Kristen Virga
End Age Discrimination
Rhetoric- Professor Russo
Molloy College
End Age Discrimination
Until the glorious age of 21 everyone knows it is illegal to possess, consume or buy alcohol. This legal restriction definitely has its advocates and some would even say that the age limitation should be raised. The legal drinking age of 21, however, seems to cause more problems than it actually prevents. First, in my opinion, questioning the law itself is necessary. For example, why is it that at the age of 21 an individual is considered to be intelligent and mature enough to drink alcohol? Many believe that people who are immature are less likely to be able to handle the effects that alcohol has on them. For this reason, Congress chose to set the age limit to consume alcohol to 21. However, we all can most likely think of people under the age of 21 who would be able to drink responsibly and handle the effects better than someone within the legal age limit. In fact, there are also some individuals who are over the age of 21 that will never be able to learn to drink responsibly. Why is it that the limit is 21 and not 18? If maturity is the main concern why did Congress decide on 21 rather than 30 or 35, the average age at which individuals are marrying and starting families. The random age of 21 is supposed to the age associated with adulthood, making it seem like the day an individual turns 21 they are fully matured and responsible.
In some states, the legal drinking age was set at the age of 18. Many of today’s teenagers have parents that were, by law, able to drink alcohol at 18. In fact, teenagers today are actually treated more like adults and are given more responsibilities than their parents ever had. With that being said, the legal age of 21 seems to be out of date.
To call alcohol taboo implies that drinking is done in secret and rarely. Yet college drinking is
so common as to have lost all tinge of intrigue. Drinking greases the social wheels, and college
life for many is saturated with popular drinking games that no doubt seem brilliant to the
late-adolescent: Beerchesi, Beergammon, BeerSoftball, coin games like Psycho, Quarters, and
BeerBattleship, and card and dice games linked to beer. (Main, 36)
In many different areas of everyday life, 18 year olds are considered adults but when it comes to alcohol they are considered minors. For example, at 18, an individual can buy cigarettes, fly planes, drive cars, vote for the leader of their country, pay taxes and experience debt, get married, get a tattoo, take out loans and risk their lives for their country in the armed forces. Now these are just a few of the freedoms an 18 year old gain but they cannot buy a drink. “Today’s legal drinking age is unrealistic.” I strongly agree with this statement. By banning the sale of alcohol to those under the age of 21, we created an atmosphere where alcohol abuse and binge drinking have become a problem.
Realistically if you tell a teenager they can’t do something, chances are they’ll do it anyway. By banning drinking for individuals under 21 years of age, alcohol becomes a forbidden fruit. Teenagers’, being that it is considered an adult activity, look at drinking as something glamorous. For this reason, teens long to become adults as soon as realistically possible. Teenagers can easily obtain a fake I.D., ask someone 21 or older to buy for them or even sneak alcohol from their parents without them even knowing.
College students are more likely to engage in heavy drinking than their peers who do not
attend college, with 2 in 5 students nationally engaging in binge drinking on at least 1
occasion in the past 2 weeks. Approximately three quarters of college students aged 18-20
years drank alcohol in the past year, although they are less likely than their peers of legal
drinking age to drink and to engage in binge drinking. (Wechsler, 990)
Clearly, the drinking age isn’t working because people will find ways to obtain the alcohol and continue drinking. These kind if devious actions do anything but encourage people to drink responsibly. Furthermore, when the opportunity arises where these teenagers turn 21 and are able to legally drink alcohol, there is a kind of “let’s make up for lost time” attitude. As a result, the occurrence of binge drinking rises.
In my opinion as well as others, the drinking age should be lowered to 18. Many problems would be avoided if the focus wasn’t so much on the reasons why people shouldn’t drink alcohol but on the responsible way to handle it. Teenagers go through health classes and lectures on everything about alcohol with the exception of ways to drink gradually, responsibly, and in moderation. If this became a focus rather than restriction, alcohol abuse wouldn’t be seen as such a problem.
Traditionally, adolescent-drinking and drinking-problem prevention strategies have relied on
school-based programs. School-based strategies generally attempt to provide new
information, teach new skills, or counter existing beliefs. The immediate goals of school
based strategies are to directly impact an individual's drinking beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors
or to change other individual-level mediators. (Grube, 89)
Young adults could learn to partake in moderate drinking as an enjoyable social activity rather than something they need to try and sneak around. Without this kind of educational system, going away to college is considered to be a liberation for teenagers. If teens 18 years of age do not have the legal access to even one beer in a public area, they are forced to sneak around and drink when they do not have the right.
I believe that the drinking age of 21 needs to be lowered to 18 because it doesn’t really have a positive impact and has no real basis. Fewer problems would be present, in fact, if the age was lowered. We need to not forbid teenagers from drinking but the teach them responsible drinking instead. The problems associated with drinking are better resolved through more education on responsible drinking and through a lowered age limit. So, the next time this argument is put to a vote be sure to support lowering the legal drinking age to 18.
References
Grube, J. W., & Nygaard, P. (2001). Adolescent drinking and alcohol policy. Contemporary Drug Problems, 28(1), 87-131. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/233175979?accountid=28076
Main, C. T. (2009). Underage drinking and the drinking age. Policy Review, (155), 33-46. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/216455758?accountid=28076
Wechsler, H., & Nelson, T. F., ScD. (2010). Will increasing alcohol availability by lowering the minimum legal drinking age decrease drinking and related consequences among youths? American Journal of Public Health, 100(6), 986-92. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/347533689?accountid=28076
