Is it time to lower the drinking age?

1. Is it time to lower the drinking age? By: Taryn Brady

2. Drinking Age The age at which it is legal for a person to buy alcoholic beverages

3. Around the world U.S. Other countries • In 1984 president Reagan passed the “21” law, which requires states to set 21 as the minimum drinking-age or risk losing 10% of their highway funds. • Most countries have a legal drinking age of 18 years but there are several countries in Europe with a lower drinking age of 16 years old like Belgium, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Italy. There are even countries with no legal drinking age at all like Armenia and Morocco.

4. Drinking is a right • Most people can vote, join the military, and smoke cigarettes at 18. Treating alcohol differently helps turns it into a holy grail of adulthood.

5. Dangers of drinking age Pushed drinking behind closed doors, into the most risky of settings, like basements, fraternity houses and locked dorm rooms, where kids go to hide from the law and from adults. Has created a dangerous culture of irresponsible and reckless behavior, unsupervised binge and extreme drinking, like pre-gaming - downing as much alcohol as possible before going out in order to avoid getting caught drinking in public.

6. Drinking age effects Pro Con • Traffic fatalities and accidents have lowered since raising the drinking age. • Alcohol has a less likely chance of getting into the hands of children. • Alcohol-related suicides, accidents, drowning’s, murders, and alcohol poisoning rates have shown no decline associated with the drinking age.

7. Solutions More alcohol education classes. Require that classes in high school educate students on everything to do with alcohol. That would include the chemistry of alcohol, the physical consequences of abuse, the psychological impacts on the brain and damaging side effects, and finally actually sitting in on AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) sessions. Once completing all these steps, passing an exam would result in a license to drink.

8. Other solutions • SCRAM bracelet: This eight ounce bracelet, usually worn around the subjects ankle, relies on a process called transdermal alcohol testing to measure the levels of alcohol vapor that show up in perspiration when alcohol has been consumed. The measurements are then transmitted and posted on a website via wireless modem, allowing the subject to prove- or disprove- that he or she remains sober.

9. Make a choice • Whether or not 18 year olds would drink more or less in the long run, that’s not the point; the fact is that they should be allowed to drink at 18. It doesn’t matter if they’ll drink anyway, it doesn’t matter that the rest of the world has a drinking age of 18; what matters is that, as a responsible adult, those aged 18 to 21 should be able to make decisions for themselves.