Drinking age should not be lowered to 18 years:
Introduction:
There has been much debate that the drinking age should be lowered to 18 years, the drinking age was set at 21 years in 1984 in the United States and it should remain at 21 years. The first question we should ask is who wants the drinking age to be increased, is it the population aged below 21 years or is it the producers of alcohol or is it our leaders. The next question is who will benefit when the age is reduced to 18 years. If the populations aged below 21 years and have attained 18 years wants the age reduced to 18 years then are they making the right decisions or are they capable of making the right decisions, adults should guide the younger generations and therefore we can say the under 21 years are making the right decision.
The next issue is whether the under 21 years will benefits, according to the situation they are not likely to receive any benefits because the producers of alcohol are the ones who will benefit from this decrease in the drinking age, the first reason is because the demand for alcohol will increase as a result of introducing the product to a younger population that previously was not allowed to drink.
This presentation highlights the reasons why the drinking age should remain at the age of 21 years, some of the reason include increased accidents, increased diseases associated with drinking alcohol, increased problems with the law among the under 21 years.
Reasons why the drinking age should remain at 21 years:
Increased accidents:
Drinking among under 21 years has increased in the past, this has led to increased drink driving fatal accidents among these teens, according to the national highway traffic safety administration 12.8% of fatal accidents are alcohol related and that 40% of these accidents are related with teen drink driving. Therefore if we allow those aged between 18 to 21 years to drink then this means that we will be increasing the number of drink driving fatal accidents.
The problem is that when fatal accidents occur due to drinking innocent road users will also suffer in the process, this is because despite the laws that exist that prohibit drink driving teens are more likely to break the law than grown ups and therefore we should not set the drinking age at 18 years, we should not solve the problem of drink driving by making more problems on roads by allowing more people to drink, we should be solving this problems by adopting policy measures that minimize the drink driving problem among the under 21 years.
The following picture shows an accident that occurred due to drink driving, the picture was retrieved from http://www.car-accidents.com/drunk-driving-accidents.html.
From the above accident it is evident that two vehicles were involved in the accident, however it is also evident that only one of the vehicles caused the accident and the innocent also suffered.
Scientific evidence show that those aged below 21 years are less experienced drivers, it is clear that driving involves reasoning, concentration and making proper judgments. If a driver drinks then this slows down their judgments and concentration leading to fatal accidents, this can be even worse for drivers who are less experienced example those aged below 21 years.
Below is another picture showing a fatal accident caused by drink driving, the picture was retrieved from http://www.car-accidents.com/drunk-driving-accidents.html
From the above image it is evident that the occupants of the vehicle were badly injured, despite this the merchandise owner also suffers from the accidents.
Increased accidents will mean higher medical expenses among the under 21 years, increased deaths among the under 21 years and other age groups, loss of property, increased court cases that may be will lead to wastage of time and finally the population will spend more on alcohol than in other economic development projects such as investments.
Increased diseases:
We expect the life expectancy to decline as a result of the reduction of the legal drinking age to 18 years, this is because excessive drinking of alcohol leads to major physical problems example of these problems include liver damage as a result of excessive drinking which may cause the Cirrhosis disease, the other problem is that excessive drinking will lead to stomach ulcers, high blood pressure and heart diseases and finally excessive alcohol consumption may lead to the killing of brain cells that will lead to impaired coordination, judgment and reasoning.
For this reason therefore the increase in the occurrence of this alcohol related diseases will lead to a decline in life expectancy among the under 21 years, the other problem is that there will be increased spending on health by both individuals and the government, there will also be an increase in spending on alcohol which may reduce economic growth where these funds would have been diverted to other income generating projects or even spent on clothing, food, investments and education.
Other diseases:
When people get drunk they are more prone to pressure from their friends, for the under 21 years peer pressure is one of these problems, it is evident that the young women aged below 21 years will be more likely be willing to having sex and worse even unprotected sex when they are drunk, a thing they may have not done if they were sober, through this the policy measure to reduce the drinking age will result into increased sexually transmitted diseases among the under 21 years, increased unwanted pregnancies and finally increased immorality among the young generation in the nation. For this reason therefore we should not reduce the drinking age from 21 years to 18 years in order to protect the young from such problems that they may face.
Increased drug abuse:
According to a study undertaken in 2005 by SADD results showed that there was a rise in the consumption of alcohol among the under 21 years, it was also evident that those who consumed alcohol before attaining the age of 21 years we more likely to abuse alcohol than those who first have alcohol at the age of 21 years, this shows that we will increase drug addiction by setting the drinking age at 18 years and this can only be reduced by letting the drinking age to be at 21 years and also other policy measures.
Who benefits:
We now analyze who benefits from the decrease in the drinking age to 18 years, from the above discussion we have analyzed the problems that the under 21 years will face, the youth will benefit only because they will be in a position to enjoy alcohol and will have the freedom to drink it, however the producers of alcohol will benefit more due to an increase in the demand and therefore will increase their market share, we must also ask what will happen in the future, if we allow the age to be reduced to 18 years then the next few years people will want the age to be reduced to 16 years then 10 years, we should make policies that protect the young generation and not destroy them.
The US census website shows the population size in 2000 and the following chart summarizes the percentage composition of the age groups in the year, data was retrieved from http://www.census.gov/popest/datasets.html
From the above chart those aged between the age of 18 and 21 years comprised of 6% in April 2000, this is a rough estimate of the percentage today and this means that by lowering the drinking age to 18 years will allow 6% of the population to abuse alcohol. We should however try to protect these generation by helping them make the right decisions and not make them drink and die young. The alcohol producing firms are well aware of the market share increase if the age is reduced to 18 years in order for them to make higher profits, however it is better for us to save lives than allow firms to make selfish proposals in order to increase profits.
References:
Car accident photos (2008) drunk driving accident photos, retrieved on 28th August, available at http://www.car-accidents.com/drunk-driving-accidents.html
NHTSA (2008) National highway traffic safety administration drunk driving statistics, retrieved on 28th August, available at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/
SADD (2008) drunk driving statistics, retrieved on 28th August, available at http://www.sadd.org/stats.htm
US census (2008) population size by age 2000, retrieved on 28th August, available at http://www.census.gov/popest/datasets.html