Should Drinking Age Be Lowered Essay

Drinking Age Should Not Be Lowered All fifty states set their minimum drinking age back to twenty one in the 1980’s because they felt that eighteen wasn’t the appropriate age. Some people did not agree with this change because at the age of eighteen people can vote, drive cars, fly planes, pay taxes, marry, become a legal guardian, own a gun, risk their lives a member of the U.S. armed forces. Honestly, today the drinking age doesn’t matter, whatever the age a person will always try and find a way to drink. Even though some believe the drinking age should be lowered because that way students and young teens won't binge drink and will know how to handle their alcohol better, lowering the drinking age is not a good idea and can cause harm to others. Teens will end up taking advantage of this and it’s a health risk.
In 1984 the National Minimum Drinking Age was set to 21 when President Ronald Reagan signed the act. The whole point of Reagan’s act was to curb intoxicated young people from getting behind the wheel (Fulton). Car fatalities dropped immensely after Reagan signed the National Minimum Drinking Age. According to the National Traffic Highway
According to Johns Hopkins, Bloomberg School of Public Health, alcohol associated with an increased risk of hazardous sexual behavior, academic failure, drug abuse, and alterations to the structure and function of the brain. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that up to 86 percent of homicide offenders, 37 percent of assault offenders, and 60 percent of sexual offenders were using alcohol at the time of their crime (Nagin). Alcohol is one of the leading causes of deaths in the United States for youths and young adults, and accounts for 75,000 or more deaths yearly (Wechsler & Nelson). These are all reasons to not lower the minimum drinking age so these numbers don’t rise even