As the saying goes, “strict parents create devious children.” Similarly, a strict country produces rebellious young adults. Compared to countries with lower minimum drinking age, the United States has an unusually high rate of binge drinking among young adults and adolescents. According to Dr. Thomas Frieden of the Center for Disease Control, 90% of all alcohol consumption by young adults and adolescents in the United States is consumed during excessive alcohol consumption. Age milestones exist in the United States in various forms. At the age of 16 (at least in my home state of Ohio, although it differs slightly from state to state), we can get our driver`s license. At 18, we become “legal adults” in almost every way – we can join the military, have consensual relationships with other legal adults, and vote. Then, three years later, we can legally drink alcohol at the age of 21. The United States is one of only 12 countries in the world to have a legal drinking age of 21 and is the only Western country to have such a restriction. An overwhelming 116 countries have a legal drinking age of 18 or 19. However, people cannot legally drink alcoholic beverages until the age of 21. It is high time for the United States to change this retrograde thinking. This is clearly not the legal drinking age.

Cultural factors, such as normalized alcohol consumption and how impaired driving is perceived, may be factors. Since our current prohibition laws are not working, the need for alternative approaches must be tested from the experience of other older cultures that do not have these problems. Groups such as Italians, Greeks, Chinese, and Jews, who have few drinking problems, tend to share some common traits. Alcohol is not considered a poison or a magic force, there is little to no social pressure to drink, irresponsible behavior is never tolerated, teenagers learn at home from their parents and other adults how to manage alcohol responsibly, there is a social consensus about what constitutes responsible drinking. Given that the 21-year-old liquor law is not working and is counterproductive, it is incumbent upon us as a nation to amend our current prohibition law and teach responsible drinking techniques to those who have chosen to consume alcoholic beverages. The United States is one of the few countries (and the only one Westernized) to set the drinking age at 21. And yet, this higher minimum drinking age has not allowed us to outpace other developed countries. I think you should drink at any age, so when you grow up, then you know what it`s like to be drunk, and now it`s illegal to smoke in Virginia unless you`re 21. Research from the early 1980s to today has shown a continuous decline, then the threshold for alcohol and driving related to variables. which led to the decline in the per capita consumption of the nation and also of university students.

However, these declines began in 1980 before the 1987 national law requiring states to have 21-year-old liquor purchase laws. People who advocate for the drinking age like to say that if we applied it more, almost all the problems caused by underage drinking would cease to do so. But that`s not true. Currently, the drinking age makes 7.7 million Americans lawbreakers. The vast majority of them are never caught. Despite harsh penalties for underage drinkers, only 1 in 1,000 cases of underage drinking results in arrest. Even if we arrested ten times as many people as today (which would be extremely difficult and expensive), it still wouldn`t be enough to stop minors from drinking. The law is simply unrealistic, yet people would rather see it systematically flouted than repealed. When asked what the legal drinking age should be in the United States, Heath answers 8 or maybe even 6 years old. The drinking age robs law-abiding citizens of their freedoms because we fear making bad choices with alcohol.

But society considers it the right of anyone over the age of 21 to drink, even if they have actually made (and continue to make) poor choices with alcohol. This contradiction proves once again that drinking age is not really a safety issue. It is a question of imposing on young people the sacrifices that the elderly are too proud and selfish to risk being imposed on them. If seniors really prioritized safety, they would be willing to make their own sacrifices – and not impose them on another group of law-abiding people, as they did with drinking age. John McCardell Jr., tired of battling campus drinking during his tenure as president of Middlebury College, wrote a column in the New York Times attacking the drinking age of 21 as “bad social policy and terrible law.” Many rights in the United States are granted to citizens who are 21 years of age or older. A person cannot legally buy a handgun, gamble at a casino (in most states), or adopt a child until age 21, rent a car at age 25 (for most businesses), or run for president until age 35. Alcohol consumption should be limited in the same way because of responsibility to oneself and others. [24] In the United States, you can do almost anything at 18 except drink and smoke in Michigan, both if you must be 21.

I believe the age should be 18, in this country they will give you a gun to shoot the enemy abroad or domestically, but here in Michigan you can`t drink or smoke until you`re 21. Most children who get their driver`s license at 16, by the time they turn 21, already have at least 1 DUI. As a parent, I always told my children to respect the law, but when it came to drinking, I wasn`t stupid, I told them how to behave responsibly when they drank, they called me at all times to pick them up. Has drunk, call me, come and get yourself. If an 18-year-old can serve a country by serving in the armed service or by voting, why can`t he drink? All age groups should be equal!!!! 76% of bars sold alcohol to obviously drunk diners [43], and about half of drivers arrested for drunk driving or drunk in motor vehicle accidents drank in licensed establishments [44] [45] [46]. Neighborhoods with a higher density of bars, nightclubs and other alcohol outlets are more likely to suffer from assaults and other violent crime. [24] [25] Opponents say it creates a “forbidden fruit” syndrome that leads to excessive alcohol consumption The fear of getting into trouble because of underage drinking also discourages people from seeking medical treatment when it might be necessary. These people are sometimes faced with the difficult decision of whether or not to take a drunk friend to the hospital. If the drinking age were lower, this stigma would be eliminated and it would be more likely that these students would not be at risk of not leaving. Although the legal purchasing age is 21, the majority of students under that age consume alcohol, but irresponsibly.

This is because drinking these young people is considered an alluring “forbidden fruit,” a “badge of rebellion against authority,” and a symbol of “adulthood.” As a nation, we have tried twice in the past to pass prohibition laws to control irresponsible alcohol problems. This was during national prohibition in the 1920s and state prohibition in the 1850s. These laws were eventually repealed because they were unenforceable and because the reaction against them caused other social problems. Today, we repeat history and make the same mistakes as in the past. The ban didn`t work then, and the ban for kids under 21 doesn`t work now. More people would be legally allowed to drink in bars, restaurants and other licensed establishments. The incomes of private entrepreneurs would increase and higher tax revenues would be collected from the government.