Teens under the legal minimum age of alcohol should not drink, nor should it be lowered. Researchers say that giving alcoholic beverages under 21 could create a lethal addiction and would not have the responsibility to drink. If teens drink a certain amount of alcohol it could be lethal by alcohol poisoning. “Alcohol can enter the blood stream; binge drinkers can ingest a fatal dose of alcohol before passing out.” (“Binge Drinking Can Be Fatal”). The legal minimum age should not be lowered, teens under 21 don’t have the responsibility to get intoxicated and those include car accidents, homicides, suicides, and other injuries. I’m going to tell you why minors should not drink, how alcoholic beverages effects teens, and why the legal minimum …show more content…
First of all, alcohol is a depressant, in other words it controls how slow your body functions. It could alter with a person’s movement, emotions, and vision. Alcohol impedes messages that your brain is trying to receive. You are more relaxed depending on how much you drink. The more you drink the more intoxicated you are and the more sick feeling you could get. Depending on the person, you could either be an angry, friendly or maybe a sad drunk, making you act not yourself. When you drink, you react to things slower, that’s why people should not drive intoxicated. Consuming too much alcohol in a short period of time can have a result of alcohol poisoning; the first symptom is usually vomiting. Resulting more symptoms such as extreme fatigue, difficulty breathing, low blood sugar, unconsciousness, or even death. Furthermore, there are aftereffects, known as a hangover, in other terms, it’s what happens after heavy drinking. An alcohol withdrawal can usually happen after just four or five drinks to get a hangover, which typically happens several hours after your last drink. These symptoms include headaches, nausea, fatigue, muscle pain, or mild anxiety. “When teenagers do use alcohol they may not just be affecting their brain for that night or weekend, but for the next 80 years of their life.” (“Henry Wechsler, PhD and Bernice Wuethrich”).
The legal minimum
A lower drinking age law would save even more lives and also stop minors from drinking under the limit. Having it higher will result in more traffic injuries and fatalities among youth. A lower drinking age is effective in preventing alcohol-related deaths and injuries among youth. Young people are particularly vulnerable to the effects of heavy drinking age. According to John McCardell, founder of Choose Responsibility, the legal drinking age does not eliminate consumption among young people. Instead, it only drives underage drinking underground, creating a dangerous culture of irresponsible and extreme drinking. Although the legal purchase age is 21 years of age, a majority of college students under this age consume alcohol but in an irresponsible manner. This is because drinking by these youth is seen as an enticing "forbidden fruit," a "badge of rebellion against authority" and a symbol of "adulthood."Keeping the minimum legal drinking age at 21 will not dissuade young people who want to indulge in reckless alcohol intake. If anything, the age limit encourages binge drinking. Lowering the drinking age could make it easier to regulate consumption among younger adults as well as encourage healthy drinking habits. “For example, 22% of all students under 21 compared to 18% over 21 years of age are heavy drinkers.” “Among drinkers only, 32% of underage compared to 24% of legal age are heavy drinkers.”
"After drinking people usually feel pleasure and become talkative at first. These feelings are usually replaced by drowsiness as the alcohol is eliminated from the body, and the drinker may then become withdrawn. This pattern often encourages people to drink more to keep the buzz going." ( Net Biz Mentor ). When people get like that they usually get a little bolder and want to do normal tasks and routines like driving a motorized vehicle. The effects of alcohol result in poor coordination, slurred speech, double vision, decrease of self-control, lost of consciousness and maybe even death.
The drinking age should be lowered to eighteen because there has been many problems that have caused life threatening dangers to these teens. The age eighteen is where you start to become an adult so people should have the right to drink when they turn eighteen (“Drinking Age”). It also should be allowed
According to Alexis Aguirre in The University Star, “Keeping the minimum legal drinking age at 21 will not dissuade young people who want to indulge in reckless alcohol intake. If anything, the age limit encourages binge drinking. Lowering the drinking age could make it easier to regulate consumption among younger adults as well as encourage healthy drinking habits” (Aguirre). Sure enough, if the drinking age were lowered to 18 it would avoid the illegal, abused intake of alcohol by 18 year olds. According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, “Each year, approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking” (U.S Department of Health and Human Services). A way of avoiding such tragedies is lowering the drinking age to 18, teaching younger
Realistically, teenagers are going to drink no matter what. The minimum drinking age debate in America seems to primarily revolve around one issue: drunk driving. The increased minimum drinking age does not solve the problem of drunk driving in any real way, it just shifts drunk driving deaths into a slightly older age group. Additionally, because teenagers are afraid of getting caught drinking, many end up drinking large amounts of alcohol in short
While alcohol may not be the most dangerous of drugs, it is harmful nonetheless. There have been many research studies done by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that prove this to be true. Binge drinking is drinking with the purpose of getting drunk, and is the most common form of alcohol consumption while it is also the most dangerous. There have been numerous researches by other organizations and scientists that have demonstrated just how dangerous underage drinking can be. These facts cannot be denied and further the belief that underage drinking is very serious and dangerous. Not only does a person run the risk of being arrested for illegal activity, a person can also be harmed.
Today, alcohol use continues to be regarded by many people, as a normal part of
The legal drinking age should not be lowered to 18, but stay at 21 because It leads to irresponsible behavior and decisions. Young adults who drink tend not to care about their actions. Robert Voas who has worked for the National Highway Administration Office, claims that it would not be a good idea to lower the drinking age to 18. According to Voas, (Believe me when I say that lowering the drinking age would be very dangerous; it would benefit no one except those who profit from alcohol sales.) Young adults who are not 21 years of age tend to make irresponsible decisions like getting behind the wheel drunk. Being a young adult and driving under the influence of alcohol can lead one to a major accident or even death. Lowering the requirement of drinking may benefit underage adults but the death rate of drunk driving will increase rapidly. Robert Voas has studied drunk driving for 40 years and he has seen numerous accidents and deaths of immature young adults drinking under the influence.
There are many arguments on why the legal drinking age should be lowered to eighteen. To some, lowering the drinking age to eighteen makes sense and to others it does not make sense at all. Most people believe that if eighteen year olds are old enough to make big decisions such as enlist in the Army, Navy, or other Military services then eighteen year olds are old enough to drink also. Not only does lowering the legal drinking age put the drinker at harm but also the people around the drinker. There are so many reasons why the legal drinking age should not be lowered, never less, three valid and proven reasons why the legal drinking age should not be lowered is, the effect on the brain, the safety of the drinker and the people around them, and the number of deaths that will increase.
When teens turn 18 they deserve all the rights that come with being an adult, lowering the drinking age will not only cause teens to become more responsible it will also reduce drunk driving accidents as seen in other countries who have already implemented this law.
Almost everyone can agree that alcohol should not be given or allowed to children or young adults under a certain age. Alcohol is a substance that is very dangerous and if you used incorrectly or immaturely the consequences can be great danger to the users or the ones around them. The topic of lowering the drinking age has been in discussion for many decades. “Between 1970 and 1976, 29 states lowered their age for drinking alcohol. The results were catastrophic. Highway deaths among teenagers and young adults skyrocketed. Almost immediately, states began raising the minimum drinking age again.” “In 1984, Congress passed the Uniform Drinking Age Act, which required states to have a minimum drinking age of 21 for all types of alcohol
Underage alcohol drinking can have devastating effects on teenagers. It can affect teens' grades, health and many other things as well. The reasons why teenagers consume alcohol are pretty clear. What aren’t clear are the solutions to eliminating, or at least reducing the number of underage drinkers. It is vital that we do something to at least suppress this problem. By taking action, we can greatly reduce the number of underage drinkers and it could also save not only their lives, but also someone else's life as well. Underage drinking can cause many health problems as well as educational problems in a teen’s life; therefore our country needs to decrease the number of underage drinkers by increasing both the price of alcohol as well as the legal drinking age.
If they are under twenty one a alcohol, because drinking is known to cause brain damage and damage to the liver and drinking at a early age can do more damage than to somebody that’s 21. Teen drinking is mostly common from the age twelve to eighteen which can affect their learning and damage their brain and give them learning issues and have a lot of trouble problem solving and not understanding words as quick as other scientist have proven that teens iq goes down more than fifty percent and hundreds of teens die from alcohol every year so this shows America how dangerous alcohol really is its sad how most good teen gets pear pressured into drinking by they friends jest to fit in to the group drinking also causes teens to have unperceptive
18 to 20 year olds are starting to drink now, lowering the drinking age to 18 will provide 15 to 17 year olds the opportunity to start drinking as well. The human mind does not reach complete intellectual development until between the ages 21-25. So by allowing people younger than the age of 21 to drink alcohol that would be allowing them to make poor decision that could affect their lives
While drinking might make you feel good now, if you abuse that alcohol it may lead to serious complications later. Heavy drinking is defined as consuming four or more drinks in a day for women and five or more drinks in a day for men (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). Alcohol is considered a depressant, so it is only seen fit that one of the chief effects of alcohol on the brain is to depress central nervous system functioning. In turn it may be why major depressive disorders occur in those who abuse alcohol. If the alcohol abuse continues over a period it intensifies into an alcohol dependency. Alcohol has effects on the body both mentally and physically. After a certain limit alcohol will slur your speech, increase your reaction time, and make you lose co-ordination. Alcohol consumption, particularly long-term alcohol dependence has many physiological ricks to consider, such as permanent damage to the brain, alcoholic liver disease, pancreatitis, alcohol poisoning