Should the drinking age in the U.S. be lowered from 21 to 18? For academic purposes, alcohol is a chemical substance used for diluting other chemicals, cleaning instruments, as well as disinfection. Examples include ethanol and methanol. In common parlance, however, alcohol is a beverage consumed by the everyday man in almost all cultuin the world.
Name:Instructor:Course:Date:Should the drinking age in the U.S. be lowered from 21 to 18? For academic purposes, alcohol is a chemical substance used for diluting other chemicals, cleaning instruments, as well as disinfection. Examples include ethanol and methanol. In common parlance, however, alcohol is a beverage consumed by the everyday man in almost all cultuin the world. They are generally divided into wines, beers and spirits. Alcohol has much significance in different societies where it almost always plays a big part in social events. Among the youth, alcohol is equally significant. The impact it has on tgeneration of young people can best be expressed through numbers. For example, each year approximately five thousand young people under the age of twenty one die as a result of underage-drinking (Smith 3).Within America, underage drinking is a major societal problem that has caught the attention of the government. It has been duly categorized as a health problem as it is the most highly used and abused substance in the continent. Although the United States placed the legal drinking age at 21, the age bracket between twelve and twenty consume about 11% of all the alcohol consumed in the United States. Thare alarming numbers considering that there are more underage drinkers than adult drinkers. Consequences of underage drinking have been glaring especially in the education sector where there are rising cases of absence accompanied with poor grades. Teenagers engage in more antisocial behavior like fighting, drunk driving and homicides. Overall, alcohol has contributed to the death of many teenagers. Many agencies, departments and non governmental organizations (NGOs) have come up to protect the maintenance of the legal drinking age at 21. Various initiatives have been attempted. Some legal, others behavioral, in a bid to strengthen the regulations governing the sale of alcohol to underage teens that seek not only to make it a criminal act but also transform the youths? attitude towards constructive usage of drugs among other interests.The ramifications that alcohol has had on society, in particular, the youth should be of great concern to the law makers. Underage drinking is a problem that most states deal with owing to the early exposure to alcohol and other catalysts which we shall address. In order to determine what particular age the society is allowed to indulge in alcohol, one must ask themselves: why do young people drink? First, as children move from adolescence into adulthood, they experience different physical, mental as well as lifestyle changes. During tstage, adolescents have a predisposition to try out new, risky and dangerous things. Tzeal for new borders may be extended into experimenting with alcohol. Coupled with the sheer irresponsibility common to teens, most do not realize there are consequences involved.Environmental determinants also play a huge role in exposing and introducing the youth to alcohol. The influence of parents and peers alike is important in shaping a child?s attitude towards drinking. Some parents who drink in the presence of their children portray a positive attitude towards indulging in it. Adolescents may also have boyfriends and girlfriends who are drinkers thus propelling them into accepting the bottle as a way of life. (Castillo 190-200). The media are also cited as a major influence that prods youth into drinking. Alcohol is widely advertised on any communication channel-the Internet, television, radio and print media including magazines, newspapers. Nowadays it is impossible to drive through the major highways without seeing a huge billboard advertising Heineken or Smirnoff.The fight against underage drinking has been supported by the government and the private sector alike. On July 21, 2012, the Sober Truth on Preventing (STOP) Underage Drinking Act was introduced by a section of senators and representatives. The bill discussed at length the complex nature of underage drinking and proposed a coordinated approach to prevention, intervention, treatment and research. In detail, the Bill contained recommendations from the Institute of Medicine?s report of 2003. Threcommendations sought to reduce the availability of alcohol especially to teens, amended drinking laws as well as providing resources for local community efforts. On the question of either lowering or maintaining the legal drinking age at 21, the Bill recommended that the age be maintained to deter even other young adults who had achieved 18 years and so on in alcohol indulgence. The same Bill also went further to authorize the release of funds that would be used in research. Tinvestigation was to discover better ways of empowering the community to handle alcoholism as well as improving knowledge on the impacts of alcohol use. (Kiesbye 33)Another reason to support the maintenance of the legal drinking age was given by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth which did a report on underage drinking in the United States. Tgroup also undertook a range of studies to understand the nature of the drinking problem among underage citizens and came up with many findings. Among the important ones include the impact of the age limit for obtaining alcohol, the predisposition of young females to consuming more alcohol as compared to males and the financial implications that alcoholism has on the state. The report commended the move to raise the least drinking age to 21 basing its arguments on the data collected from fifty states in America whereby all thstates had legislation that prohibited the sale of alcohol to anyone under 21. The effects of alcohol on the youth in terms of health can be categorized into short term and long term. Short term effects harm the drinker physically in various ways. One, moderate consumption of alcohol disrupts the sleep architecture especially among the youth. Metabolism of alcohol causes late night disruptions in sleep maintenance. Fatigue also increases with consumption with alcohol. Alcohol in excessive doses is linked to lower inhibitions, therefore, in tstate; one cannot fully control the outcome of their behaviors (Roehrs 101). Drunken people have lower sensory activity which is translated into slower motor response that describes the typical absent mindedness after taking alcohol. Excess consumption of alcohol can sometimes lead to blacking out which is typically amnesia. For anybody, tis a risky position to be. Long term effects of alcohol can lead to chronic diseases like cardiovascular complications, pancreatitis in addition to cancer. Alcoholism among females is also dangerous as it may affect the mental and physical performance of an unborn child. Pregnant women who take alcohol expose their unborn babies to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) which impairs the new born as well as central nervous damages that may lead to mental retardation.Alcoholism can also have social impacts especially among the youth. Alcohol can disrupt family life in that drunken people can physically abuse their relatives. Tmay wind up in disunity among the family members as one of them returns home to terrorize the rest. Alcoholism also leads to adult dependence. When a young adult overindulges in drinking, they tend to neglect other important aspects of their lives and instead plunder their resources in alcohol. In the process, many heavy drinkers neglect their careers and investments only for them later to reach a point where they cannot sustain themselves. The circumstances for youth are even worse as most underage teens have neither stable income nor solid education to fend for themselves. Tleaves the family members or close friends with the burden of rehabilitating and supporting alcoholics within their community.Some particular European countries still have low drinking ages. Their main reason is that it is not a major problem as their youths are properly socialized into assuming responsible drinking habits. Tassumption has led to the deterioration of health among youth thanks to alcoholism. Statistics put European countries as having more youth who were more likely to drink as compared to their US counterparts. Most Nordic countries including Finland, Norway and Sweden, India, Korea, Denmark, France and Italy have very flaccid laws with some countries like France and Germany having no limits on alcohol consumption based on age. Thcountries record the highest numbers of teenage delinquency, school absenteeism along with poor performance in academics as a result of alcohol consumption by teenagers. The youth in theses countries have a higher predisposition to alcohol-related violence especially in parties attended by teens. Therefore, alcohol consumption among the youth should be kept at 21 as the minimum age.The legal drinking age should not be lowered to 18 because underage drinking among teenagers reverses the gains made by the state in fighting the war against HIV / AIDS globally as well as in the US. As indicated earlier, adolescents have very little responsibility and, therefore, engage in risky behavior without caring for the consequences. When teenagers indulge in alcohol, there is a higher probability that most of them engage in sexual activity. An intoxicated person has very poor judgment of the surrounding events and will engage in sexual activity like having multiple sexual partners, having unplanned and unprotected sex. Tbehavior increases the prevalence of HIV /AIDS among the youth which are the bulk of the population and contribute to the labor force in the US. Furthermore, alcoholism among the tender ages promotes social rot as teenagers are likely to misbehave under the influence of alcohol as compared to adults who are more capable of controlling themselves. Young people also have the capability of withstanding more alcohol, a factor which convinces many teenage drinkers they are able to handle the liquor while in reality, they have consumed in excess. Therefore, underage drinking can lead to the distortion and corruption of good morals in the society which are replaced by values that cannot be emulated or encouraged.To a lesser extent, underage drinking should be limited up to 21 years of age so as to reduce traffic accidents and fatalities. Most car accidents in the US are caused by underage drunken driving. Similarly, most studies discovered that setting higher drinking ages reduced traffic accidents. Therefore, maintaining the drinking age at 21 would serve to lessen car accidents and in the process save precious lives. (Bettina 98)Within America there have been many factions that have opposed setting the minimum drinking age to 21 for various reasons. For example, in 1984, the Conservative Party opposed the passage of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act but later on changed their stand. Much later, Felix Ortiz, a New York State Assembly member sough to introduce a bill to lower the drinking age back to 18.The main reasons posed by topposition included citing 18 as the age of adulthood where individuals can make their own choices about alcohol consumption. However, it is clear from the argument above that the advantages of maintaining the age limit at 21 clearly outweigh the benefits of putting it at 18.The different effects that alcohol has on growing teens is a clear indicator to policy makers and the public as well. We cannot expose tyoung generation to such a deadly chemical that would change their futures. Many teenagers have been saved from the negative consequences of indulging in alcohol thanks to tpolicy which in the opinion of many, should continue remaining as it is.Work Cited Branas, C.C.; and Miller, T.R. Fatal nontraffic injuries involving alcohol: A meta-analysis. 33:659?668, 1999. Print Giancola, P.R.; Lu, S.Y.; et al. Adolescent females with a substance use disorder: Affiliations with adult male sexual partners. 8:190?200, 1999.PrintRoehrs T, Roth T. . (2): 101?9.2001.PrintBettina Friand Joel W. Grube, , Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, 2010.PrintKiesbye, Stefan. Detroit: Green haven Press, 2008. Print.
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