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Lowering Drinking Age

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At this time in America, there are teenagers participating in underage binge drinking, because of this they are either dead or in jail. This new media culture has glorified the consumption of alcohol among the youth will ultimately will lead to their deaths. Even though it is illegal to purchase alcohol for anyone under twenty-one. The legal drinking age should not be lowered to eighteen because drunk driving accidents would occur more often, adults are more mature at the age of twenty-one, and students in high school would be able to buy alcohol, resulting in even more underage drinking.
If the minimum drinking age is lowered, a substantial amount of drunk driving would occur more often. When the drinking age was lowered, during the …show more content…
Before the age of twenty-one the human brain is not fully developed, therefore eighteen-year-olds are not mature enough to consume alcohol (Chapman). The brain develops throughout the early twenties and alcohol may harm the developing brain (Roan). For example, during adolescence and young adulthood the drinking of alcohol could potentially cause damage to memory and learning capabilities. Drinking underage is priming the developing brain to need the alcohol, causing the need for it to become a necessity, an addiction (Roan). Eighteen-year-olds show tendencies to abuse the franchise, that are putting innocent bystanders in grave danger (Chapman). In just one year among college students, who are not twenty-one, there are 1700 deaths, 500,000 injuries, 600,000 physical assaults and 70,000 sexual assaults that are all directly related to the social norm of binge drinking under age (Voas). At twenty-one, people tend to make better decisions, as well as having better judgment than an adolescent would, as they are finishing college or already in their careers for a few …show more content…
Also, minors would be buying alcohol for even younger minors (Streeter). As twenty-one-year-olds buy for eighteen-year-olds, the eighteen-year-olds would buy for fifteen/sixteen-year-olds. Because younger people will obtain liquor easier, they will get drunk quicker, and die even faster (Chapman). The rise of underage drinking would lead to an up in teenage pregnancy, violent crime and sexual assault (Voas). It would be harder to regulate who buys the alcohol because of seventeen-year-olds who are about to turn eighteen (Cloud). The only ones who benefit from a lower drinking age are those who profit from the sales, also known as, franchise owners, and bartenders (Voas). Eighty percent of the youth would begin drinking regularly at the age of fifteen or younger (Tromans). Drinking before fourteen years of age causes a lifelong risk of alcohol dependency of forty-seven percent to nine percent of those who started drinking at the age of twenty-one (Roan). Additionally, eighteen-year-olds are allowed to join the military because they can be molded into a good soldier (Voas). The traits that make an eighteen-year-old a good soldier is their sense of immortality and fearlessness and these traits do not mix very well with alcohol (Chapman). Three thousand Americans under twenty-one

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