Alcohol: is it poison, or a good way to relax at the end of the day? Is it an addictive drug or a party favor? Regardless of your opinion, almost everyone can agree that it is a dangerous substance if used irresponsibly. The US government has made many attempts to restrict its dangerous consumption, through taxes on alcoholic products, and most notably, through the 1984 Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MDLA) law, which states that one must be at least twenty-one years old before he or she is allowed to drink.
Since the MDLA was set, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), underage drinking, and subsequent problem drinking, has dropped significantly (Support 21). On the other hand, supporters of the Amethyst Initiative, a document calling for a thorough debate on the drinking problem in schools, claim that the only achievement the MDLA has accomplished is in driving underage drinking further underground (Pope, 2008). The only thing both these groups can seem to agree on is that alcohol abuse in college needs to be dealt with; the big issue is, how? Groups such as MADD, and other supporters of MDLA would say that preserving the current minimum drinking age, or raising it would do the job. However, I would argue that since we cannot stop drinking altogether --we know how much of a failure the Prohibition was-- the US should work to develop responsible drinking habits at a younger age, so that when our teens go to college, they continue good habits, even when they are not monitored. Yes, I am suggesting that we teach our children how to be adults; scary thought, I know. …show more content…
Especially when it means lowering the drinking age back to 18, or younger even, to provide as much exposure to safe drinking habits as possible. After all, by age 18 American teens are trusted with voting rights, allowed to fight and die for the US, and are held to every adult standard, except when it comes to alcohol. “ ‘There isn 't that much difference in maturity between 21 and 18. If the age is younger, you 're getting exposed to it at a younger age, and you don 't freak out when you get to campus.’ ” said a Duke University student from Singapore during an interview on the MDLA (Pope, 2008). "The right to vote isn 't going to kill you; drinking at age 18 could," contends Wendy Hamilton, National President of MADD (Chiappetta, 2005), and with a legitimate point. Today we know that the human brain is not fully developed until the subject is in his or her mid twenties. Combine that with the relatively low maturity level of college freshman and who’s to say what sort of damage the inexperienced youth could cause to their brain, especially in their breakout years when they first discover life without parental interference. Thus solely lowering the MDLA would be extremely irresponsible, and would probably be followed by more alcohol-related fatalities and higher rates of problem drinkers. So it is a good thing neither I, nor the Amethyst Initiative is advocating to only lower the drinking age; this dilemma, unfortunately, would not be easily mended by one small alteration in one statute. Instead, I suggest that we forget for a moment that alcohol is a poison that can damage one’s brain if drunk to excess, in the same way that we have forgotten how cars are actually motorized death machines if driven irresponsibly, and clearly define our goals before jumping to conclusions. …show more content…
From my perspective, our goal is to keep our youth healthy and addiction free, but alcohol isn’t necessarily unhealthy, only when it is consumed to the point of intoxication. So perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is not “How do we stop these kids from drinking?” but “How do we stop these kids from drinking too much?” Obviously, attempting to ban the drug altogether from teens was as ineffective, and as counterintuitive as the Prohibition was: it only drove the alcohol business underground, where the environment lead to dangerous drinking habits. Perhaps, instead of waving the forbidden fruit in the face of a blatantly rebellious American teen, we should allow him or her to drink in monitored, controlled situations. For instance, what if we treated drinking the same as driving? Require students to take a class
Since the MDLA was set, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), underage drinking, and subsequent problem drinking, has dropped significantly (Support 21). On the other hand, supporters of the Amethyst Initiative, a document calling for a thorough debate on the drinking problem in schools, claim that the only achievement the MDLA has accomplished is in driving underage drinking further underground (Pope, 2008). The only thing both these groups can seem to agree on is that alcohol abuse in college needs to be dealt with; the big issue is, how? Groups such as MADD, and other supporters of MDLA would say that preserving the current minimum drinking age, or raising it would do the job. However, I would argue that since we cannot stop drinking altogether --we know how much of a failure the Prohibition was-- the US should work to develop responsible drinking habits at a younger age, so that when our teens go to college, they continue good habits, even when they are not monitored. Yes, I am suggesting that we teach our children how to be adults; scary thought, I know. …show more content…
Especially when it means lowering the drinking age back to 18, or younger even, to provide as much exposure to safe drinking habits as possible. After all, by age 18 American teens are trusted with voting rights, allowed to fight and die for the US, and are held to every adult standard, except when it comes to alcohol. “ ‘There isn 't that much difference in maturity between 21 and 18. If the age is younger, you 're getting exposed to it at a younger age, and you don 't freak out when you get to campus.’ ” said a Duke University student from Singapore during an interview on the MDLA (Pope, 2008). "The right to vote isn 't going to kill you; drinking at age 18 could," contends Wendy Hamilton, National President of MADD (Chiappetta, 2005), and with a legitimate point. Today we know that the human brain is not fully developed until the subject is in his or her mid twenties. Combine that with the relatively low maturity level of college freshman and who’s to say what sort of damage the inexperienced youth could cause to their brain, especially in their breakout years when they first discover life without parental interference. Thus solely lowering the MDLA would be extremely irresponsible, and would probably be followed by more alcohol-related fatalities and higher rates of problem drinkers. So it is a good thing neither I, nor the Amethyst Initiative is advocating to only lower the drinking age; this dilemma, unfortunately, would not be easily mended by one small alteration in one statute. Instead, I suggest that we forget for a moment that alcohol is a poison that can damage one’s brain if drunk to excess, in the same way that we have forgotten how cars are actually motorized death machines if driven irresponsibly, and clearly define our goals before jumping to conclusions. …show more content…
From my perspective, our goal is to keep our youth healthy and addiction free, but alcohol isn’t necessarily unhealthy, only when it is consumed to the point of intoxication. So perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is not “How do we stop these kids from drinking?” but “How do we stop these kids from drinking too much?” Obviously, attempting to ban the drug altogether from teens was as ineffective, and as counterintuitive as the Prohibition was: it only drove the alcohol business underground, where the environment lead to dangerous drinking habits. Perhaps, instead of waving the forbidden fruit in the face of a blatantly rebellious American teen, we should allow him or her to drink in monitored, controlled situations. For instance, what if we treated drinking the same as driving? Require students to take a class