More than half of Americans over the age of twelve say they are current users of alcoholic beverages (“Alcohol”). An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol.
These beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, but each one making different laws that prohibit the sale and consumption. In particular such laws specify the minimum age a person can legally buy or drink them. This age varies between sixteen and twenty five, depending upon the country and type of drink (“Alcohol”). Even though more than half of Americans admit to being alcohol users, there are many people who are strongly against alcohol. Most people disagree with the sale and consumption of alcohol because of their religion and alcohol related death. Although I do agree with the sales of alcohol because in the times we are living in now the money our country receives from the sales tax is well needed. Religion is the main reason most people would like to ban
Alcohol. Most religions forbid, discourage, or restrict the drinking of alcoholic beverages. These include Islam, Jainism, The Bahai Faith,
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Seventh-day
Adventists Church, the Church of Christ, and the United Penocostal
Church (“Alcohol”). Many Christian denominations use wine in the
Eucharist or Communion and alcohol in moderation. Others use unfermented grape juice in communion and either abstain from alcohol or prohibit it outright. Most of the churches believe that refraining from alcohol as essential to moral conduct because alcohol causes a loss for mindfulness. In America there was a time period known as the Prohibition Era where we made manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages illegal. As a result Prohibition led to widespread disrespect for the law. Many people made and sold alcohol illegally and crime rates increased. Ultimately this led to the repeal of the 18th amendment that made alcohol illegal to the 21st amendment in 1933
(“Alcohol”).
Making alcohol completely illegal in America made people want it that much more. Maybe that it why there are so many deaths from alcohol. Alcohol causes many health related problems such as heart disease, dementia, cancer, diabetes, stroke, and obesity. Alcohol related car accidents kill more people between the ages of seventeen and thirty four than any other cause (“Alcohol”). But total drunk driving fatalities have decreased by nearly 50 percent since 1892 (“Alcohol”).
The more alcohol becomes legalized the more accidents and death rates from it decrease. I believe this is because when you tell people they are allowed to do something if they want; they have a choice when you tell someone you cannot do that, it makes them want to regardless of the consequences. Drinking and driving is a personal choice. Most countries have drunk driving laws which limit how much alcohol a person can consume before driving on the road. The permitted blood alcohol content threshold ranges from 0.0% to 0.08% (“Alcohol”). Punishments for violation include fines, temporary or permanent loss of driver’s license, and imprisonment. Some places even have jurisdictions for drunk sailing, drunk bicycling, and even drunk rollerblading. In many places in the United States it is also illegal to have an open container of alcohol in a vehicle. We will never be able to fully stop people from driving drunk, but there are punishments that are made clear for those who do so. The main reason I believe that alcohol should become legal
Nationwide is because of the money it brings to our country. With cities across the country facing their fifth straight year of declining revenues and states cutting services and laying off workers, raising money from people who enjoy
