Setting Legal Drinking Age - Essay Example

US Congress should retain the minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) at 21. Since the introduction of the regulations on minimum drinking age almost two decades ago, there are widespread debates regarding the fixation of age at 21. There is also another dimension to this whole debate also where the question of responsibility in relation to the consumption of alcohol at this age as many of us believe that since at the age of 18, a person enters the age of maturity therefore can take on the responsibility therefore the minimum legal drinking age should be lowered to 18. This arguments is put forward keeping in view the fact that most teenagers do drink despite bar on their legal age to start drinking. However despite the fact many teenagers drink before their legal age, Federal government should retain the Minimum Legal Age of 21 as lowering the drinking age would expose the teenagers to more risky behaviors like abnormal sexual derive, higher alcoholism rates besides hampering their brain development. To start with, underage alcohol drinking is one of the major causes of the deaths in teenagers mainly due to injuries. These injuries include not only car crashes due to drunk driving but also include falling and drowning, homicides as well as suicides. Accidents through motor vehicles are considered as the leading causes of death among children aged between 15 to 21. Apart from that adolescents are already exposed to high risk due to the lack of driving experience whereas the children under the age of adolescences have high suspecitability to the driving accidents as use of alcohol impair their driving skills therefore lowering the MLDA would result into an increase into the injury and death among youngsters. This argument can be further substantiated from the fact that during the Vietnam War era, many States reduced the minimum age of drinking mainly due to the lowering of age for military enlistment and voting however the results were worst than the expected. There were steep increase into the alcohol traffic fatalities and other allied injuries caused to the teenagers who were allowed to drink legally at much lower age. However, subsequently when the MLDA was raised to 21, there was a sharp decline in the same. Data compiled by National Highway Traffic Safety administration (NHTSA) from 1975 to 2002 suggested that increase in the minimum age for drinking have saved more than 21 thousands lives in 50 states of the country. The forecasts by NHTSA also suggest that the current MLDA would save approximately 1000 lives each year. Apart from that road accidents in 1982 due to drinking were counted for 60% of the fatalities in US however the same figure have reduced to just 39% in 2005.. These statistics clear suggest that the current MLDA is perfect in at least reducing the social cost for the government. Apart from the above, there is a clear connection between the underage drinking and homicides and suicides. The deaths taking places in the age range of 15 to 21 years happen mainly due to homicide as it is the second largest cause behind it besides suicides is the third main cause of deaths in the age group of 15 to 21 years. There is a concept that the drinking alcohol relaxes the person and less anxious however, more you use alcohol, the slower will be the brain development in the person and if that phenomenon starts in early age there are greater chances of abnormal development into the brain of a person. This is also because of the fact that youngsters tend to drink a lot at one point in time therefore exposing them to the greater risks. The possible symptoms of less brain development due to the drinking include slurring, loss of coordination and aggression. Further depending on the person, the intoxication can make a person friendly as well as aggressive. This aggressiveness can often result into violence as well as crime such as homicide. Further due to intoxication, the risk of suicide also increases as the alcoholism can deepen the depression in teenagers besides hampering the capability of the teenagers to make decisions under the stress conditions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alcohol has been reported to be involved in 15.4 percent of homicides and 12 percent of suicides involving youth ages 15 to 21 from 1999 to 2005 (“Leading Causes of Death Reports”). So, one consequence of lowering the MLDA to 18 would be to increase alcohol-related fatalities. Second, underage drinking is also associated with future alcohol dependency. It is the number one source of adult alcoholism. It is also further believed that the use of alcohol at the early age develops the future capabilities of the teenagers to drink on the long term basis as the teenagers’ brains are most at risk as compared to the adults to develop habits which may hamper not their growth but also their future career prospects. It is also further believed that the underage drinking develop into risk sexual behaviors into the teenagers. These risky behaviors can include committing rapes, physical assaults, unwanted pregnancies, as well as risk to catch other more dangerous sexually transmitted diseases. Research also suggests that there are linkages between the use of alcohol and the sexual decision making by the teenagers. This further elaborates on to suggest that the teenagers involve in the use of alcohol tend to lack the ability to decide and often make poor decisions. This is because of this reason that the underage women risk themselves to abnormal sexual behaviors besides being victim of the physical assault on them. Research also suggest that due to overuse of alcohol at the underage, more than 36% of the sexual active teenagers face themselves the victims of sexual assault or date rapes. Moreover, the underage alcohol use increases the chances of unwanted pregnancies besides risking the teenagers to the other sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV. Finally, as discussed above that the underage alcohol uses reduces the brain development capability of the teenagers. Alcohol can damage, short-term or long-term, the prefrontal lobe and hippocampus. For many years, science had assumed that the adolescent brain was fully developed by the age of 14. However, recent scientific advancements indicate that the adolescent brain undergoes rapid change and does not fully develop adult capacity until the early twenties. It has been learned that the prefrontal lobe of the brain is the last to develop, and that doesn’t happen until around 20 years of age. The prefrontal lobe is the part of the brain responsible for self-control, judgment, and emotional regulation. It has also been found that alcohol does little or nothing to enhance brain activity, and therefore it is not beneficial and possibly harmful to drink alcohol before a person reaches full adult development. Alcohol also impairs the ability of the teenagers to learn and memorize. This therefore will result into poor school performance such as absenteeism, poor grades etc. studies also suggest that those students who use to binge drink on weekends on their freshmen level tend to score 10% lower than the previous year on IQ tests. Further studies even reveal that a slight use of alcohol at the underage reduces the learning capability of the teenagers. The above arguments suggest that lowering the age of MLDA to 18 would greatly expose the teenagers to the various risks which may effectively end their lives and if they survive, their lives will be exposed to various unwanted and immortalized activities causing loss not only to them, to their families but also to the nation. Please put the same work cited here which used to write the paper. Read More