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Lower the Legal Drinking Age to 18

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Lower the Legal Drinking Age to 18
Danielle Gonzales

The government can trust those between the age of 18 and 20 to do many things, but they cannot treat them like full adults and allow them to drink alcohol. You will find that many Colleges and Universities disagree with the legal drinking age. In fact, they believe that rising the drinking age has increased the amount of ‘binge’ drinkers and only made our countries drinking problems worse. Eighty-five percent of twenty year old Americans reported that they had used alcohol. (Johnson) Two out of five said they had binged within the previous month. To ‘binge,’ is to consume five or more drinks at one time. (Engs) “The period since the twenty-one minimum drinking age took affect has been marked by a shift from beer to hard liquor,” Seaman wrote in Time “consumed not in large social settings, since that is now illegal, but furtively and dangerously in students residences. In my reporting at colleges around the country, I did not meet any presidents or deans who felt the twenty-one year age minimum helps their efforts to curb the abuse of alcohol on their campuses.” (Balk) A kid is going to drink if he or she wants to regardless whether the law says eighteen or twenty-one. In an alcohol related situation you are more likely going to hear “I don’t drink, thank you,” than “I better not, I’m not 21 yet.”
When colleges and University presidents disagree with the drinking age, something has got to be done. If the drinking age were changed to 18 years of age, colleges would be able to regulate alcohol use, so students would not become overly intoxicated. They believe that this would cut down on the number of college campus alcohol-related deaths, because campus officials would be able to monitor alcohol use better. Also, if it’s legal then it won’t be as rebellious and “cool,” so people won’t abuse it. (Petition)

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