Underaged Drinking In America
Underaged Drinking in America:
Why the Legal Drinking Age Should Stay at Twenty-one.
Alcohol is a depressant that affects your vision, coordination, reaction time, multitasking ability, judgment, and decision-making (Short and Long Term). Seventy-five percent of adults in
America drink alcohol (Health). Because of the large impact that alcohol consumption has had on America, it has become a hot topic of debate. Specifically, on whether lowering the age at which a person can legally drink would decrease the amount of alcohol abuse by minors. To properly address the issue of underaged drinking in America, the legal drinking age should stay at twenty-one. If lowered, the amount of alcohol being consumed by persons under twenty-one
would …show more content…
An example would be wheat used to create beer, or grapes to produce wine. Most plant matter can be used to produce alcohol.
When an alcoholic beverage is consumed, 20 percent of the alcohol is absorbed in the stomach and 80 percent in the small intestine (Freudenrich). The speed of absorption depends upon the concentration of alcohol in the beverage, gender, weight, and whether your stomach is full or empty; food slows down the absorption of alcohol. Men generally have more muscle mass and less fat then women, so one drink will not affect a man as it would a woman. A person doesn’t start feeling the effects of alcohol until it is carried through the bloodstream, to the
body’s tissues. This process takes about twenty minutes, depending on the amount originally consumed. Once absorbed by the bloodstream, five percent of the alcohol is expelled through the kidneys as urine, five percent through exhalation of the lungs, and the rest is broken down into acetic acid by the liver (Freudenrich). A person becomes “drunk” when an excess of alcohol is consumed and cannot be absorbed by the …show more content…
These adaptations
negatively change a person’s behavior. With long-term alcohol exposure, the body does become more efficient at eliminating alcohol in the blood, but this also means that the person must drink more alcohol to experience the same effects as before, which leads to more drinking and contributes to addiction.
Alcohol addiction, or alcoholism, is a chronic disease in which a person becomes physically dependent on alcohol (Watson). Not everyone who drinks alcohol heavily is considered an alcoholic. Those who drink enough to affect their family or job responsibilities, or drive while intoxicated, abuse alcohol, but they do not necessarily have a dependence on it.
Alcoholics feel the need to drink, similarly to the way that most people feel the need to eat.
There are many social factors that can cause one to develop alcoholism. Some include: peer pressure, advertising, and the environment. Young people are extremely susceptible to peer pressure. Too many teenagers think it is acceptable to drink “because their friends are doing
Why the Legal Drinking Age Should Stay at Twenty-one.
Alcohol is a depressant that affects your vision, coordination, reaction time, multitasking ability, judgment, and decision-making (Short and Long Term). Seventy-five percent of adults in
America drink alcohol (Health). Because of the large impact that alcohol consumption has had on America, it has become a hot topic of debate. Specifically, on whether lowering the age at which a person can legally drink would decrease the amount of alcohol abuse by minors. To properly address the issue of underaged drinking in America, the legal drinking age should stay at twenty-one. If lowered, the amount of alcohol being consumed by persons under twenty-one
would …show more content…
An example would be wheat used to create beer, or grapes to produce wine. Most plant matter can be used to produce alcohol.
When an alcoholic beverage is consumed, 20 percent of the alcohol is absorbed in the stomach and 80 percent in the small intestine (Freudenrich). The speed of absorption depends upon the concentration of alcohol in the beverage, gender, weight, and whether your stomach is full or empty; food slows down the absorption of alcohol. Men generally have more muscle mass and less fat then women, so one drink will not affect a man as it would a woman. A person doesn’t start feeling the effects of alcohol until it is carried through the bloodstream, to the
body’s tissues. This process takes about twenty minutes, depending on the amount originally consumed. Once absorbed by the bloodstream, five percent of the alcohol is expelled through the kidneys as urine, five percent through exhalation of the lungs, and the rest is broken down into acetic acid by the liver (Freudenrich). A person becomes “drunk” when an excess of alcohol is consumed and cannot be absorbed by the …show more content…
These adaptations
negatively change a person’s behavior. With long-term alcohol exposure, the body does become more efficient at eliminating alcohol in the blood, but this also means that the person must drink more alcohol to experience the same effects as before, which leads to more drinking and contributes to addiction.
Alcohol addiction, or alcoholism, is a chronic disease in which a person becomes physically dependent on alcohol (Watson). Not everyone who drinks alcohol heavily is considered an alcoholic. Those who drink enough to affect their family or job responsibilities, or drive while intoxicated, abuse alcohol, but they do not necessarily have a dependence on it.
Alcoholics feel the need to drink, similarly to the way that most people feel the need to eat.
There are many social factors that can cause one to develop alcoholism. Some include: peer pressure, advertising, and the environment. Young people are extremely susceptible to peer pressure. Too many teenagers think it is acceptable to drink “because their friends are doing