Lindsay Dillenburg
9/26/2011
Underage Drinking in America
Underage drinking is the use of alcohol by people under the legal drinking age of 21.
This is a major public health issue in America. Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused
drug among youth in the United States, more than tobacco and illicit drugs. Although drinking
under the age of 21 is illegal, people aged 12 to 20 years drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in
the United States. (1) The risks of underage drinking include: school problems, such as higher
absence and poor or failing grades; social problems, such as fighting and lack of participation in
youth activities; legal problems, such as arrest for driving or physically hurting someone while
drunk; physical problems, such as hangovers or illnesses; unwanted, unplanned, and unprotected
sexual activity. (2) That being said, the United States is one of only four other countries with a
legal drinking age as high as 21, the average drinking age being 18.(1) It has been suggested that a
possible solution to underage drinking is simply lowering the legal drinking age. I will
investigate how lowering the legal drinking age to 18 could impact American society.
Those who support the lowering of the legal drinking age argue that if at age 18 you
receive full rights and privileges of American citizenship it ought to be the legal drinking age as
well. Many argue that if adults 18 or older can serve in the military then they should be old
enough to buy a drink. (3) They also argue that having a minimal legal drinking age (MLDA) has
not stopped teen drinking, but has instead pushed underage binge drinking into private and less
controlled environments, leading to more health and life-endangering behavior by teens.
Opponents of lowering the legal drinking age argue that teens have not yet reached an age where
they can handle alcohol responsibly, and thus are more likely to harm or even kill themselves
and others by drinking prior to 21.They also argue that traffic fatalities decreased when the
MLDA increased. (3)
To gather data relative to this question, qualitative and quantitative research approaches
would be conducted using a random stratified sample of the population, meaning that each
subpopulation is sampled independently. This method has several advantages over a random
simple sample where subjects are chosen from the entire population completely at random.
Lindsay Dillenburg
9/26/2011
A stratified sample can provide greater precision than a simple random sample of the same size.
Because of this, a stratified sample often requires a smaller sample, which saves money. A
stratified sample can also guard against an "unrepresentative" sample (e.g., an all-male sample
from a mixed-gender population). It ensures generalizability of the data because sufficient
sample points can be obtained to support a separate analysis of any subgroup. (4)
Interviews and case studies could be used to obtain qualitative data. By interviewing
parents of underage drinkers, for example, an accurate opinion of the issue from that particular
perspective could be gained, and by conducting case studies of families who allow or participate
in underage drinking, an accurate look at the advantages or consequences of underage drinking
could be gathered. This, however, raises a question of ethics. Many people would frown upon the
study of actual participants of underage drinking because they would be breaking the law by
doing so and possibly causing harm to themselves. So gathering qualitative research would be
fairly accurate but would be costly, illegal and possibly unethical.
Quantitative research, on the other hand, would be the most inexpensive way to gather
data (through surveys and studies of existing data and statistics) but you would be sacrificing the
reliability of the data gathered in exchange for the cost difference. However, if the survey was
carefully written and conducted it could yield substantially better data than other methods.
Accurate data could also be gathered through secondary analysis of existing databases and
statistics. Because there is already a vast compilation of information available on this issue, it
would be a very inexpensive research method. For these reasons I believe that quantitative
research would be the most effective in trying to answer the question of how lowering the legal
drinking age would impact society.
To conclude, underage drinking has and will continue to be an issue in America unless
something is done to change the current behavior. Lowering the legal drinking age may or may
not be a solution but in order to find out, research will need to be done. Qualitative research
could yield very reliable and valid data but has too many constraints to be truly effective.
Quantitative research would be the most cost effective, ethical, and generalizable method of
researching this subject and for these reasons I believe it would be the better of the two options
for researching this particular issue.
Lindsay Dillenburg
9/26/2011
Works Cited
1. Hanson, David J. "Minimum Legal Drinking Ages around the World." WWW2 Webserver.
1997. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. <http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/LegalDrinkingAge.html>.
2. "CDC - Fact Sheets-Underage Drinking - Alcohol." Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 10 July 2010. Web. 26 Sept. 2011.
<http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm>.
3. "Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered from 21 to a Younger Age?" Drinking Age
ProCon.org. ProCon.org, 15 July 2011. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. <http://drinkingage.procon.org/>.
4. "Statistics Tutorial: Stratified Random Sampling." Stat Trek: Teach Yourself Statistics. Stat
Trek, 2011. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. <http://stattrek.com/lesson6/str.aspx>.
Lindsay Dillenburg
9/26/2011