Eng 100
04/21/15
I-Search Paper
ROUGH DRAFT
Should we lower the drinking age to 19?
Why should it be legal for half of college students to be able to drink, and half not? It shouldn’t be. Most people are graduating high school at the age of 18 and most are entering college or just starting out at the age of 18 or 19. Legalizing drinking at the age of 19 to me is a perfect age. Doing this will keep teens from not coming to high school drunk or hung-over, and keep adult college students from worrying about getting caught with alcohol and getting an underage. The age legal drinking at 21 is completely unfair to be due to the fact that when you’re 18 you're considered a legal adult, so why wait until you’re 21?
At the age of 18 people can smoke cigarettes that can literally kill you, vote, join the military, and become legally their own person, but can't drink is foolish. Some of which are enjoyable things to become legal for an “adult”. Cigarette smoke contains over 7,000 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer (1). Smoking is directly responsible for approximately 90 percent of lung cancer deaths and approximately 80-90 percent of COPD (emphysema and chronic bronchitis) deaths (1). Among adults who have ever smoked, 70% started smoking regularly at age 18 or younger, and 86% at age 21 or younger(1). Now, if you look at the statistics for the deaths of underage people drinking and the health risks in alcohol and compare them, you won’t find the same thing. Drinking a lot over time can cause high blood pressure, stokes, irregular heartbeats. Also cancers of the mouth, throat, and breast (2). Drinking a lot can also weaken the immune system, making your body much easier to get ill. Therefore, drinking and smoking both have health risks, but look at the risks for smoking which is legal at a younger age compared to drinking, it’s not nearly as bad. Idiotic.
Underage drinking is allowed in 29 states if done on private premises with parental consent, 25 states if for religious purposes, and 11 states if for educational purpose(3). Normalizing alcohol consumption as something done responsibly in moderation will make drinking alcohol less of a taboo for young adults entering college and the workforce (3). Which is completely true, being 20 years old I have always thrilled going behind my mother’s back and lying about where I was because I was drinking somewhere and my mother was always a stickler for “obeying the law”. Don’t get me wrong, I never went out on school nights getting drunk. In my opinion, I believe that drinking should be okay once in a while. It being outlawed for people under the age of 21 makes us teenagers want to go out and try getting served at a bar or go party in the woods, which is completely unsafe. Why can’t it be legal for us to have a night where we invite some friends over and drink some wine? Doesn’t make much sense to me. Most of my friends who are 21 say that they don’t even drink anymore or go to bars due to them binge drinking since before the legal age.
Think about to when you were in college, who did you get alcohol from? You’re older friends. Why should freshmen in college have to worry about going to a frat party or even just hanging out with their friends, and getting busted? College students usually come from all over the world to just one little university, they left their families to live all on their own with no parental supervision so why can’t they have a few drinks here and there(4)? This once again makes them want to be a rebel and try out what it is they are being kept away from (4). The fact that they don’t know when they will be able to drink again is the reason most college students tend to get overly drunk when they get a chance (4). As a result there are problems as serious as deaths (4). Countries such as Italy, China, and Greece are some of the countries where the legal drinking age is lower and they seem to have fewer alcohol related problems. Current laws in most, in terms of legal drinking age has caused more alcohol related deaths than there has ever been (4). So since this is the case, why hasn’t the government looked into dropping the drinking age to 19?
Being a 20 year old woman, it probably sounds like I just want the government to drop the drinking age so that I can get drunk legally until I turn 21. False, that is not the case. I really think that we should try looking into how other countries are doing and drop the drinking age to 19.The government made cigarettes legal for an 18 year old, and they have chemicals to literally kill someone. Some people smoke 3 packs a day, which is so much worse than having a few drinks.