The Need to Lower the Drinking Age to 18
The passage of restrictive legislation restricting alcohol consumption to those aged 21 and up has ignited heated debate among Americans. Though the stated laws were intended to minimize the high and growing number of death cases and other health-related problems linked to irresponsible drinking, health professionals argue that this target has yet to be met. Scholars in the United States have argued that lowering the drinking age was not an effective move, and that lawmakers would have used more realistic measures to address the issue. Prevalently, the Americans with the age of 18 and above have been allowed to marry, buy guns, vote and join the military; it is, therefore, ironical to block the same age from drinking alcohol. Reasonably, by allowing the college students with the age of 21 years to engage in drinking while barring those between the age of 18 and 20 is discriminative. The restrictive law of 1852 and 1920 both failed to bear any meaning fruit; it is, therefore, needless for America to continue using such unproductive laws. The paper endeavors to provide an in-depth argument as to why the drinking age should be lowered to 18 years.
Discussion
As mentioned in the introduction, the reason for increasing the age of drinking to 21 years in America was baseless and unfounded. Ostensibly, the age difference between 18 and 21 is meager, and a 3-year increase in the drinking age cannot bring any reasonable changes. Prevalently, an explicit analysis of the Constitution of the United States of America revealed that this document has valued and paid quite a lot of attention to the population that is at the age of 18. To begin with, it permits the youngster with the mentioned to engage in the election process (Glaser n.p). Owing to this, they are mature enough to decide and choose the leaders that would govern them. Additionally, the constitution further allows them to engage in the marital affairs at this age. This means that the constitution expects that at the age of 18, someone should be wise enough to have a family and make prudent decisions while managing the family. On a similar note, the above document has allowed the said group of people to buy the guns. This permission is critical in the sense that for someone to be granted a right of possessing, they must be mature enough and be able to wisely use the gun (Glaser n.p). Above all, it also allowed them to join the military with the expectation that they have reached an appropriate age to defend their country. In this respect, it is, therefore, hypocritical if the same constitution bans people with the same age not to engage in drinking. According to Glaser, "American 18-year-olds have the right to vote, marry, buy guns and join the military. They're astute enough to defend their country, decide elected officials and serve on a jury -- but not regulate their own appetites? They deserve the chance to learn" (n.p).
The California state has established a professional code that bans those who are underage not to indulge in the consumption of the alcohol. Basing on the code mentioned above, the youngster in this state cannot engage in drinking. Conversely, it promotes the drinking of alcohol to those who are 21 years and above. The worst thing worth pointing out is that the state of Illinois has gone as far as establishing the punitive measures both to the underage and the businesspersons who allow the underage to involve in drinking (Lippman 284). For instance, an eighteen-year-old American citizen who engages in drinking would be jailed for one year and be fined $500. Such measures are unfair, unjust and unfounded, by punishing a certain group of people for drinking and promoting almost a similar age group to drink a complete indication of discrimination. Reasonably, the age gap between18 years and 21 years is insignificant. It is imperative to note that people with the mentioned ages are both college students, it is therefore not fair to ban a particular group of students from consuming alcohol while at the same time permitting another group of the undergraduates to engage in the drinking (Lippman 284). If the law were to show a sense of impartiality, it would have banned all students from consuming alcohol. Owing to this discriminatory nature of this law, it stands to be criticized and needs to be amended to expunge its segregation feature. Lippman noted, "The university presidents contended that establishing the drinking age for 21 years discriminated against younger students, and that law was regularly disregarded" (284). In this respect, it is clear that even the university leaders hold a negative opinion towards blocking some students to drink while permitting others to engage in the consumption of alcohol.
Challenges with Irresponsible Drinking
Despite the enactment of the drinking age to 21 years, Americans as a nation have continued to experience numerous challenges that relate to irresponsible drinking. A larger percentage of youths from the discussed country are continuing to be affected regarding health and behavior. This means that the laws that have been established to regulate the drinking age have completely failed to fulfill its purpose. Obnoxiously, in spite of the mentioned law, the underage have continued to access and consume alcohol. Hanson and Annette posed a question, "... do you think we should try to change the current drinking laws, in light that the current laws continue to be violated by youths under 21 years of age?" (244). Most of these college students have friends and colleagues who invariably buy them drinks. In this regards, initiating the age of drinking to be 21 years is not an antidote to promoting youths to drink with decorum. It is also important to point out that Americans are not better than other nations that have lowered the drinking age to 18 years. Hanson and Annette noted, "At present, 82 countries allow alcohol consumption at 18 years of age and older" (244). In this respect, America should join these countries and find better solutions or strategies of promoting responsive drinking other than the use of age to ban the under-age population. The strategies such as initiating models that teach the moderate drinking would be one of the effective ways of solving the irresponsive drinking among the youths (Friese et al. 379). With this strategy, both the teachers and the parents would be charged with the mandate of sensitizing the youths on how to drink responsibly and also monitor them. Consequently, the youths would learn better ways of drinking, thereby mitigating the challenges that arise as a result of irresponsive drinking.
Ineffective Legislation
In an effort to stop a huge number of death cases caused by careless driving as a result of excessive drinking among youths, American has gone as far as initiation two prohibition legislations. A point to note is that the first one was established in the 1850s while another was made in 1920s. However, the youths have continued to drink in an irresponsible manner even after accepting such amendments. The above evidence is a clear indication that it is not worthwhile for America legislators to continue using this law to regulate consumption of alcohol. From this analysis, it is explicit that legislation has less impact on controlling the age of drinking. The health sectors have continued to receive patients suffering from the ailments caused by over-drinking. Ostensibly, the amendment on drinking of 1984 did not bear any meaningful fruit (Blocker 234). Similarly, a further amendment to the Constitution in the year 1920 that prohibits both the sale and the consumption of the alcohol to the underage has so far not generated any significant impact. This is a clear indication that it is needless for American legislators to waste time in initiating the laws that would fail to meet its objectives. Notably, after the enactment of the prohibition laws on the under-age drinking, the rate of drinking in the US has enormously increased. According to Blocker, "Between 1990 and 1913, America began to drink more and more, beer production jumped from 1.2 billion to 2 billion gallons and the volume of tax-paid spirits grew from 97 million to 147 million gallons" (234). From this analysis, it is explicit that legislation has less impact on controlling the age of drinking. In this respect, America should repeal the law that bans the age between 18 and 20 from drinking because such legislations have remained to be ineffective and impracticable.
Conclusion
From the discussion, it is clear that there is an urgent and critical need for the American nation to reduce the age of drinking to 18 years. Most of the youths with this age are mature and wise enough to make critical decisions and banning them from consuming alcohol is unrealistic. Moreover, it is unfair, unjust and discriminative to allow college students with 21 years to drink while banning those with 18 to 20 years from consuming alcohol. Furthermore, instead of America to use the age as a mechanism of initiating responsible drinking, it should focus on effective strategies such as the use of moderation techniques. Above all, the legislation has failed to achieve its objective and is, therefore, needless for the nation to continue practicing it.
Works Cited
- Blocker Jr, Jack S. "Did prohibition really work? Alcohol prohibition as a public health innovation." American journal of public health 96.2 (2006): 233-243.
- Friese, Bettina, et al. "Parents' rules about underage drinking: A qualitative study of why parents let teens drink." Journal of drug education 42.4 (2012): 379-391.
- Glaser, Gabrielle. "Return the Drinking Age to 18, and Enforce It." The New York Times, [New York City], 10 Feb. 2015.
- Hanson, Glen, Peter Venturelli, and Annette Fleckenstein. Drugs and society. Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2011.
- Lippman, Matthew R. Essential Criminal Law. 2017.
