In our society, alcohol is a recreational activity. People drink alcohol in bars, sporting events,
social gatherings, or in the comfort of their homes. According to the law, no one under the age of
21 can buy or drink alcohol. Although this is what our laws say, people do not follow this.
According to the Students Against Drunk Driving website, about 72% of teenagers have had
alcohol by the end of high school. Within a month, 26.4% of teenagers use alcohol and 17.4 %
of teenagers involve in binge drinking. In the 1970’s, 29 states lowered the minimum drinking
age to 18.At this time, there was an increase in drunk driving accidents. Teenagers were given
the responsibility of drinking but not shown how to handle that responsibility. With pressure from
American citizens, the United States government enacted the National Minimum Drinking Age Act
in 1984. This act raised the minimum drinking age to 21, forcing the states to raise the drinking
age. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act is not a good way to battle underage drinking
because it fails to be effectively enforced and urges teenagers to rebel against the law.
During the Vietnam War, between 1955 and 1975, many states lowered the legal drinking age to
eighteen under the thoughts that if someone can fight and die for their country at eighteen, they
should be able to drink alcohol. The law was eventually changed and there were two factors that
forced this change. One of the factors is that during the time the drinking age was lowered, there
was an increase in drunk driving accidents. The other factor was that the Vietnam War
generation was growing older. Since the generation was growing older, they no longer believed
that the younger generation deserved the right to drink alcohol. Therefore, in 1984, The National
Minimum Drinking Age Act came into effect. This act stated that the states had to raise their legal
drinking age within two years. If the states refused to change the drinking age within that two
year time period, the states would not be given a portion of their federal-aid highway funds.
(Koroknay-Palicz 1)
Although this act was put together to battle drunk driving, this act only affects people under the
age of 21 because it outlaws drinking under the age of 21. According to a website on teenage
drunk driving statistics, 40% of alcohol-related fatal car crashes involve teenagers. The other
60% of alcohol related car crashes involve adults. This act does not battle this percent of alcohol
related car crashes. Furthermore, Ruth Engs, a professor of Applied Health Sciences at Indiana
University stated in the CQ Researcher that since the 1980’s, there has been a decrease in drunk
driving accidents. This decrease started around 1980, before the National Minimum Drinking Age
Act was first enforced. Thus, raising the drinking age was not the main factor that changed the
rates of drunk driving accidents that some people think. There were other factors involved.
According to Engs, some of these factors were the increase in education on drunk driving,
designated driver programs, lower speed limits, increased use of safety belts and air bags, and
safer automobiles. This combination of factors made the amount of drunk driving accidents
decrease before the enforcement of the Minimum Drinking Age Act.
There are three issues with this act. The first is that this act is not strongly enforced. When a
teen gets caught drinking alcohol they are supposed to lose their license for three months and
receive a fine of fifty dollars. If a teenager gets caught drinking and driving they are supposed to
lose their license for three months and receive a fine of two hundred dollars. However, many
people say, depending on the officer, the teenager may not even receive a fine or lose their
license. Police officers often just pour their alcohol down a drain. Furthermore, most teenagers
today have a job. If they do not have a job, they can get money from their parents. If they have
to pay the consequences for underage drinking, losing a couple hundred dollars is not going to
make a big difference in their minds. These laws are not effectively enforced. No one is going to
pay attention to a law that is not enforced. This is one of the downfalls of the Minimum Drinking
Age Act. This is why teenagers are still drinking and that we must change the law.
The last issue with this act is that everyone, not just teenagers, like doing things they are told
not to do. Jack W. Brehm, a former faculty member of the psychology department at the
University of Kansas, coined the term psychological reactance to describe the typical reaction that
people have to a threat on their independence. This has happened when Britain continually
forced rules and regulation onto the colonies in America, which lead to the American Revolution.
This happened with prohibition when the government stopped the selling of alcohol in the United
States. This eventually led to the citizens of the United States selling and consuming alcohol
secretly in speakeasies and eventually the repeal of the eighteenth amendment. In each of these
examples, people were having their rights taken away. Psychological reactance is present when
people feel that their rights are being taken away. And this is now happening with the National
Minimum Drinking Age Act. Psychological reactance is a human reaction. Everyone does this.
When the government tells a citizen what they can and cannot do, citizens do the opposite. No
one likes to be told what to do, let alone teenagers. You cannot expect to put a law down that
states that no one under the age of twenty-one can drink alcohol and have no one under that
age to drink. This just makes people want to do it. It is human nature to break the rules. This
idea of psychological reactance can be seen through underage drinking because in America,
drinking is seen as a right. When we feel that our rights are being taken away from us, we react.
And that is psychological reactance. Psychological reactance cannot be compared to committing
murder or theft because committing murder or theft, in our society, is not a right. It is a crime.
Psychological reactance can only be applied to the reaction we have when we feel our rights are
being taken away, like drinking.
In one of the many ways that teenagers are reacting is with binge drinking. According to Ruth
Enge, when teenagers receive access to alcohol, they are more likely to be involved in heavy, or
“binge,” drinking. This is now how teenagers react to the Minimum Drinking Age Act. They feel as
if their right to drink alcohol is being taken away and restricted. Due to this restriction, teenagers
have limited access to alcohol and therefore interact in binge drinking. In participating in the act
of binge drinking, teenagers feel as if they are taking their right back. They drink abusively and
this started after the age act came into effect. She stated that 22% of all students under twentyone are heavy drinkers, while 18% of people over twenty-one are heavy drinkers. She also states
that 32% of all drinkers are under age heavy drinkers, while 24% of drinkers are over twentyone and heavy drinkers. This shows that teenagers, who are under twenty-one and outlawed to
drink alcohol, are involved in binge drinking when they have access to alcohol.
The National Minimum Drinking Age Act is not the best way to battle the issue of underage
drinking. This law was in response to drunk driving accidents but it only effected citizens under
the age of twenty-one. This law does not address the amount of people over the age of twentyone who drive drunk. The government is taking the right to drink alcohol away from only a part
of the citizens that are the problem. With some provisions, lowering the drinking age is the best
response to underage drinking. It is the best response because it would stop drinking from being
taboo.
In the United States, reaching the age of eighteen means that the person is an adult. Being an
adult means having the right to vote, smoke cigarettes, serve on juries, get married, get tried for
a crime as an adult, and fight overseas. Alcohol is a right adults have but only adults over the
age of twenty-one. Today, we are at war. Eighteen year olds are going overseas to fight and die
for our country. If someone is able to die for our country, they should be legally allowed to drink
in our country. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act must be changed and lowered to
eighteen years of age. Eighteen year olds should be legally allowed to drink alcohol under certain
conditions.
The issues that came with the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was that it made drinking
under the age of twenty-one taboo. As stated above, people have an internal instinct to break
the rules that they feel are impinging on personal freedoms. By lowering the drinking age,
teenagers would not have to secretly consume alcohol. If teenagers above the age of eighteen
were allowed to drink, they could get help when they are too drunk to drive without getting in
trouble with the police. As stated earlier, teenagers tend to binge drink once they get access to
alcohol. They consume more than 5 drinks in one sitting. They would no longer need to binge
drink when they obtain access to alcohol. They could just have one or two drinks every once in a
while. They no longer need to hide their consumption of alcohol. They would be able to drink
under better circumstances and in controlled environments if the legal drinking age is lowered to
eighteen.
To the people who believe that raising the drinking age will cause an increase in drunk driving
accidents, age does not affect the stupidity of anyone who drinks under the influence of alcohol.
Stupid people will drink and drive whether they are eighteen or thirty-five. Age does not make a
difference. That is why we should not keep the right to legally drink away from teenagers
between the age of eighteen and twenty-one.
Lowering the drinking age act alone will not be the best idea. There must be a few provisions to
go alongside this. With the responsibility of drinking alcohol, comes the knowledge of how to
handle that responsibility. If we were to lower the drinking age, teenagers must be able to learn
how to handle the responsibility of drinking, either from school or their parents. While watching
TV and learning in school, the only type of education relating to drinking is “Just Say No.” People
are going to drink. They are not going to say no. According to an called, “Effective Alcohol
Education: What Works with Underage Youths, instead of teaching teenagers to say no to alcohol
when adults know they are going to drink, we must teach them how to drink responsibly. We
must teach them how to handle alcohol, how much is too much, and what to do when they have
drunk too much.
In our society today, underage drinking is a problem. One of the largest issues with underage
drinking is binge drinking. Teenagers binge drink because drinking under the age of twenty-one
is illegal. According to the term psychological reactance, we react when we feel one of our rights
is in danger. Binge drinking is how teenagers react to the Minimum Drinking Age Act. To stop
underage binge drinking, we must lower the drinking age to eighteen. Although with the lowering
of the drinking age, there must also be a restriction. This restriction is the education of how to
handle alcohol. We must lower the drinking age and educating teenagers on how to handle
alcohol responsibly.