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Essay Against Lowering The Drinking Age

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While the legal drinking age in the United States of America is 21, many other countries have lower legal drinking ages ranging from 18-20. Although the United States is one of the few countries with a higher minimum drinking age, it is not the only one as countries such as Indonesia and Mongolia have a legal drinking age of 21 as well. According to Ethan Trex, the concept that an individual becomes a full adult once they are 21 dates back to English common law as this was the age at which a person could vote and become a knight amongst other things. As a person was officially an adult by 21, it only made sense that they would be able to drink. Although, the minimum drinking age in America was not always 21. Following Franklin Roosevelt’s …show more content…

Teenagers from the more restrictive state would drive into the one where they could buy booze, drink, and then drive home… Even if teens weren't any more predisposed than older adults to drive after they'd been drinking, all of this state-hopping meant that those who did drive drunk had to drive greater distances to get home than their older …show more content…

Among drivers under 21, drunk driving-related deaths have decreased by 80 percent” (Trex, Why is the Drinking Age 21?). Despite this decrease, many still believe that America should lower the minimum drinking age to mirror that of other nations. “Lowering the drinking age will help slow the need for pre-gaming and bring the college fake ID business to a dead stop. It can't help but reduce the binge drinking, drug overdoses and sexual assaults” (Cary, “Time to Lower the Drinking Age”). While arguments can be made in favor of a lower minimum drinking age in the United States, these arguments are often focused on the drinking habits of college students and ignore other factors. The legal drinking age should remain the same in the United States as it has decreased the amount of alcohol related driving fatalities, research has shown a correlation between a lower drinking age and problematic drinking behaviors in later adulthood, and despite popular belief countries with lower drinking ages do not fare better than

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