is also the fact that people who start drinking at age below 21 are more likely to become alcoholics at a later age because they are used to it. Grant (1998, p.144) states that the age at which a person starts consuming alcohol plays a very important role in deciding how much alcohol dependent he will be in his later life. He investigated the relationship between life time alcohol dependence and the age at which a person starts drinking. He used data from the 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey. He found in his research that “regardless of the family history of alcoholism, respondents with an earlier age of drinking onset were more likely to become alcohol dependent compared with respondents with a later age of drinking onset” (p.144) and that “the likelihood of lifetime alcohol dependence decreased with increasing age at drinking onset” (p.146). A similar research was conducted by Hingson, Heeren and Winter (2006) who have concluded the same thing. They studied whether people who are early age drinkers experienced chronic relapsing dependence. They concluded that “persons who start to drink at an early age develop features of chronic relapsing dependence may have resulted from early drinkers being more likely to develop alcohol dependence at younger ages. This, in turn, increased their odds of experiencing multiple and longer episodes of alcohol dependence with more symptoms” (p.e755). Hence, it is proved that it is necessary to set a higher drinking age because early age drinking increases alcohol dependence. Lower drinking age has been tried once but it did not work. The drinking age was lowered in many states in1970s, during the Vietnam war. But the result of this change was that many young drunken drivers were caught who were recklessly driving, posing threats to their own and others’ safety. This made the issue of young drunken drivers a bigger one than the military war. Due to this, the Congress announced that it would pull federal funds from those states which allowed drinking below the age of 21. This made all the states comply with the law by 1988. The law bore fruit. “The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration reported that the number of drunken drivers under age 21 involved in fatal crashes decreased by 61 percent from 1982 to 1998. The agency also estimated that tens of thousands of lives were saved from 1975 to 2003 by higher age limits” (StarTribune, 2008). Zero Tolerance Juvenile Alcohol Law is one law under which any person under the age of 21 is not allowed to have any amount of alcohol in his blood while driving. The level of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) should not be ≥0.02 g/dL. Hingson et al. (2002) studied whether underage drinking results in more motor-related accidents even after alcohol dependence has been controlled. They conducted a survey asking 42,862 respondents what age they started drinking at and whether or not they met any traffic crashes due to driving while drinking. They found that those people, who had started drinking at age below 21 even after controlling their alcohol dependence, reported more motor-vehicle crashes than those who started drinking at a later age. Hingson et al. (2003) conducted a similar research in which they state that every year more than half a million of young drunk drivers between ages 18-24 get injured or die in alcohol related traffic crashes and unintentional injuries. They also state that underage drinking leads to heavy consumption of alcohol because of immaturity of minds which leads to many health hazards later in life. There are many poor academic outcomes too, that are associated with underage drinking. Students who are below 21 are more likely to show poor grades and lag behind in academics if they are indulged in drinking. According to Wolaver (2002), “Student drinking is connected to academic, social, and even criminal problems, as detailed by the Harvard College Alcohol Studies in the 1990s.” The most common problems that come with student drinking include short attendance, incomplete school work, and many short-term and long-term academic and post-academic problems. Since any quantity of alcohol present on blood affects memory and learning, students tend to show poor academic performance. The brain and cognitive ability gets damaged. It Deas et al. (2000) studied the effect of alcohol on brain and found that alcohol resulted in reduced brain functionality in young people. They state in their research that adolescents who drink are very likely to develop many psychiatric disorders like “conduct disorder, attention-deficit-hypersensitivity disorder, affective disorders, and anxiety disorders (Crowley & Riggs, as cited in Deas et al, 2000, p.232). Adolescents also develop delinquent behavior due to drinking. Such behavior later results in many criminal activities because such adolescents grow up to be bad citizens. Hence, it is important for colleges and dorms to enforce laws that prohibit underage drinking. Nelson (2009) states that those young students do not binge drink who attend such colleges or live in such states that enforce underage drinking laws. Now, let’s have a look on the counter arguments. The opponents of the 21 drinking age law state that setting an age for drinking increases thirst for alcohol. According to them, it is very natural for man to crave for something he has been forbidden. He wants to do things and tries them out when he is told not to. This is because of his experimental nature that compels him to crave for something he cannot get. Adam ate the forbidden fruit because he had been specially told not to eat it. Similarly, alcohol becomes the tempting forbidden fruit for teens. Strictly forbidding kids to touch alcohol increases the curiosity inside them and then they turn out breaking the laws and standing liable for penalties. Studies have suggested that most teens drink out of their excitement that they get in breaking the law. “87% of high school seniors have used alcohol” (Harold). Medical science and psychological studies reveal that teens tend to be defiant and oppositional with rules, laws and strictness, and this is normal for their age unless they are understood and dealt with properly. They feel it good not to listen. Considering this fact, some people believe that when the kids at 18 will be allowed to drink, it will lessen down their passion for alcohol. “I can assure you the underage drinking age percentage would drop if the age is lowered”, says Harold. However, this counter-argument is nothing more than a lame excuse for underage drinking. It is a matter of common sense that prohibiting underage drinking reduces alcohol consumption in kids because they will fear penalties and fines. If they still drink, it is their personal choice. But we cannot, in any case, deny the importance of laws and the goodness that comes with their compliance. To sum it up, it is very important to set the drinking age to 21 in order to reduce the hazardous effects of alcohol when consumed at younger age. States have been lowering down the drinking age in the past but the consequences have worsened. Thus, the present law requires all states to prohibit drinking below the age of 21. This is an age when one becomes mature enough to know the ill effects of alcohol on health. Underage drinking is associated with many motor-vehicle accidents in the past because alcohol robs the person of his concentration and senses. Early age drinking increases alcohol dependence. Young students who drink are likely to have problems in thinking, deciding and learning. Cognition is affected. Drunken students show poor achievement at school. They develop many psychiatric disorders which hinder with their normal life activities. Governments must make sure that all laws regarding drinking age are complied with, and underage drunken youth, especially drunken drivers and students, must be punished. It is for their safety. Hence, it is proved that lowering the drinking age is hazardous in many respects and thus, it is important to set the drinking age to 21. References Deas, D., Riggs, P., Langenbucher, J., Goldman, M., & Brown, S. (2000). Adolescents are not adults: developmental considerations in alcohol users. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 24(2), pp. 232-37. Doheny, K. Alcohol and your health. (2010) Cancer Health Center. Retrieved December 7, 2011, from http://www.webmd.com/cancer/features/faq-alcohol-and-your-health?print=true Grant, B.F. (1998). The impact of a family history of alcoholism on the relationship between age at onset of alcohol use and DSM–IV alcohol dependence. Alcohol Health and Research World, 22(2), pp. 144-148. Harold, W. (n.d). Drinking age should be lowered. Teen Ink. Retrieved December 7, 2011, from http://www.teenink.com/opinion/drugs_alcohol_smoking/article/48104/Drinking-Age-Should-Be-Lowered Hingson, R.W., Heeran, T., & Winter, M.R. (2006). Age of alcohol-dependence onset: associations with severity of dependence and seeking treatment. Pediatrics, 118(3), pp. e755-e763. Hingson, R.W., Heeren, T., Levenson, S., Jamanka, A., & Voas, R. (2002). Age of drinking onset, driving after drinking, and involvement in alcohol related motor-vehicle crashes. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 34(1), pp. 85-92. Hingson, R.W., Heeren, T., Zakocs, R., Winter, M., & Wechsler, H. (2003). Age of first intoxication, heavy drinking driving after drinking and risk of unintentional injury among U.S. college students. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 64. Retrieved Dec 7, 2011, from http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5000601997 Nelson, T.F. (2009). Commentary: drinking age of 21 saves lives. CNN U.S. Retrieved December 7, 2011, from http://articles.cnn.com/2009-09-29/us/nelson.retain.drinking.age_1_amethyst-initiative-drinking-age-binge-drink?_s=PM:US StarTribune. (2008). States drinking age should remain 21. StarTribune Editorials. Retrieved December 7, 2011, from http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/17310184.html Wolaver, A.M. (2002). Effects of heavy drinking in college on study effort, grade point average, and major choice. Freepatentsonline. Retrieved December 7, 2011, from http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Contemporary-Economic-Policy/93007676.html Read More