Agnes Hankerson
Doctor Teresa Nunes
ENGL 1302
23 February 2016
Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered? The government decision to increase the drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one was performed on July 17, 1984 due to ongoing issues; drinking and driving being one of the increasingly issues in that time frame. The Minimum Legal Drinking Age “MLDA” was created to lower alcohol usage and other related problems among youth. Passing of the MLDA Act has helped parents and the public in general in many ways having a major positive impact in the community as well. Many adults who are twenty-one or older do not see the need to lower the drinking age in the United States. Lowering the drinking age to eighteen would not only be detrimental to our society, it will be putting our subsequent generations at risk. If the age of eighteen was to be the legal age to purchase alcohol we would have a tremendous concern with younger ages consuming alcohol just as we have now with twenty-one year old adults purchasing alcohol to our younger adults that are not legal to consume at that time. Eighteen to twenty years old are normally the individuals who have a problem with the legal drinking age. They continue to express their frustrations and a lot of them cannot seem to comprehend the reason behind the MLDA law. This is because most young adults go away to college and is almost inevitable for them to socialize with individuals that are their age or younger, almost everyone is older than them. While they are in college they tend to go to different night clubs where alcohol is present but they are not allowed to consume any type of alcohol while in them. In many cases the older and legal to drinking groups will have such an influence on these minors, they will purchase and provide the alcohol to the minor in order for these minors to fit in with their groups This type of situation is what has most parents concerned and college faculty and staff. They are aware of the underground drinking and it is a serious problem in numerous campuses all around the US. Lowering the legal drinking age is only going to facilitate the younger teenagers to consume alcohol. They will have a much larger and older population group who could purchase or provide them with alcohol.