Ethan Morales

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Ethan Morales Mr. Phillips English 3 28 February 2019 Should the drinking age be lowered In the United States, the legal age of drinking and purchasing alcohol is 21 years old, compared to the world average of 18 years old, and here are some reasons that should change. The legal age of drinking was moved from 18 to 21 in 1984 because of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act (how original) stating that all states are required to change the drinking age. The reason I chose 18 as the optimal age is because most european countries have their age limit set to 18, and in some cases 16, and the decreased amount of alcoholism, along with the average age of a college student being 19, makes the prospect of drinking at 18 seem the most responsible act. Would you send a soldier into war without showing him how to shoot a weapon? Likewise why would you send your child to college without having exposed him/her to the things they will experience and have access too, such as alcohol. An example of the benefits of lowering the drinking age in the U.S. is that countries that have less alcoholism are those that have drinking ages lower than those of countries, such as the U.S., that have higher drinking ages. In European countries teenagers drink at ages of 18, and 16 giving them less need or drive to get alcohol at a younger age and to get it illegally. Yet another reason to drop the age of drinking is that when teenagers want to drink then if they are legally allowed to then they are more

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likely to drink it in considerable portions, compared to the mentality that if it's illegal then they have to drink as much as they can while it’s available. Another reason is that the average age of a college student is 19, this means that a citizen cannot legally drink at the average age of being able to live and be on their own. The last point that I will make is that the respect for alcohol is less in those countries in which the age of legal consumption is higher because parents don't institute the introduction of alcohol into the home. Some opposition to the drop of the legal age of drinking is the idea that the brain is not fully developed until the age of 25. In a response to this idea the answer is that it is better for the said person to have small amounts of alcohol overtime compared to the quick intoxication of a person who isn't able to get the substance. Yet another opposition to this argument is the biased thought that alcohol is dangerous in the hands of teens. The reason we have that belief in america is because we are biased to the idea that teens, when they drink get drunk and heavily intoxicated. The reason they do so is because they don't have ability to freely drink when they want but they have to do so in secrecy. In conclusion the best solution to this epidemic of teen alcoholism, and to gain a greater respect for the substance, is to change the legal age of drinking. My proposition is to drop the age of legal consumption of alcohol is 18 because that is the legal age of an adult in the american society.