Pros And Cons Of Lowering The Drinking Age To 18
Parker 1
Stephen Parker
Professor Bain Conkin
Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric
15 April 2013
Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered to Eighteen?
Former United States senator Byron Dorgan once said, “Nowhere in this country should we have laws that permit drinking and driving or drinking in vehicles that are on American highways. This is not rocket science. We know how to prevent this, and thirty-six states do”
(searchquotes.com). In 1984, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act which raised the minimum drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one. The impetus behind this piece of legislation was reports which indicated a higher number of teenage car accidents in states that had lowered the minimum drinking age during the Vietnam …show more content…
The Twenty-First Amendment gave states the authority to determine their respective minimum legal drinking ages. Almost as soon as Congress passed the Twenty-Sixth Amendment in 1971 which reduced the voting age to eighteen, individual states began lowering their minimum legal drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen because many rationalized that if eighteen-year-old individuals were responsible enough to vote, certainly they could drink alcohol. Because not all states reduced their minimum drinking ages to eighteen, oftentimes young teenagers would travel across state borders known as “blood borders” to obtain alcohol and consume it in a more permissive state and then drive fully intoxicated back to their state of origin. Inebriated teenagers would have to drive long distances to return home, which provided more chances for accidents to occur along their journey. As a result, one of the tragic consequences of a lack of uniformity between states regarding the minimum legal drinking age was a spike in the number of traffic fatalities amongst eighteen to twenty-year-old drivers. This increase in teenage deaths birthed organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving,
Stephen Parker
Professor Bain Conkin
Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric
15 April 2013
Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered to Eighteen?
Former United States senator Byron Dorgan once said, “Nowhere in this country should we have laws that permit drinking and driving or drinking in vehicles that are on American highways. This is not rocket science. We know how to prevent this, and thirty-six states do”
(searchquotes.com). In 1984, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act which raised the minimum drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one. The impetus behind this piece of legislation was reports which indicated a higher number of teenage car accidents in states that had lowered the minimum drinking age during the Vietnam …show more content…
The Twenty-First Amendment gave states the authority to determine their respective minimum legal drinking ages. Almost as soon as Congress passed the Twenty-Sixth Amendment in 1971 which reduced the voting age to eighteen, individual states began lowering their minimum legal drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen because many rationalized that if eighteen-year-old individuals were responsible enough to vote, certainly they could drink alcohol. Because not all states reduced their minimum drinking ages to eighteen, oftentimes young teenagers would travel across state borders known as “blood borders” to obtain alcohol and consume it in a more permissive state and then drive fully intoxicated back to their state of origin. Inebriated teenagers would have to drive long distances to return home, which provided more chances for accidents to occur along their journey. As a result, one of the tragic consequences of a lack of uniformity between states regarding the minimum legal drinking age was a spike in the number of traffic fatalities amongst eighteen to twenty-year-old drivers. This increase in teenage deaths birthed organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving,