12.5 million teens admitted to drinking underage in 2005, and numbers have only continued to grow ever since. For something that is clearly a crime and a supposed danger, why are so many kids breaking the law?
People argue that the government holds our youths’ reigns too tightly. Mikayla Marchuk, senior at Prairie Ridge High School, stated that “Laws now do not stop underage drinking, but it is hard to decide what measures to take since the amount of teens who drink is so high.”
Many people have the same viewpoint as Mikayla, and it is easy to assume that the government will not make any changes since the outcomes could become much more debilitating to our youth.
Lauren Palsgrove, another senior of PR, wondered why we could not have laws like Switzerland. Both Switzerland and Germany’s drinking ages are set at sixteen years old, and both have far less crimes involving intoxication. Although the crime rates are lower, the punishments are much harsher for DUI’s, public intoxication, and such.
Another senior, Brent Eggers, puts his faith in the responsibility of humanity and believes America should not have an age limit, but rather that people should be held accountable for themselves.
While many people would like to see a change in the law, others are extremely content with the laws in place now. Senior Tyler Kriete believes that our laws now are just fine, and why change something that has worked in some form, since nobody knows measures that will guarantee positive results.
One of the main problems we would have from lowering the drinking age would come from the trickle-down effect. If high schoolers had access to buying alcohol at either eighteen or sixteen years old, underclassmen would be able to get alcohol from all of their older friends, and then the law would be broken far more easily.
Jeanine Stantesly, Anatomy and Physiology teacher, believes that the drinking law should be kept at twenty-one for the sake of the brain’s health, since it is not fully developed until about twenty-five years of age. Although she holds a firm belief on the drinking age, she ponders if it is fair that you can serve and die for your country in war at the age of eighteen, but you cannot drink a beer.
David Eby, a profound medical researcher found that “Lowering MLDA 21 to 18 will irresponsibly allow a greater segment of the population to drink alcohol in bars and nightclubs, which are not safe environments. 76% of bars have sold alcohol to obviously intoxicated patrons, and about half of drivers arrested for driving while intoxicated (DWI) or killed as alcohol-involved drivers in traffic crashes did their drinking at licensed establishments.”
The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 made the United States the single country with the highest drinking age in the entire world. The Mothers Against Drunk Driving provided the most persuasion for the push to keep our children safer. What they call “children” includes eighteen year olds, although technically all individuals gain their freedoms and individual control and rights at this age, where they can claim themselves as independents. Many argue that since eighteen year olds are adults and fully capable of responsibility of themselves, they should have the choice whether to drink or not. They can comprehend what is right and what is wrong at eighteen. Others at the other end of the spectrum boldly claim that it doesn’t matter if they are technically adults. They should not be able to drink due to the fact that their brains do not have proper capacity to make logical decisions about their safety and health, over what their wants are.
Of course the entire public was not all pleased with this act and law when it was made, so groups such as Choose Responsibility and the Amethyst Initiative fought this act due to their opinions that youth would have access to “publicly moderated drinking environments” and consequently would be less likely to “model their behavior after the excessive consumption typical of private student parties” if the MDLA kept the law at eighteen, or none at all. The main retaliation the federal court had was that the right to drink is not protected through the constitution.
Everyone has their own opinions on this issue and whether humanity should have faith in a change at all. When it all boils down, people are mostly passive about the issue, and just sitting around will not make anything change.