Dylan Arnett

Sydney Davis
Jacob Harkrader
Zach Travis
Andrew Wawersik
Mr. Gross
English 12B (3)
6 May 2016
Drinking Age in America
The Sunday morning hangover is often thought of as an all American right-of-passage,
with empty bottles, remnants of garbage, and the ever possible drunken party member still
passed out along the floor. In many cases this is where the problems begin, as students and
teenagers regardless of age drink uncontrollably without having care or concern about the
consequences they may face. Yet, these habits do not simply end after the first months of college
life, and they often begin prior to reaching their eighteenth birthday. Youth drinking patterns in
the United States is an important problem, but cannot be used as a reasonable explanation for the
current legal drinking age. Similarly, college students follow the same pattern, as well as on a
world scale. Whether a person is seventeen in high school, twenty in college, living in Italy, or
consuming more alcoholic beverages a day than they do water, makes only a small difference
when being used as a reason to keep the current legal drinking age in the United States.
Therefore, the legal drinking age must be lowered from twenty-one to nineteen in the United
States.

The legal drinking age in the United States only minimally affects the number of youths
who abuse alcohol. The ease in which a minor can access alcohol influences the amounts they
consume, not the nations legal age of purchase. There is barely a small gap between a
seventeen-year old high school senior, and an eighteen year-old college freshmen, so making
contact with a person of legal age is only a small obstacle for teenagers who truly want to get
hold of alcohol. The simple process is not distorted in the slightest if the legal age is set at
nineteen, if not even lessening the potentially dangerous "through the grapevine" kind of
connections that are required. A high school senior may be friends with an eighteen year-old
college freshmen who lives in the same apartment building as a group of juniors in college who
are willing to make a deal. Making contact with one acquaintance when it comes to illegal deals
is dangerous enough, without adding another part of the grapevine. The age of nineteen was
carefully selected as being the best for the most people, and high school students had the largest
effect on it. High School students can turn eighteen prior to their graduation, and although they
must still follow the rules set by the schools, they are legally an adult. In the event the legal age
was eighteen, younger students would have an even faster and easier way to receive alcohol,
which as stated previously, was the factor that raised underage alcohol consumption. Yet, even
that debatably influential piece of information is only a fraction of the bigger picture of alcohol
use in the United States. Therefore, lowering the legal minimum drinking age in the United
States can, and must be done, to keep the safety of the nations youth in priority.
The number of college students that put both themselves, and those around them in
danger due to binge drinking will not increase by lowering the legal drinking age from twentyone to nineteen in the United States. In the same way that lowering the legal age would not
drastically change the number of underage adults who consume alcohol, the same concept

applies to college students when applied to drinking in mass quantities. In reality, lowering the
legal drinking age to nineteen would limit the forbidden fruit lure of alcohol to an eighteen
year-old college freshmen living on their own for the first time. Between the period of time when
full-time students move onto the university campus, and the first class of the semester, is a
universal prime-time for parties to occur. With roaring music and incredibly low regard for
consequences, young adults who had only just recently became adults risk their own lives and
the possibly lives of many others, with one night of mass drinking. Due to the fact there is not a
proactive-style program set in place in all high schools across the country, college freshmen enter
a new level of freedom with only unsafe teenage habits, and not the responsible knowledge that
would help keep people safe. Lowering the legal drinking age in the United States from twentyone to nineteen would not change the factor of eighteen-year old college students who drink in
mass quantities, but it will remove two-years of drinking underground. Just like the infamous
speakeasies in the Prohibition Era that only aided in illegal activities, keeping a legal drinking
age at twenty-one is promoting a modern-day version of a trend that occurred decades earlier,
and damaged countless people all over the United States.
Cultural norms from across the world, and cultural changes within the United States in
the past decades is why the legal drinking age for alcohol must be lowered to nineteen. European
countries are unofficially the role-model for alcohol policy, for both the supporting and opposing
sides concerning the alcohol control policy. In general, as stated by About.com Health and
Alcoholism, More Canadians drink, but Americans drink more heavily and this means that
statistics suggesting a lower drinking age in other nations to be causing harm to people instead of
benefiting them, is done so under mislead viewpoints (Comparison of Alcohol 1). For the
example in Canada, which keeps a minimum legal drinking age set at nineteen in most

Provinces, would have more people drinking than the United States, but those individuals would
be consuming alcohol in safer quantities than similar American counterparts. Culture and people
go hand-in-hand, where culture influences people and people influences culture, and this idea is
shown with the variety of policies in different European nations, where alcohol-related policies
influences the people, and the people influence the policies in the same way. In Germany the
legal drinking age is set at the age of sixteen, regardless of adult supervision, and is most
frequently used as a form of rebuttal for actually lowering the United States' current drinking
age. Based on various Internet locations where individuals can sound off about current topics,
there were a small handful directly related to the drinking age in Germany, with native Germans'
voicing their opinions and concerns for the young people in the country. Out of 138 countries
included, 85 of them have a legal drinking age of eighteen or nineteen years-old, which equals
approximately 62% (International Guide 1). Simply based off of numbers, social and cultural
patterns all over the world have proven that the United States current minimum legal age of
twenty-one is not benefiting the country, and must be lowered to nineteen.
The concerns about safety involving alcohol, including alcohol-related fatalities, binge
drinking, and long-term health effects, will not be compromised by lowering the legal drinking
age to nineteen in the United States. Activists who wish to raise the legal minimum age
frequently discuss the ways that driving while intoxicated endangers countless lives every day in
the United States, and is an increasing problem in "model" Europe as well. However, drunk
driving increases will secrecy, not with accessibility. This concept only increases with teenagers,
because avoiding parental guardians and the police are two of the main goals for the average
underage party member. Following the inevitable secrecy is where problems generate as
teenagers drive while drunk out of ignorance, lack of care, or fear of retribution as a result of

calling for assistance. At this point where this occurs, the legal drinking age does not change a
thing one way or another. Yet, if it was a twenty-one year-old drinking one-too-many beers at the
local sports bar, a cab would have been called with very little ease, and no lives would be
endangered. The aspect of secrecy is why the legal drinking age in the United States must be
lowered to nineteen.
Currently in the United States, the legal limit a person can consume alcohol and then
drive a motor vehicle is set at a 0.08 Blood Alcohol Concentration level, or BAC level. The way
BAC is calculated is based on weight, gender, and the percent of alcohol that is in the number of
drinks that a person consumes within a period of time. So an average twenty-one year-old male
who weighs about 150 pounds could drink about two drinks, depending on the alcohol content,
before getting close to the 0.08 legal BAC limit (Blood Alcohol Concentration 1). Every
individual is going to experience the various levels of drunkenness quite differently, and this
concept was demonstrated accurately in a video created by "Buzzfeed", where four widely
diverse adult males tested the legal BAC level of 0.08. About halfway through the seven minute
video, one of the males states he would not drive in his current condition, only to discover he
was still far below the legal limit. It is because of the BAC level that alcohol related fatalities
flourish in the United States, not the legal drinking age.
Alcohol-related fatalities, specifically those involving vehicles are only partially affected
by the minimum legal age, but largely dependent on the legal limit of alcohol consumption an
individual is allowed to drive with. After the legal minimum BAC level of seventy-two countries
was gathered from around the world, the average BAC level was about 0.052, compared to the
United State's level of 0.08 (Blood Alcohol Concentration 1). A lowered BAC level would mean
a person would be required to drink a fewer number of drinks in one sitting, given that it takes

less alcohol in less time to reach a BAC of 0.08. Being more cautious and careful of the BAC
level would reduce the same kind of alcohol related fatalities that are often used as a piece of
supporting evidence to raise the legal age, and due to the way the high BAC level influences
driving fatalities, it is plausible that lowering the legal drinking age in the United States to
nineteen would not effec that aspect of safety.
The final issue that is stemmed from the safety aspect of alcohol-related policy in the
United States is the danger of abusing substances that the Center for Disease Control, or CDC,
study meticulously. Although alcohol is not a contagious disease that can be turned into a
biological weapon, it is still considered a highly dangerous substance. Alcoholism is a rising
concern in nations across the world, and is kept in the minds of those who create the kind of
policies that require effects like minimum age requirements. Yet, tobacco can be purchased at the
age of eighteen, and addictive prescription drugs, which are arguably more serious than the prior
two, can be obtained with even less effort than alcohol. During the span of time between 2004
and 2009, a total of about 480,000 people died as a direct cause of tobacco usage, from anything
such as a variety of cancers to secondhand smoke (Tobacco-Related Mortality 1). Safety is
number one concern involving alcohol policy in the United States, and that is why there are so
many smaller sub-categories that must be taken into consideration. However, that does not
explain the reasoning behind allowing tobacco to be legal at a younger age, when so many
develop fatal conditions due strictly to the use of tobacco, or prescribing medications that can be
easily abused and extremely addictive. The fact that safety is a concern that is glossed over with
these two other drugs, but used as the most influential argument against lowering the legal
drinking age, shows that it is not a valid argument. Thus, the minimum drinking age in the

United States must be lowered from twenty-one to nineteen without compromising the health
and safety of its citizens.
Throughout a persons life, their brain goes through abuse that is sometimes self-inflicted,
but in other cases, it is due to external substances like drug use. The use of alcohol could be
grouped under that category, and in a study that focused on the development of the brains of
young adults, it was discovered the age of twenty-five to be the point in which the human brain
begins to slow in the stages of development. This piece of information essentially means the
current legal age for alcohol consumption in the United States is still set at a point that could
potentially damage the developing human brain. With this reasoning on a strictly developmental
level, the legal age for alcohol consumption should have been set at twenty-five, not twenty-one.
For an alcohol policy in the United States, both the costs and profits must be taken into
consideration, and is strictly why the legal age must be lowered to nineteen in the United States.
As shown and explained previously, lowering the legal drinking age would lower the mass
amounts of alcohol consumed by college students, keep legal adults aged eighteen to twenty
from drinking alcohol in unsafe locations to keep from punishment, and the number of drunkdriving fatalities caused by the exact same reason, does not out-cost the brain development that
would be lost from lowering the age by two years. Therefore, the legal drinking age in the
United States must be lowered to nineteen.
Lowering the legal drinking age in the United States to nineteen must be done for the
overall benefit of the population, but there are very specific aspects of each sub-problem which
must be carefully acknowledged and processed. The best answer to the majority of those
previously mentioned aspects, more commonly known as arguments against the legal change,
must be looked at like with the same concept as educational sex-education in schools. Teaching

safe practices to youths is more effective, and therefore safer, than attempting to just teach the
common Just Say No campaigns. To be translated to youth alcohol use, it would be translated
to teaching teenagers about the dangers they must be aware of when they inevitably use alcohol,
compared to merely instructing them not do it in the first place. For colleges across the nation,
the idea is the same. After the legal drinking age is lowered to nineteen across the United States,
those students who are eighteen must be taken into consideration as well. Policies and
Restrictions being enforced is critically important for the safety of the college campus as a
whole, as well as it having been proven that campuses with higher enforcement rates have fewer
underage binge drinkers (Wechsler, Henry 1). Unfortunately, the next problem is not so easily
solved, given the fact that culture cannot be changed as a planned calculation. The way adults
view alcohol is drastically different than the way the current teenage generation views alcohol,
which will also be drastically different than the way the growing generation will view it.
Although culture cannot be changed, the problems involving health can be helped with the ever
expanding technological world, but the start to this will only be done by first and foremost
lowering the legal minimum drinking age to nineteen in the United States.
Being forced to face morally challenging situations will inevitably happen at some point
in a person's life, but it is the way that they react that determines whether their decision is right
or wrong. Alcohol happens to be one of those moral questions, but it is up to the individuals to
decide whether they will act upon the opportunities. The kind of abuse of alcohol that exists with
young adults under eighteen does not fall on the shoulders of the legal drinking age, but the
choices of those teenagers. This applies to college students in a similar way, but differs with the
fact that lowering the legal drinking age would reduce the amount of overall alcohol abuse. The
legal age in the united states must be lowered from twenty-one to nineteen in the United States to

not only benefit the population of college-aged adults who are directly affected, but also the
health and safety of the general public, and therefore the entirety of the United States. Culture
affects all aspects of human behavior, but it cannot change overnight. Fixing the national BAC
level, or increasing enforcement of underage drinking policies on college campuses will only
strengthen the lowered legal age of nineteen, but it will take time and patience of all those
involved to allow for the greatest, and most positive, change possible.

Works Cited
"Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) Limits Worldwide." Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC)
Limits Worldwide. Icap, July 2013. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.
<http://www.icap.org/Table/BACLimitsWorldwide>.
"Comparison of Alcohol Use among U.S. and Canadian College Students." First National
Comparison of Alcohol Use among U.S. and Canadian College Students. About.com, n.d.
Web. 26 Feb. 2015. <http://alcoholism.about.com/od/college/l/blcas021217.htm>.
"International Guide to Minimum Legal Drinking Ages (MLDAs) in 138 Countries." ProConorg
Headlines. ProCon.Org, June 2011. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
<http://drinkingage.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004294>.
"Tobacco-Related Mortality." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 06 Feb. 2014. Web. 21 Feb. 2015.
<http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_m
ortality/>.
Wechsler, Henry, and Toben F. Nelson. "Will Increasing Alcohol Availability By Lowering the
Minimum Legal Drinking Age Decrease Drinking and Related Consequences Among

Youths?" American Journal of Public Health. American Public Health Association, June
2010. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866588/>.