I Dont Know Essay

Submitted By jonthomas31
Words: 508
Pages: 3

Jon Thomas
As of now the legal drinking age is twenty-one but there has been an argument to lower it to eighteen. One argument, experts say that fewer young people drink but when they do it tends to be in abundance. Prohibiting drinking is leading to alcohol being in the wrong places like fraternity houses. Places like these are promoting excessive consumption, which puts kids in danger of getting alcohol poisoning. Research says that the reduction in teenage alcohol-related fatalities that some point to as a reason for keeping the drinking age at twenty-one is in fact a result of nothing more than those fatalities being shifted to an older age group, people ages twenty-one, twenty-two or twenty-three. Another argument is issuing drinking permits to eighteen and over individuals. The specifics about what would be allowed under the permits would be determined by lawmakers and may change as time goes on, just as we've done with driver's permits. But for example, the person could drink with permission of the parent or in the parent's home, or only in restaurants or bars. Then, if they didn't get into trouble, certain of these restrictions would be dropped. They would have to complete a very specified alcohol education course and have no alcohol-related offenses.
A lot of people agree that the drinking age should just remain where it is. The argument that has been made is that Binge drinking among eighth, tenth and twelfth graders has been steadily going down since the drinking age was raised to twenty-one. In the 1970s, a number of states lowered the drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen, and we saw an increase in alcohol consumption by youth. When it was raised again in 1984 back to twenty-one, we saw lower consumption of alcohol, and we've kept those low rates. By lowering the drinking age we will start seeing more diving accidents and fatalities as well.
Personally I agree that the drinking age