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Why the Drinking Age Should Be Lowered

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Why the Drinking Age should be lowered

Why the drinking age should be lowered It is a Friday night, after a grueling week of studying, students are excited to go downtown and have a good time with their friends at the bar. One person gets to the bar and the bouncer sees his ID, takes a long look at him and says he can’t let him in. This situation happens to millions of college students all over the United States! The drinking age in the United States is 21 and it is somewhat of a controversy for many people. The drinking age should be lowered because people will engage in more responsible drinking, people in their teens will get in less trouble with the law and most importantly it will be the last step towards fully making 18 year olds a part of the adult community. It is well known that college students like to drink. It is no secret, but where they buy and consume their alcohol is a secret. The president of Middlebury College, John Mcardell says, “kids find ways to get around the 21 year old limit. This law has been an abysmal failure. It hasn't reduced or eliminated drinking. It has simply driven it underground, behind closed doors, into the most risky and least manageable of settings." Since most college freshmen and sophomores are under the legal drinking age they are not able to buy their own alcohol and much less go into a bar and have a drink. In a survey I made out of my class all 11 students said that they have consumed an alcoholic beverage before they were 21 years old. They also said that they didn’t believe this was immoral or wrong for them to do so. In a survey done by a website called www.alcohol101plus.org the survey reports that 82% of college students under the age of 21 have had alcoholic beverages before the age of 21. Both these surveys are stating that almost every college student is breaking the law, it may sound

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