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¶ … Legal Drinking Age Be Lowered to 18
RESOLVED: At present the minimum legal drinking age of 21 years of age is controlled by the federal government by means of federal highway funds. This strips states of their right to self-govern and the higher MLDA is inconsistent with other rights allowed 18-year-olds.
PRO: In favor of lowering the minimum legal drinking age to 18 years of age
Premise 1: studies showing a decline in alcoholic incidents are misleading
Premise 2: the current law is not deterring under age drinking
Premise 3: the minimum legal drinking age of 21 years is socially unjust
Premise 4: it is now a political rather than a social issue
The minimum legal drinking age should be lowered to 18 years of age to reinstate individual and states' rights.
The debate over the minimum legal drinking age can be heard on campuses and in state legislative halls throughout the country. Although there might have been good
intentions for the current legal drinking age of 21, there are many factors that cannot be ignored in favor of lowering the minimum legal drinking age to 18 years.
Research shows a decrease in problems associated with drinking and driving that has paralleled a decrease in the per capita consumption of alcohol, but the declines started in 1980 (Engs 1b). This was before...
Many factors play into these decreases. Public awareness has brought about drunk driving educational programs, the designated driver programs, and increased usage of seat belts and air bags (Engs 1b). Moreover most states have passed and enforce tougher DUI laws over the last twenty years. The problems associated with driving and drinking have not decreased due to raising the legal drinking age to 21 years old.Among the 'binge' drinkers (those consuming over five drinks at one sitting at least once a week), eighteen percent of students over age 21
classify themselves as heavy drinkers compared to twenty-two percent of those under 21 years of age (Engs 1b). So even though drunk driving problems have decreased over the last two decades, there has been an increase in lower grades, missing classes, getting into fights and vomiting after drinking (Engs 1b). Society's approach to controlling underage drinking is not working and is in fact
counterproductive (Engs).
Hypocrisy is another issue concerning the current minimum legal drinking age.
At 18 years of age a person may live on his own (White 2c). He may pay rent and utilities. He or she may also be issued a credit card thus incurring debt. He or she may at 18 years of age…
WORKS CITED
Engs, Ruth. "The Drinking Age Debate Current Approach to Controlling Underage
Drinking Isn't Working." Denver Rocky Mountain News May 10, 1998, 1B
Madison, Andrew Jepsen. "Today's Mail -- Lower Drinking Age Would Help
Economy." Wisconsin State Journal June 26, 1995 7A
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America, when a person reaches the age of 18 he can die for his country, obtain credit, get married, get divorced and be charged in criminal court. By all appearances the age of 18 sets the stage for adulthood and all that it entails. In a curious contradiction to that, however, America insists on maintaining a drinking age of 21 years old. While 18-year-olds can do all of the
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The question isn't whether there should be controls, but which controls work best. What has proven around the world to work best is a combination of reasonable laws backed by strong social sanctions. But in the U.S. we treat our emerging adults as infants and get infantile behavior as a result…if adults would learn to temper their patronizing attitudes toward young men and women, more maturity, self-restraint, and social
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