Underage drinking: Denied privilage or bad idea?
Ironically I did a health report about drinking in a more moderate sense because of the health risk we expose our bodies to when we do so. Today I’m writing a positive view on why the drinking age should be lowered, we know the health risks caused by heavy drinking, so now lets try to be even more responsible, and prove that an 18-year-old can actually handle his or her alcohol in a mature responsible way, like any 21-year-old adult does.
18-year-olds can do everything else an adult can do like go to war, sign contracts, marry, vote and can be sentenced to death. So why not drink?
The government decided it would withhold highway money from states that didn’t have a 21-year-old age limit and passed the Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.
Although the legal purchase age is 21 years of age, a majority of college students even high school students under this age consume alcohol but in an irresponsible manner, only because alcohol seems like a “forbidden fruit,” perhaps a badge of rebellion against authority and a symbol of “adulthood.” Lowering the drinking age to 18 would reduce the abuse of alcohol among young people.
According to Prof . David J. Hanson, Ph.D. The U.S. has the strictest youth drinking laws in western civilization and yet has the most drinking-related problems among its young. And there seems to be a connection between these two facts. You see the weekend coming along and they just want to prove their manhood, or womanhood, alcohol abuse had received new energy as a result of Prohibition.
Take a look at the young people in France, Spain, Argentina and Brazil, they rarely abuse alcohol. They learn how to drink within the family, which sees drinking in moderation as natural and normal.
Youth in these societies rarely embarrass themselves or their families by abusing alcohol, they don’t tolerate irresponsible behavior, and since a young age they are thought how to handle alcohol in a responsible manner.
In Portugal and New Zealand there are no minimum drinking age requirements.
In Belgium, most of Canada, Italy, and Spain, young people of 16 years may consume in restaurants when with parents or another adult. Australia and South Africa have an 18-year minimum.
In reality if we just need to educate our society with the importance of responsibility, we could very well handle 18 year olds drinking legally.
There wouldn’t be so much pressure among them, to prove something, but be social, and have a good time.
By any means am I suggesting that you need to drink to have a good time, or in anyway recruiting people to drink, or support my opinion; I simply intend to be fair. If you can go fight die for your country, why not have a beer or two.