Lowering The Drinking Age Essay

There has been an ongoing debate concerning the legal drinking age remaining at twenty-one or being lowered to eighteen. John J. Miller, backed up with about one-hundred college presidents and chancellors, strongly believes that the legal drinking age of twenty one has failed and is not working. However, there is research and statistical data that suggests lowering the drinking age would cause several car related accidents, potentially increase a teen’s vulnerability of alcoholism, and increase binge drinking.
John McCardell, a well-known former college president who encouraged lowering the drinking age, was quoted in CBS news article 60 Minutes: The Debate of Lowering the Drinking Age. McCardell expressed to CBS, "It has not reduced or
The author encourages people to believe that the drinking age did little in fatalities and accidents due to drinking and driving. However, CNN commentary writers Toben F. Nelson and Traci L. Toomey believe otherwise.
In general, since teens are allowed to get there license when they are sixteen years old, lowering the drinking age to eighteen would cause many car related accidents due to drinking and driving. After the drinking age was lowered in the 1970’s researchers discovered a trend between the drinking age and the number of car related injuries. Alexander C. Wagenaar and Traci L. Toomey, two well-known PH.D’s and authors of Effects of Minimum Drinking Age Laws: Review and Analyses of the Literature from 1960 to 2000, the drinking age should not be lowered:
“A trend toward lowering the MLDA to age 18, 19 or 20 began in the United States, providing many natural experiments. As a result of research evidence indicating that traffic crashes among youth increased following lowering of the legal age, a citizens ' effort began urging states to raise the MLDA back to age 21”