Hopchak

Abigail Hopchak

Professor L. Grundy

English 112

6 February 2018

The Legal Drinking Age Controversy

In films, music, and media, alcohol is presented in a positive light. There is an aura of

glory surrounding drinking that young people are being exposed to. This idea leads to wild

parties with readily available alcohol in high school and college. Young people binge drink,

leading to alcohol poisoning and damage to the brain and liver. Some believe that lowering the

legal drinking age to eighteen is a way to help solve the rampage of underage drinking while

others believe that the legal drinking age of twenty-one is doing more protection; that lowering

the legal drinking age would lead to more harm than good.

Those who support lowering the legal drinking age consider how much time and money

is spent trying to catch underage drinkers. They believe that by taking away the idea of

“forbidden fruit” that less teenagers will take part in drinking related activity. A decrease in

drinking related activity would also lead to a decrease in the number of underage alcohol related

deaths. Many teenagers succumb to alcohol poisoning but do not seek out medical attention due

to the fear of getting in trouble for drinking. This leads to unnecessary deaths that could have

easily been prevented had they felt safe to seek out help.

While lowering the legal drinking age to eighteen would tremendously reduce current

demographics of the college drinking scene, defenders of the current legal drinking age point out

that alcohol would only become more readily available to younger demographics. This would do

more harm to middle and high schoolers because their brains are far less developed. Eighteen
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year olds would be allowed into bars and night clubs, which are already the sight of many rapes,

kidnappings, and fights. According to The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, underage

drinking may distract students from school and lead to decreased class attendance (“CDC- Fact

Sheets- Underage Drinking-Alcohol”). Allowing an 18-year-old to drink would do nothing but

increase the number of drunk driving incidents that are already alarmingly high. Those in

defense of the current legal drinking are thinking of the best way to save the most people.

There is no perfect solution to this national crisis; however, lowering the legal drinking

age to eighteen would only open up more problems. Middle schoolers would be exposed to binge

drinking and high schoolers would have more exposure and easier access to alcohol. In the past,

states have lowered the legal drinking age and experienced increases in drunk driving related

accidents (“The Effects of Minimum Legal Drinking Age 21 Laws on Alcohol- Related Driving

in the United States”). In light of this, keeping the legal drinking age of twenty-one is the most

effective way to manage alcohol related activity.

Educating young people on the dangers of excessive drinking is one way that could

reduce the percentages of underage drinking. Exposing them to the struggles associated with

liver failure, alcoholism, and alcohol poisoning in the form of an educational class could not only

discourage them from drinking, but could emphasize the importance of seeking medical help if

someone does show signs of alcohol poisoning. Simply discouraging those under twenty-one to

drink has proven effective; according to an article by Michelle M. Hospital, daily text alerts that

discourage drinking proved to have positive impacts on the text recipients (Hospital, Michelle

M). Enforcing harsher consequences of driving under the influence could discourage drunk

driving.
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The conservation of human life should be the primary goal when seeking solutions to

underage drinking. Parents, teachers, and mentors should be taking an active role in the lives of

their teenagers who may be pressured into drinking. Simply lowering the age to make it legal is

not enough and would only cause irreversible damage to human life.
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Works Cited

“CDC - Fact Sheets-Underage Drinking - Alcohol.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-

drinking.htm.

Hospital, Michelle M., et al. “Developing an SMS Intervention for the Prevention of Underage

Drinking: Results From Focus Groups.” Substance Use & Misuse, vol. 51, no. 2, Feb.

2016, pp. 155–164. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3109/10826084.2015.1073325.

“The Effects of Minimum Legal Drinking Age 21 Laws on Alcohol-Related Driving in the

United States.” NeuroImage, Academic Press, 9 Mar. 2010,

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022437510000174?via=ihub.