Corrine Fournier (FGCU):Lower the US drinking age to 18

                 Currently, a big topic at many US Universities and Colleges is to have the drinking age lowered to 18.  The schools believe that by outlawing drinking from students that are under 18 is causing more problems.  They also believe that if the drinking age was changed to 18 that they would be able to regulate the use of alcohol, so students would not become overly intoxicated.  The Universities also believe that this would also cut down on the number of college campus alcohol related deaths and injuries.  Also the campus officials would also be able to better monitor alcohol use. According to a Times Magazine article titled: Teenage Drinking, “in studies through the 1990s by the Harvard School of Public Health, the percentage of college students who reported binge drinking within the previous two weeks remained steady at 44%. (Binging was defined as five drinks in a row for boys and four for girls.)”.  Also in the article that state how in 1997 MIT chose to avoid a lawsuit by paying out 6 million dollars to the parents of a freshman who drank himself to death at a fraternity initiation.  After seeing this and many other cases like this college administrations rather bow down and lower the drinking age then having to worry about these accidents, deaths, and lawsuits.  They also see it as they can use the money they save on law suits and things and use it towards educating students on how to drink safely. 

                What about do parents think about lowering the drinking age to 18?  Well surprisingly, many parents agree with lowering the drinking age.  They see that ever since the drinking age has been raised to 21 that drinking has led to the rise in teen death, injuries, school problems, teen pregnancy, sexual assault on teen girls, juvenile crime, rebelling against the government and parents  and drinking too much which is the cause of adult drinking problems.   It is also very often that parents will supply their teenagers with alcohol so that they are doing it and being monitored when doing so.  Most parents these days that have children from the ages 15 to 20 see that lowering the drinking age will help stop these issues because they know how things were back in college and how the drinking age was raised.  Then you have the younger parents that were not allowed to drink till 21 and you see two different views.  You see the parents that saw the horrible effect alcohol on their friends and believe that if the drinking age was lower they wouldn’t have drank as much because it was accessible to them.  Then you have the one’s that saw these horrible things and think that the rules should be enforced more and that drinking at such young age leads to brain damage and alcoholism in young adults.  So as you can see depending on when the student’s parent grew up shows different views on the drinking age.

                The students however have a very different take on the subject.  Students believe if they are allowed to vote at the age of 18 and have a say in our world why can’t they drink?  Along with this responsibility to vote comes the responsibility of jury duty.  Also young man question if they are forced to join the selective service, for possible drafting for the war, again why can’t I drink?  So at the age of 18 you trust students to take on major responsibilities such as voting, jury duty, and going to war, which are all adult responsibilities then you tell them you have to wait 3 years to drink.  How does that make any sense, I can do anything and start my life without even going to college but I cannot drink till 21? Students also agree that if the drinking age was lowered they most likely wouldn’t drink as much as they do.  Their reasoning is that if it is accessible I won’t have to binge on it because I do not know when I will get the chance to again.  You also have in college you fraternities and sororities and other groups on campus that are made up of a wide range of ages.  This leads to younger students being in situations with drinking and are being pressured to drink and consume alcohol. 

                So with these three different views and the facts presented you can see how lowering the drinking age is best for everyone.  There will always be those horrible tragedies but they will happen whether or not the drinking age is 18 or 21.  But I believe that in the end lowering the drinking age will lower  death rates of college students, which will benefit the Universities enrollment, parents still having their children, and students going on and doing great things in the future. 

This entry was posted on 23. February 2010 at 01:16 and is filed under Mr. Andoscia, Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.