Every weekend there are young adults ages eighteen to twenty engaging in underage drinking at parties. Alcohol plays a huge role in today’s’ society. More people drink today than ever before. It is clear that alcohol has had a good impact on people’s lives, but it is more clear that it has had an negative impact on people’s lives. Alcoholic beverages include good things such as happiness for celebrations. Downfalls of alcohol include DUIs, addictions, and death. Young adults break the law on a regular basis by consuming alcoholic beverages. This problem affects the young adults committing the crime, their parents, and the law.
Underage drinking results in citation tickets, license suspension, community service, and awareness classes. If this problem is not solved, the number of underages will continue to rise dramatically and police officers will continue having to deal with underage drinkers. Parents will have to continue worrying about if their child is taking part in drinking at parties while attending college. About 1,900 college students die per year from the use of alcohol at parties (“National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism”). This is due to the lack of communication on alcohol use between parents and their children.
Nationally, about 80% of college students consume alcohol. Becoming a legal adult when turning eighteen comes with a lot of freedom such as voting, get tattoos/piercings, buy lottery tickets, lease a car or apartment, and even vote. Eighteen year olds are granted a lot of freedom except purchase or consume alcohol. Adopting A New Law Whether or not the minimum legal drinking age should be decreased from twenty-one to eighteen has been up for debate for quite a while now. Decreasing the minimum legal drinking age being lowered from twenty-one to eighteen would really decrease the number of underage occurrences.
This law has been adopted by many countries around the world and even some states in the United States (ProCon). States in the United States such as Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have adopted a law that with parental presence and consent, underage consumption is permitted when on a private premises such as a home.
States Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and South Carolina allow the same except that consent from a parent as well as their presence is not required (“ProCon”). Countries such as Austria, Belgium, Congo, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominica, Germany, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Morocco, Netherlands, Portugal, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Spain, and Switzerland are a few of the countries that permit sixteen-year-olds to consume alcoholic beverages.
Countries such as Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lesotho, Liberia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Vatican City, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe permit drinking at the ages fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen (“ProCon”).
Many of these countries that allow this before the age of twenty-one drinking to take place have prepared the children living there to be responsible when it comes to what, when, where, and how much they drink; something that most Americans don’t enforce on their children because they rather believe that their children don’t drink.
Because it is illegal for young adults to drink before they are twenty-one, they drink in places hoping not to get caught such as dorm rooms, friend’s houses that don’t have parents there, and other places like this where they feel they are safe from the police. This is the problem. Young adults hiding from cops and their parents who wouldn’t condone this behavior, means that they are drinking dangerously and because there is no older adult there to tell them when enough alcohol is enough and because they haven’t been educated on alcohol before, they consume way too much risking getting hurt, raped, or even worst, dying. In the countries that accept young adults to drink before twenty-one, young adults have a different perspective of the use of alcohol than young adults from the United States have.
College students here in the US take shot after shot repeatedly to get drunk with their friends and see who can drink the most. Young adults in other countries are well aware of how much is enough and how to pace the amount of drinks they consume (“Foundation For Advancing Alcohol Responsibility”). How To Fix The Problem More than 44,000 underage drinkers are caught by police. Police officers bust college parties every weekend to stop underage drinkers. Many older adults believe that underage drinking is the young adult’s fault, but honestly it is the parents fault. How a child acts is a reflection of their parents. Parents are suppose to teach their children right from wrong.
Most parents don’t educate their children on the use of alcohol, the just assume their children knows not to do it and won’t do it. They rather deny the fact that their child is doing more than hanging with a group of friends where alcohol is involved. Even after their children are caught at parties red-handed, some parents will continue to deny the fact that their child drinks. Parents need to realize that their children are going to drink before they should and do everything they can to prepare them with safe drinking tips. About 10 million fake identification cards are confiscated per year. Most young adults have an older friend, sibling, and sometimes even a parent that will purchase alcohol for them.
If they don’t, they ask a complete stranger near the store they are trying to purchase the alcohol from. Some young adults go as far as purchasing fake identification cards so that they can purchase their own alcohol without relying on someone else to do it for them. Some young adults purchase fake identification cards to get in bars and clubs. This could easily be prevented if the drinking age is lowered from twenty-one to eighteen. Penalties for getting caught with a fake identification card includes a suspended license and fines ranging from $500 to $1,000 (sometimes even higher) (“ProCon”). Young adults feel as though they don’t have enough freedom. They vote, drive, and do pretty much anything else except legally drink, so they rebell.
They think underage drinking is fun because they’re doing something they shouldn’t be doing and they won’t get caught (at least that’s what they think). A little more freedom by lowering the drinking age won’t hurt anyone. It’ll be giving young adults the freedom they strive for. They should be allowed to make the decision of if they want to drink or not when they are eighteen since that is when they legally are considered an adult. The Results Of Fixing The Problem Lowering the drinking age will cause a massive decrease in the amount of underages given out. Police officers won’t have to worry about busting college parties for this reason and more so because they are too loud or something simple along those lines.
Young adults are not going to stop drinking, it’s a fun activity to them, no matter how serious the consequences can be. There are more dangerous crimes happening in the world that police officers should be more concerned attending to rather than driving around campuses all night to bust young adults for consuming alcohol. Lowering the drinking age will also cause a huge decrease in fake identification card purchases. Just another thing young adults feel like they have to do to get the privilege they want but the government feels as though they are not ready to have. Today the number of fake identification cards purchased are through the roof.
Years ago, the number of fake identification cards purchased was high, but nowhere near as high as they are today. “A study in 2009 of American university students found that 17% of freshmen and 32% of seniors owned a false ID”, (“The Economist”). Young adults will have the freedom they are dying to have. They won’t get the excitement of knowing they broke the law because it’s not illegal anymore. They’ll be more mature and educated when drinking alcohol like the young adults in other countries. Most states in the United States have adopted a law where young adults can drink at eighteen under supervision and it seems to have been working out, so it’s about time the law take the training wheels off and let young adults go.
Young adults are more than capable of handling the consequences that come with drinking. The Problem With This Solution and The Solution to the Problem Drunk driving is a major problem today. The government feels as though young adults will get carried away with the new law and drink too much. Drunk drivers. Practicing safe drinking should be enforced within high school classrooms to prepare young adults on what they are getting themselves into. Other countries who have adopted the law and even parents who know their children participate in underage drinking, talk to their children about the dangers of underage drinking and teach them how to be safe about it.
Drunk drivers exist now and they always will. Nowadays there are services such as uber and lyft that help people get to their destination of their choice, so young adults can use those services. Drunk drivers will always be around no matter what the government does so the best thing they can do is continue educating people on the dangers of drinking and driving and hope that they make the right decision by not drinking and driving. About 10. 8 Million young adults, ages eighteen to twenty drink illegally. Once a person turns eighteen they are legally considered an adult and should be able to make their own decisions with the exception of if they want to drink alcohol or not.
Young adults don’t quite understand how alcohol can affect the body. Every high school in the United States should be required to teach students the effects and dangers of alcohol on the human body in health class. If they are never taught, they will never know. Parents can’t just assume that their child knows these things because nine times out of ten, they don’t. This will reduce the number of college student deaths and alcohol poisoning incidents. Lowering the drinking age can bring parents and their children closer together as young adults feel the need to explore everything when they become legal. Lowering the drinking age is the answer to reducing underages.
