lowering drinking age Essay

The proposal of lowering the legal drinking age from twenty-one years old to eighteen years old has been discussed for a while, and over one hundred colleges have signed the petition to support this. This act is called the “Amethyst Initiative”. Those who support this are mainly well-known colleges with good reputations, including Duke University and Dartmouth University…etc.

This attracts my attention. Is it really important to lower the legal drinking age? The answer will be absolutely yes because it provokes the rebellious phase in teenager; it also is people’s right to drink when they turn eighteen, and drinking also holds important status in many aspects. I accept the act simply because the high drinking age limit is not practical at all. It makes social chaos and provokes the rebelliousness of the teenagers. In 1850 and from 1920 to 1936, America tried to completely ban people drinking domestically, which resulted in contrabands of selling alcohol went crazy. Alcohol was even more expensive than gold. This means, the “forbidden affect” does actually influence criminal behavior going in a worse direction. What’s more, this is also happening today in a small percentage. However, although it is not common, it is still a noticeable malpractice that can’t be ignored. Adam and Eve were told not to eat the forbidden fruit. However, since they were told that way, they had a strong desire to try it. They may not like it, but they definitely will try it because of curiosity. So the same thing is happening with us. We could do nothing before we are eighteen, but as soon as we turn eighteen, we want to try the things we haven’t done or we were not allowed to do even if we are not keen on them. Because once teenagers turn eighteen, it means freedom to them, .

So why is it making chaos? Well, when you are not twenty-one yet, but you are jealous of those people who get to go the bars or drinking without worrying being caught. They would think of something other than waiting until they are allowed to drink, such as making fake IDs or borrowing from others. In addition, researchers said that when they rose the drinking age, people who died from drunken driving at an age range of eighteen to twenty-one reduced enormously. However, they might not have noticed that, the people who died from drunken drive in the accidents from twenty-one to twenty-four went up substantially. All in all, the tighter the restrictions are, the more you want to break them somehow for teenagers’ rebelliousness.

Secondly, according to the Constitutions of America, laws linking with drinking and driving age should be made by the states governments. The Federal Government shouldn't have any jurisdiction over the states laws. As a matter of fact, the legal driving ages were proclaimed by states. The earliest ones are fourteen, and latest ones are sixteen. When we date back to 1984, the “National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984” was published and united the legal age to twenty-one. However, this didn't change their attitudes toward the drinking age. But they attached a law which is “Federal Aid Highway Act”, that plainly forced every state to raise the drinking age.

Why did they want to enhance this issue to a domestic problem?

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Lowering The Drinking Age