Lowering The Drinking Age
...ions, and must accept the consequences. On one's 18th birthday the law no longer views him as a child yet he is restricted from many places of social activity. Bars and many dance clubs are strictly for those 21 and over due to the legal drinking age in America, so many legal adults are not permitted entry. Clearly a decrepency exists beween an 18 year old adult and a 21 year old adult; however, since they are veiwed by the law as equals shouldn’t they have the same privileges (Danieal 140)? Obviously certain laws that regulate activities by age are necessary. Voting, alcohol, and driving should not be available to people of any age because of the amount of responsibility these activities require. However the segregation between younger and older adults is unwarranted. Up until 1984 the legal drinking age was 18, however Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) spurred a campaign to raise the age limit to 21. They succeeded with the passage of the National Minimum Purchase Age Act in 1984. The law aimed to lower the number of drunk driving accidents, which it has done, but only by a small margin. However, what it has also done is reduce the rights of citizens between the ages of 18 and 21. Americans hold personal freedom to be an undeniable right. The right to drink one's self into a drunken state still falls under the personal right category; however, this basic freedom is restricted by the implementation of the 1984 law. Instead of being able to have complete control over one's life when they reach the legal age of adulthood, citizens are forced to wait an additional three years for an equal level of freedom. All rights would be gained simultaneously and lowering the legal drinking age to 18 would erase the discrepancy that now exists. Furthermore the temptation to undermine the law through underage drinking would be greatly decreased. For many college students that fall in between years of legal adulthood and legal drinking age, the desire to drink is spurred by getting away with something they are not supposed to be doing. Alcohol becomes an “forbidden fruit”. Drinking is more exciting when it is illegal (Rally 1). The typical college student would not feel the need to have a binge drinking party if he were allowed into the local bar. The need to throw private drinking parties would no longer be prevalent because the accessibility of alcohol would no longer be in question. Lowering the legal drinking age would also create a lot more social events for those 18 and older. Currently many dance clubs are strictly for those 21 and over because the establishment serves alcohol. This leaves the remainder of the adults to find their own forms of entertainment, counter productive or otherwise. If these bored adults were allowed to participate in more activities there would be less people idling on the streets. Society as a whole would be better off because there would be less illegal activity taking place. This could entail underage drinking or more serious matters engaged by those with spare time and nowhere to go. If more young adults were drinking in public places as opposed to dorm rooms the possibility of excessive drinking would be lowered. The number of people present and the way in which bars and clubs are run provide the structured environment necessary to promote safer drinking. It is far less likely for someone to die of alcohol poisoning in a bar than in a private home because the number of people capable of recognizing alcohol-related problems greatly increases. The adult population between the ages of 18 and 21 has been oppressed by the injustice of age based segregation for over a decade, and it is time for something to be done. The legal drinking age needs to be lowered to fit the remainder of the country's standards of adulthood. Eighteen year olds have the maturity to look at alcohol as a social activity to interact with peers and adults and not as a way to alter their conscience. In addition, people fresh out of high school are bombarded by many financial institutions such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America. These companies are offering them Visa and Master Cards with up to 25% annual percentage rates (APR). How is someone with no credit history and little or no income supposed to take such huge financial responsibilities? An eighteen-year-old can die for his country while leaving his family to pay the 25% APR accrued by his quickly accumulated short-lived large debt. Yet he still couldn’t drink. The drinking age must be lowered because in the majority of foreign countries, there is no distinction between a right and a wrong age to drink. For instance, Amsterdam has no drinking age, but there are barely any injuries that relate to alcohol by people under the age of 21. This is because all the young teenagers know that they can drink and this leaves nothing to rebel against, there is no hype. If something isn’t prohibited, it becomes something of less interest. Professor Craig Reinerman of University California Santa Cruz has devoted his life to studying alcohol and drug policies in different countries. He has found that when no boundaries are placed on the use of alcohol, it becomes part of the normal way of life and there is no final destination to reach if there is no age limit. In addition, Mexico’s drinking age is lower than Americas, which increases the rate of accidents involving alcohol. The rate of alcohol related accidents would decrease if the age limit were the same as Mexico’s because there would be no need for teens to travel to Mexico to get drunk. Each year many teens from America travel to Mexico to take advantage of the young drinking age. In the act of doing this, horrible things take place, especially rapes and kidnappings of young girls. Going to Mexico and drinking is much more dangerous for an eighteen year old, than drinking in America for numerous reasons. Most importantly though, Spanish is the main language that is spoken there and if a teen is drunk and crosses paths with a policeman, he could go to jail. Changing the legal drinking age in America would...