The legal drinking age has always been a topic of discussion amongst many. As for many young adults who are just under the age curve, the temptation for alcohol is greater than ever. This temptation is powerful and can cause young adults to practice unsafe and risky techniques just to drink alcohol. This behavior causing them to create elaborate ways such as lying about their age, using a fake ID, or sometimes stealing just to acquire alcohol. Most young adults are pressured by all the different alcoholic advertisements or trends that’s are seen throughout their daily lives. By looking at how the current drinking age is affecting young adults, one can see that the legal drinking age should be lowered, which is important because this could help better educated the youth about the effects of alcohol and how to be a more responsible and creates potential opportunities for an increase the United States economy.

Alcohol has many different applications in modern society. It is used in formal parties, sporting events, various restaurants, clubs, bars, amusement parks etc. however, alcohol is categorized as a drug that can causes liver damage and is unsafe to do while operating machinery. There have even been times where alcohol has been the reason for rapes, murders, public intoxication but yet, we still sell it and advertise it all over the country. Whether the reason may be because it’s good for the economy or it’s a right, one thing that is very true is that it is a decision that everyone will have to make sometime in their life. To help our youth make the right decision, we must allow them to understand how alcohol affects them. By exposing these young adults to alcohol early on, this can help them better understand their alcohol limitations. While they are still under the roof of their parents, they will become more responsible about how they handle their alcohol. A study done by Sharyn Rundle‐Thiele, Rebekah Russell‐Bennett, Cheryl Leo, Timo Dietrich shows how allowing teens to drink in moderation at an earlier age, the teen’s attitude about alcohol consumption changed while being more responsible about their alcohol (Sharyn Rundle‐Thiele, Rebekah Russell‐Bennett, Cheryl Leo, Timo Dietrich, p.p. 401). This decreases the temptation of alcohol curiosity causing young adults to be more generous about alcohol consumption. To further prove this idea of exposing the youth to alcohol early, would be to compare our laws to other countries laws. For example, looking at England, which has a drinking age of 18, they claim that their youth under this law are generally just as responsible about their alcohol consumption as an adult who is over the age of 21 (Fulton, para. 8). This also agrees with the study, as they admit that because they were exposed to alcohol at such an early age they became more responsible towards it and the temptation to drink was not as enticing (Fulton, para. 8). By taking a look at other countries laws and regulations about this matter, it shows that lowering the drinking age is definitely manageable and in this way beneficial. Having an early education about alcohol, instead of hiding the affects and deeming it as forbidden, is helpful to lower this temptation. 

 Statically the U.S. drinks the least amount of alcohol out of the entire world so why do we have such a big binge drinking problem in the U.S. (DNewsChannel, 2:50)? Due to the current law on alcohol consumption the temptation of alcohol is incredibility high. Young adults will go to an extreme to experience alcohol and this always creates unhealthy habits or even can cause death. As a society, we pressure these young adults to drink, it’s everywhere. It symbolizes being an adult or being mature (Engs, pp.2). The media also influences teens to drink with different advertising and false imagery (Bonnie, p.p. 71). Without proper guidance these young adults, especially when away from home, are pressured to sneak into bars and lie about their age just to fit in with a friend who is only one year older than they are, but is allowed to drink. As unfair as this seems it is also dangerous to themselves and their career. It’s worse for college students, being that it is against the law for someone under that age of 21 to consume alcohol, most colleges have a zero-tolerance policy towards the consumptions of alcohol yet, student are still willing to risk this just to drink. If the drinking age was to be lowered to allow for a proper educational purpose then young adults would be more responsible about how they handle their alcohol. Alcohol abuse does not have to be a problem in today’s society if the youth was exposed to the content early instead of being left to figure it out on their own terms. Alcohol abuse is a problem in young adults because of the tremendous temptations that linger everywhere they go. 

The drinking temptation is caused because of lack of experience. Most young adults whose parents were very law abiding never allowed their son/daughter to sip on an alcoholic beverage until after they have grown up and moved out. For college students especially, after they have moved out to the dorms and are living on their own in a community that is very new and very different, the urge to drink becomes tremendous. Social drinking is something that most students have never done before and this raises the temptation even higher. This is called the “forbidden fruit” effect where the student finds the temptation of drinking alcohol to be almost too overwhelming (Engs, p.p. 2). By lowering the legal drinking age, we could allow for these students to familiarize themselves with alcohol before being let loose where there is no guidance or authority except for the legal authority, which in this case would be too late. Other countries such as England with a legal drinking age of 18 does not suffer from binge drinking nearly as bad as the U.S. and the Englishmen claim that it’s because of an being exposed to alcohol at an earlier age (Thrillist, para. 8). No one wants to hear about how their son or daughter is arrested for underage drinking which is why it is important for the temptations of alcohol use to be less effective amongst these young adults. Overall, the importance of educating the youth about the effects of alcohol will reduce temptation and make for a more responsible drinker. While allowing these young adults to practice save drinking at home instead of on their own, this can help prevent the youth from causing serious damage to themselves or others by uncontrollably drinking in an unsafe environment.   

Now, lowering the drinking age will benefit the United States economy in various ways. For example, because of the high number of underage drinkers, bars and convenient stores are forced to create way to try and catch these underage prospects. This leads to an environment of snooping and threats that can take away from what is supposed to be a fun place to be (Tucker, para. 16). This causes people to become annoyed and can take away from the overall experience. By having the drinking age lowered, bars and convenient stores would not have to worry too much about this issue thus adding back to the overall experience allowing people to feel more inviting when attempting to enter. The U. S. economy could greatly improve, by lowering the drinking age creates a new demographic of customers (Pennett, para. 4). Other opportunities can arise from this for example, one could make young adults attend alcohol safety classes before being allowed to drink (Pennett, para. 4). This is helpful to the economy and forces young adults to be more educated about alcohol consumption. In more ways than none, lowering the drinking age opens the door for opportunities involving ways for the economy to strive. 

The United States needs to face the reality that societies youth is going to drink, whether of age or not. Seizing this opportunity as a financial benefit is a way the government could compromise with allowing the drinking age to be lowered. For example, the government could place a law instead of making it illegal for today’s youth to drink alcohol, that young adults are only allowed to attend certain bars or clubs that are designed for this demographic. This could create new jobs and would satisfy the temptation to drink or be at a club while creating a safer environment for these people. The economy could strive off this idea. The idea of having a bar designed for the youth and to have mandatory alcohol classes is an opportunity to profit. Jobs and newly designed bars would be created to satisfy a whole new demographic of people carious about drinking. This new demographic would increase alcohol sales and increase the amount of revenue generated from the alcohol tax sales (Pennett, para 4). This not only helps with the economy but by having these mandatory classes or by having special bars designed only for the youth, this overall can save their lives (Pennett, para 4). 

Alcohol consumption is a problem amongst today’s society. There are many people that suffer the harmful effects of alcohol either physically or mentally. By no means is alcohol consumption a good habit to fall into which is understandable why people would oppose this idea to lower the drinking age. Many people argue against lowering the age and some prefer to raise the age limit, but this will cause a negative effect that most people do not realize. 

A study conducted by William DeJong and Jason Blanchette about the positive impacts that the current drinking age laws has on society state that this law decreased the number of drunk driving incidents and overall saves lives (William DeJong and Jason Blanchette p.p. 108). This study supports its claims showing statistics done by the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) claiming that the current law has decreased the number of drunk driving incidents of 900 lives per year (William DeJong and Jason Blanchette, p.p. 108). This study shows progress and at the time the statistics where pulled this would make for a great point however, these statistics are outdated. These statistics were done in the 1980s and with the advancements in technology and transportation, making it easier to use transportation services, the rate of drunk driving incidents could still decrease. Based form the study that was conducted by Professor Ruth C. Engs, Engs claims that because of the new law college youth relation to alcohol consumption has increased in almost all of the negative attributes. For example, cutting classes jumped for 9% to 12%, missing class because of a hangover went from 26% to 28% (Engs, pp. 3). This increase of negative behavior is a cause of “underground drinking” meaning to consume alcohol illegally, in secret (Engs pp.3). This leads back to the temptation of alcohol. This law creates too high of a temptation to drink alcohol that these young adults are risking their rights and even their future just to enjoy themselves. This also leads back to the problem of how preventing these young adults to drink alcohol until they are on their own essentially, leads to over consumption causing damage to themselves or others because of lack of knowledge on how to handle their alcohol consumption. This fact about drunk driving incidents being lowered due to the current law may be true but there are reasons to believe that in today’s society if the law was to change and regulations were to be permitted than perhaps this number of drunk driving incidents would remain down or even lower. 

Some may also disagree with this new law based on the knowledge of the harmful effects alcohol has on young adults. It is a fact that alcohol consumption does effect the development of the brain as well as potentially causing social problems such as depression, violence, and suicidal thoughts (Dean-Mooney, para. 9). While these facts are things to consider, it still remains in the hands of the parent’s teachings that could influence the behavior of alcohol consumption. For example, although it is clear that alcohol is dangerous to one’s health it would still be beneficial to educate the youth of the dangers of alcohol while allowing them to consume in moderation to help learn how to properly handle the alcohol consumption. Otherwise because of the high temptation that this law creates for these young adults, this subjects them to having to figure out their alcohol consumption levels on their own thus causing an even more harmful effect to the body and other mental health issues. This can be proven again by the statistics done by Engs showing how almost every negative attribute of alcohol consumption effecting the lives of college aged adults has increased due to the current drinking law (Engs, pp. 3). Overall, the fact that alcohol is dangerous to the brain and causes social problems can be decreased by lowering this law. The effects of alcohol would be presented to the young adult at an early age and by being surrounded by their parents would only help them to better understand their limitations thus causing for a more responsible drinker. This idea has been proven in a study mentioned earlier by Sharyn Rundle‐Thiele, Rebekah Russell‐Bennett, Cheryl Leo, Timo Dietrich.

Another study by Andrew D. Plunk was conducted to prove how alcohol has a direct correlation to high school dropouts. His results supported his idea that by having the drinking age at 18 this caused an increase in high school dropouts (Plunk, p.p. 686). The importance of this idea, which was stated by Andrew Plunk himself, is that if we were to lower the drinking age to accompany the action of young adults in college then the problems that currently affects college students would affect high schooler directly (Plunk, pp. 686). He claims that by allowing an 18-year-old senior in high school be able to drink that this would then raise temptation for the students in high school thus ultimately leading to similar problems that college students face today (Plunk, pp. 686). While Andrew is not wrong this again could be solved by putting a restriction on students in high school to not be allowed to drink. Who says we have to lower the drink age to 18 anyway? This law could take this study into consideration and maybe even state that you must be out of high school before allowed to drink. Overall this study makes a solid point but can easily be fixed by appointing a proper constraint to the law. 

In my overall argument, I stated how lowering the drinking age is beneficial for the young adults in our society by providing proper education on how alcohol effects one’s body and also how this could pose as an opportunity for the United States’ economy to profit. By having the legal drinking age limit lowered, this would create a more responsible drinker. Allowing these young adults to experience the effects of alcohol in a comfortable environment surround by trustworthy people would allow them to understand their alcohol limitation. This also effects the overall temptation of wanting to socially drink, by have prior experience with alcohol ones’ temptation would not be as appealing as it is today. As stated by Engs, this “forbidden fruit” effect would have less of an effect on someone who already is allowed to drink or has already experienced the effects of alcohol. The economy would have an overall increase in alcohol sales and with a new law, there brings opportunities for jobs to educate this new demographic. Overall, the lowering of the drinking age offers a solid opportunity for a decrease of irresponsible drinking and could potentially boost the overall economy in the United States.                       

  