When someone turns 18 in America, they are considered an adult. They are legally able to vote, join the military, get married, get tattoos, piercings and more. They are considered old enough to make all of those major life decisions, but there is one thing they are not legally allowed to do—drink.
In America, it is illegal to buy or consume alcohol before you are 21. However, this does not stop teenagers and young adults from doing it. Usually, teenagers start drinking at a young age, then have huge celebrations for their 21st birthday while taking a sip of their first legal drink.
In the United States, the drinking age used to be 18. States were the ones who chose the age restriction on drinking, and it made sense to be 18 when almost everything else was restricted to that age. However, in 1984, Ronald Reagan created the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. This forced all states to change the law to the age of 21, the reasoning behind this being drunk driving.
There were many cases of drunk driving, a lot of them being young adults under the age of 21. These cases created protest groups and skepticism of the drinking age being 18, so Reagan took matters into his hands to raise the age.
The law did decrease the number of drunk driving accidents significantly at the time, so it seemed like the right option for the U.S. However, this law was not the only reason that drunk driving fatalities have decreased. There have been many more safety laws put into place along with raising the drinking age—tougher seat belt laws being one of them.
The age restriction does not stop citizens who are underage from finding alcohol. Not only do they find this alcohol, but because drinking is such a foreign concept to them, they do not know how to consume it responsibly. This results in binge drinking.
In a study by the CDC, 90% of alcohol consumed by those under 21 was by binge drinking. Binge drinking can be dangerous. It can cause alcohol poisoning and send someone straight to the hospital. These young adults do not know what they are doing when they consume alcohol, all they know is that they want to try it, especially when alcohol is so prevalent in American society, making them curious.
America is comfortable with the drinking age being restricted to 21 because it seems to prevent accidents. But it could result in other injuries that are not just restricted to the result of drunk driving. If the age was lowered to 18 and/or just enforced more than it is today, it could lower the statistics of injury from crashes and binge drinking. The laws are tight on the other age restrictions, so why are the laws not as tight on drinking?
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All legitimate points, but the real point is missing. Alcohol is a level one carcinogen, addictive, depressant cancer causing chemical. This chemical currently kills One in Ten working age adults, about 7,000 people a month on average – and every year, already about 5,000 kids UNDER the age of 21 die from Alcohol related issues. The better observation is that this law is HYPOCRITICAL and the ‘adults’ in the room are self-medicating to excess and we are not dealing with the Financial, social, abuses, rapes, and deaths related to excess. Why hyper-stimulate then Self-medicate – way too often. There needs to be an open honest assessment of what we are doing to ourselves, and an education campaign empowering people past all the marketing messaging and mental massaging that says…’self-medicate’ for every mildly socially awkward moment. No – we don;t need that – LESS IS MORE. Learn more #soberworldorg Look beyond the Laws for real solutions and positive societal change.