Underage Drinking
Michael Cooper English 102-Laverty December 8, 2012 Under the age, over the limit!
Do you remember how cool you felt the first time that you drank? All of us younger kids, hanging out with the older kids, everyone getting drunk together. Thinking about this when I was younger really made me raise the question of why we have a legal limit to drink in the first place. Underage kids have had no problem getting alcohol for decades so why put a legal limit on it? When I found myself asking these questions the answers seemed to make sense; or maybe it was my senior year of high school when I got suspended for ten days. After that had occurred it made me think that maybe they have a limit on alcohol for a reason. One of those reasons being that kids are not mature enough yet to handle the side effects that alcohol brings. Underage drinking has been around for years but it brings little to no good to our society. In the United States, there is a certain legal age that states the time in which individuals are allowed to drink or purchase alcohol. Even though you may not agree with most of the rules that the federal government has set in place, this is one rule that I am definitely in favor for. They have placed the legal age limit at 21 for all alcoholic beverages. It does not matter what state you are in; the drinking law is the same for all 50 states in the United States of America (Cost of Underage Drinking). Sadly, sometimes these laws are broken. Even with these laws in place, the alcoholic consumption by our youth still becomes an issue in the United States. After doing research I have come to find out that statistics show that at least eleven million teenagers are still underage drinkers, with about half of them being binge drinkers, meaning they usually have more than 5 drinks per occasion (Flewelling) . In my opinion I believe that America needs to have a change in culture and beliefs towards underage drinking and make it a main
Do you remember how cool you felt the first time that you drank? All of us younger kids, hanging out with the older kids, everyone getting drunk together. Thinking about this when I was younger really made me raise the question of why we have a legal limit to drink in the first place. Underage kids have had no problem getting alcohol for decades so why put a legal limit on it? When I found myself asking these questions the answers seemed to make sense; or maybe it was my senior year of high school when I got suspended for ten days. After that had occurred it made me think that maybe they have a limit on alcohol for a reason. One of those reasons being that kids are not mature enough yet to handle the side effects that alcohol brings. Underage drinking has been around for years but it brings little to no good to our society. In the United States, there is a certain legal age that states the time in which individuals are allowed to drink or purchase alcohol. Even though you may not agree with most of the rules that the federal government has set in place, this is one rule that I am definitely in favor for. They have placed the legal age limit at 21 for all alcoholic beverages. It does not matter what state you are in; the drinking law is the same for all 50 states in the United States of America (Cost of Underage Drinking). Sadly, sometimes these laws are broken. Even with these laws in place, the alcoholic consumption by our youth still becomes an issue in the United States. After doing research I have come to find out that statistics show that at least eleven million teenagers are still underage drinkers, with about half of them being binge drinkers, meaning they usually have more than 5 drinks per occasion (Flewelling) . In my opinion I believe that America needs to have a change in culture and beliefs towards underage drinking and make it a main