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Kaitlin Cox
Tetterton
Engl 1200 Section 008
November 11 2009
When Are People Old Enough To Make Their Own Decisions?
Eighteen-year-olds should be permitted to consume alcoholic beverages as the
National Minimum Drinking Age Act (the “Act”) of 1984 is discriminatory,
unenforceable, failing to meet its objectives, inconsistent with the thinking throughout the
world, and essentially demotes citizenship within adults. It is unenforceable because
underage drinkers are still finding ways to obtain and consume alcohol. Almost all of the
rest of the world seems to think that having the minimum drinking age to be eighteen is
legitimate. This Minimum Drinking Age act also demotes citizenship within adults
because at age eighteen we are supposedly considered an “adult”, yet eighteen year olds
do not have all of the rights of an adult. Curiously the Act did not ban drinking by those
under twenty-one years of age but rather banned purchase and public possession. In fact,
under certain circumstances consumption of alcoholic beverages is presently legal in
forth-three states and about half of all United States territories or possessions (Hanson).
This unfounded prohibition is at best hypocritical. The opposing parties who want to
keep the legal drinking age at twenty-one argue that eighteen year olds are not fully
grown, they will fall back academically, that drunken driving fatalities have decreased
since the Act, and “when teens drink alcohol, they are more likely to binge drink than
people above the age of 21” (ProCon). This statistic is significant to my argument
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because it explains how underage drinkers are inexperienced and do not know their
levels, and tend to binge drink.
The Age of Majority is reached at the age of eighteen for essentially all purposes
with two notable exceptions; drinking and election to certain public offices. Eighteen
year olds in the United States are able to fight and die for our country, vote for our
president, sign legal documents, get married, quit school and serve on juries. If eighteen
year olds are allowed to have all of these responsibilities they should be able to have an
alcoholic beverage. There is a mix of people in the United States who either want the
drinking age lowered to what it used to be, or want to keep it the way it is. Most of the
people who want to keep the drinking age where it is are middle aged who have children,
in which they were able to drink at age eighteen. These people who want the drinking
age to stay the same are mostly organizations against destructive decisions or parents
who have children near the age of eighteen. Eighteen year olds should be able to have
the same rights as their elders or parents did when they were eighteen.
The legal drinking age of twenty-one does not prevent underage drinkers, it just
puts the underage drinkers at a greater risk. These risks involve, binge drinking and
possible drunk driving because they are too scared to ask for a ride from a parent. When
the teens are too scared to ask for a ride they end up driving drunk, which at any age is
extremely dangerous to themselves or others. Even if the drinking age was lowered to
eighteen, there will continue to be underage drinkers. There are plenty of teenagers who
drink that are under the age of eighteen now, so the only difference would be that people
age eighteen or over would be able to do it legally and more safely. If it is safer, why has
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the drinking age not been lowered? If the age is lowered students just entering college
would not freak out when put on campus and in an alcohol related situation. There are
always those stories people hear through the grape vine of how someone went to college
and went crazy with all of their new responsibilities, the main one being drinking.
During my freshman year in college my best friend’s roommate had not had an alcoholic
drink in her life, just a sip of champagne once or twice. While my friend and I did not
know this, we took her out to a frat party. My friend and I did drink while in high school,
and had a pretty good idea of our limits. We were just sipping on a few drinks while
mingling with other people when we noticed her roommate stumbling everywhere. We
quickly realized that we needed to take her home. She said she only had one beer, which
may not sound like a lot but for someone who has never had an alcoholic beverage
before, it is. Drinking is a concept of knowing your own limits. After this incident, she
was able to realize she did not know her limits and had to take things slow. The legal
drinking age in the United States used to be eighteen years old until the National
Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed. This act was passed in 1984 and stated that the
purchase and or public possession of alcoholic beverages by persons under the age of
twenty-one would be illegal (Alcohol Policy Information System). This has proven to be
ineffective in preventing underage drinking (Johnson). It had proven to be ineffective
because we still have underage drinkers and while this may have prevented the purchase
of alcoholic beverages, there are other ways that teenagers can obtain alcohol. Given the
ineffectiveness of the current law why should the drinking age not be lowered back to
eighteen? This ineffective law is equivalent of the Eighteenth Amendment which was
ultimately repealed as it was unenforceable. The Eighteenth Amendment established
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Prohibition in the United States which stated that the manufacture, sale, or transportation
of intoxicating liquors within the United States was prohibited (Cornell).
Organizations that vote against lowering the drinking age are worried about drunk
driving (McKinley). Since underage drinkers most likely live at home, they do not want
to tell their parents that they drink, because they would most likely get in trouble. Since
most underage drinking goes on outside of the house where it is forbidden, these
teenagers must find a way to get back home. If the drinking age is lowered the lines of
communication would be more open with parents and the government, therefore they
would not have to drink in fear or thought of punishment (Johnson). They do not want to
have to tell someone they have been drinking so they go ahead and drive themselves
home. If the drinking age were lowered to eighteen they would be more open with their
parents and the drinking could be done in a safe environment where they would not have
to worry about driving or would be more likely to ask someone else for a ride. If the
child was more open with their parents, the parents would be more understanding of why
the young adult could not make it home and they would be able to tell their parents
exactly where they were at. “Legal Age 21 has not worked. To be sure, drunk driving
fatalities are lower now than they were in 1982. But they are lower in all age groups. And
they have declined just as much in Canada, where the age is 18 or 19, as they have in the
United States” (Chafetz). This quote shows that whereas raising the minimum drinking
age to twenty-one may have caused a decrease in drunken driving fatalities; it may not be
the only reason. Another reason may include more education on alcohol. Additionally
while it is true that reducing the effective drinking age has resulted in fewer traffic
fatalities in the age 18-20 group there has been a concomittent increase in fatalities in the
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age 21-24 group so as to leave the statistics in total largely unchanged having simply
moved the carnage from the younger group to the older one (Hanson).
One of citizenship’s meanings is having civil rights and responsibilities. Eighteen
year olds are considered adults and should have the same rights just as everyone else.
“It’s hard to argue that someone should get tried as an adult for illegally purchasing or
consuming alcohol for being a minor. If full citizenship and responsibility come at 18,
then the government should not impose limitations on those between that age and 21 for
behavior that would be perfectly legal for all other citizens” (Morrissey). Morrissey
agrees with keeping the legal drinking age at twenty-one but makes a valid point by
saying that if eighteen year olds are tried as adults, then they should be able to make adult
decisions such as drinking. He also brings in citizenship to defend his argument by
showing that citizenship should be fully honored by having all the responsibility and
rights that other adults have. Eighteen year olds are able to serve on juries that convict
other citizens of murder (Hanson). “We’re now in the 21st century enjoying widespread
rights and also a time when young people are infinitely more sophisticated” (Hanson).
Hanson explains that promoting citizenship by giving eighteen year olds the right to
possibly sentence someone to multiple years in prison or death ends up demoting
citizenship by not letting them choose the right to drink an alcoholic beverage when they
have all the other rights to be considered an adult.
The United States has one of the highest drinking ages in the world, a title it
shares with only a few other countries (Balko). Some supporters argue that the brain
does not fully develop till the age of twenty-one, or even older. “Researchers compared
the brains of 14- to 21-year-olds who drank alcohol with those who didn’t. Teens who
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drank had smaller hippocampi (the area deep in the brain that handles memory and
learning), and they also had damage to part of the cerebral cortex, the prefrontal cortex”
(Link). While this may be true, how can we prove that? It states that researchers proved
this but what kind of researches, and are they credible? “High school students in much of
the rest of the developed world where lower drinking ages and laxer enforcement reign
do considerably better than United States students on standardized tests” (Balko). These
standardized tests show that having a higher drinking age does not affect the academic
battle of the minimum drinking age, if anything it proves it to help high school students
in school. Students in the United States who have to wait till they are twenty-one try out
drinking around the age of sixteen and get a thrill out of it because it is an illegal act for
another five years, where as if they age was eighteen, it would not be such a big deal.
Since the drinking age is so high, the likelihood of binge drinking for underage
drinkers is higher. A majority of college students under this age consume alcohol but in
an irresponsible manner (Engs). Since most teenagers want to rebel against what they are
told, they are more prone to finding a way to drink, and not only drink, but binge drink.
“Why settle for the six-pack of Bud Light when you can get completely wrecked with a
bottle of 80-proof Smirnoff?” (Johnson). If they find a person over the age of twentyone, they are more likely to ask for a bottle of liquor then a case of beer. This is true
because the main goal for them is to get drunk, and not just drink to drink. Liquor is
known to hit the blood stream faster they are more prone to asking for the liquor. Liquor
can be taken in shots where they could have a few shots in a small amount of time and
not feel anything, so they will want to take more shots to get buzzed. These underage
drinkers could take a lot of shots in a small amount of time and not feeling anything and
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then all of a sudden it will hit them like a ton of bricks. Beer takes longer to get the
feeling because it takes longer to consume which can slow down binge drinking. Most
underage drinkers do not know their limits they tend to binge drinking that leads to
alcohol poisoning that is dangerous and could propose death.
The minimum drinking age of twenty-one has proven to be ineffective. The goal
of reducing deaths from alcohol has merely shifted the fatalities from one youthful group
to another.
If eighteen year olds are considered adults then full rights and
responsibilities should be granted to them. The time has come for the Federal
Government to either roll back the age provided in the Act to eighteen or to repeal the
Act in its entirety and return us to State by State decision making. The Minimum
Drinking Age Act has been unenforceable to a certain extent, failing to meet the original
objectives, is inconsistent with the thinking through the world, and basically demotes
citizenship within adults. Eighteen year olds are considered adults and are allowed to
fight and die for our country, vote for our president, sign legal documents, get married,
and serve on juries, which is essentially all of the responsibilities of an adult except
having an alcoholic beverage.
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Works Cited
Balko, Radley. "Back to 18?." Reason Online 12 Apr 2007 12 Nov 2008
<http://reason.com/news/printer/119618.html>.
Chafetz, Morris E. "The 21-Year-Old Drinking Age: I Voted for It; It Doesn't Work."
Huffington Post (2009): n. pag. Web. 3 Nov 2009.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/morris-e-chafetz/the-21-year-olddrinking_b_262264.html>.
Cornell Law School, . "United States Constitution: Amendment XVIII." Legal
Information Institute 1. Web. 9 Nov 2009.
<https://blackboard.ecu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2F
webapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3
D_178347_1%26url%3D>.
Engs, Ruth C.. "Why the drinking age should be lowered: An opinion based upon
research." Indiana University 10 Mar 1998 11 Nov 2008
<http://www.indiana.edu/~engs/articles/cqoped.html>.
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Family Guide, "Link Between Underage Drinking and Brain Damage." U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services 11 Jun 2004 12 Nov 2008
<http://family.samhsa.gov/set/link.aspx>.
Hanson, David J. "Alcohol-Related Traffic Fatalities: Redistributing Death." Alcohol:
Problems and Solutions (2007): n. pag. Web. 7 Nov 2009.
<http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/DrivingIssues/1059050242.html>.
Hanson, David J. "Minimum Legal Drinking Ages around the World." Alcohol: Problems
and Solutions (2009): n. pag. Web. 7 Nov 2009.
<http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/LegalDrinkingAge.html>.
Hanson, David J. "Responses to Arguments against the Minimum Legal Drinking Age."
Alcohol: Problems and Solutions n. pag. Web. 7 Nov 2009.
<http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/youthissues/1064263072.html>.
Johnson, Daniel. "Vodka in Vermont: Stop Binging and Start Drinking ." New University
Volume 14. Issue 2108 03 2008 11 Nov 2008
<http://www.newuniversity.org/main/article?slug=vodka_in_vermont%3A_stop>.
McKinley, Kenneth. "More Organizations Out To Battle Underage Drinking." Ezine
@rticles 07 08 2006 11 Nov 2008
<http://ezinearticles.com/?More-Organizations-Out-To-Battle-UnderageDrinking&id=263142>.
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Morrissey, Ed. "Should Minnesota Lower the Drinking Age to 18?." True North (2009):
n. pag. Web. 7 Nov 2009.
<http://looktruenorth.com/limited-government/legislation/7032-shouldminnesota-lower-the-drinking-age-to-18.html>.
"Should the drinking age be lowered from 21 to a younger age?." ProCon.org (2009): n.
pag. Web. 1 Nov 2009.
<http://drinkingage.procon.org/>.
"The 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act." Alcohol Policy Information System.
Nation Institute of Heath:US Government, Web. 1 Nov 2009.
<http://www.alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/index.asp?SEC=%7B9937ACFCDB3A-4159-B068-A302CEEE0EDF%>.