The pros and cons of the us current drinking age

The 21st amendment repealed the 18th amendment which had prohibited the sale of alcohol in the United States in 1933. I guess it is only fitting that a lot of states adopted a drinking age that settled on the age of 21. In keeping the age the same we reduce the risk of younger adults getting in serious car wrecks due to drinking and driving and hopefully can set a healthy example for consuming alcohol and not settle on binge drinking. Even with 18 being considered the age of adult, our brains are technically still not fully developed until we get into our mid to late 20’s.

Whether the drinking age remains at 21 or not will probably not affect our society as much as we might think. Some of us may have drunk before we were of “ legal” age or we may know of someone who has done the same. I believe there will always be people who are going to break down law. If it goes down to 18 it would probably make access of alcohol easier for those of younger age than it may already be now.

“ Twenty-one isn’t just an arbitrary number set by Congress—more than 20 states already had laws setting the drinking age there in 1984.” Based on this 21 was just a consensus agreement among the people of the time due to already half the country having it set at 21 as individual states.”

“ Research indicates that when the minimum legal drinking age is 21, people under age 21 drink less overall and continue to do so through their early 20s. When the drinking age has been lowered, injury and death rates significantly increased.”

Alcohol is considered to be a neurotoxin as well as a gateway drug. A gateway drug is a drug that may be habit forming but may or may not be addictive but can lead to more serious and more addictive drugs. A neurotoxin is a poison that acts on the nervous system.

“ A person’s brain does not stop developing until their early to mid-20s. During this period, alcohol negatively affects all parts of the brain, including cognitive and decision-making abilities as well as coordination and memory. Adolescent drinkers not only do worse academically but are also at greater risk for social problems like depression, violence, and suicidal thoughts.”

The passage above would indicate that we should increase the drinking age to somewhere in the mid to late 20s but then if we did that we would take a huge hit economically due to the fact that if some people wait that long until they can purchase alcohol then they may never do it. If they never purchase alcohol then people will lose their businesses and even more people will lose their jobs.

In the United States once you turn 18 you are technically considered an adult. Once you turn 18 you can vote, get married, serve on juries and risk your life for your country by joining the military so why not add by alcohol to that list. Well even though you can do all those things, drinking alcohol at a young age is a big risk in the development of the young minds of tomorrow. The big issue with drinking is what we decide to do after it, you or a lot of people you may know would more than likely make the smartest decision in not driving after having a few drinks, but there are a good amount of people in our country who would say “ I’m not that drunk, I can make it home” and end up giving up their own life or costing someone else theirs because of ego and pride. If the age was reduced to 18 we wouldn’t be sure what kind of effect it would have on the percentages of drunk-driving related incidents.

“ In the United States, 31% of road traffic deaths involve alcohol. This percentage is higher than many countries with a drinking age lower than 21 such as France (29%), Great Britain (16%), Germany (9%), China (4%), and Israel (3%). Although the United States increased the MLDA to 21 in 1984, its rate of traffic accidents and fatalities in the 1980s decreased less than that of European countries whose legal drinking ages are lower than 21.”

The main thing I have in several articles is that when it was first established back in the 1980’s we noticed a lot fewer drunk-driving related incidents, but the problem is that it has only risen since instead of staying on the decline.

In a Pro vs. Con scenario there will always be good answers for both but we really want have a true answer unless we test something out. The problem with testing this out is that we are affecting a lot people’s lives at the end of the day and I believe that it would probably be best to keep the drinking age at 21 for the time being.

In conclusion, I don’t think there are enough pros or cons to make it seem like a good thing to keep the drinking age the same or to lower the drinking age. Even if the United States does have the highest age for being able to legally consume alcohol. I believe at the end of the day the United States faces too many incidents of drinking and driving on a daily basis and would probably feel that may be increased if they lowered the age, allowing younger people who may not be mature enough to handle it and make the problem grow even more.