Bazola 1

Thierry Bazola
English 112-78
Professor Connie Douglas
8 September 2016, 2016
Lowering the Drinking age in America, a Real Controversial Issue
Twenty-one years of age is the legally drinking age even though adulthood age is
eighteen-years in the United States of America. Being eighteen mean several right and
responsibility for the new adult. It is important to mention this idea of being adult because the
question of legal age to consume alcohol is legitimately attach to another important question:
when are you an adult. Like a fifty-year-old, a male or female who is entering a college or
finishing his high school, citizen or simply resident in the country may vote, serve on a jury,
operate a motor vehicle, pay taxes, marry, become a legal guardian, own a gun, fight and die in a
foreign country. One of the most important difference that some can consider as a detail between
the eighteen-years old and the fifty-years old is the right to purchase and consume alcohol.
When parents, researcher, nonprofit groups, or even the first concern by this debate
(teens) have a discussion about this issue, the first argument for the favorable to the lowering the
legal age to consume alcohol is the idea that emerge is the enrolment and service for the millions
young male and female: eighteen is the appropriate time for many to become military. How can
you fight in the army and cant be responsible enough to drink an alcoholic beverage but the
unfavorable to the idea of lowering the drinking age do not take in consideration the Rhode
Island State law relative to the minimum age to be candidate governor? At eighteen, you can be
governor of Rhode Island but cannot consume alcohol. With the act signed by President Reagan

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in 1984, the legal drinking age has been 21. This act was passed on July 17, 1984. It was a
controversial bill that punished every state that allowed persons below 21 years to purchase and
publicly possess alcoholic beverages by reducing its annual federal highway apportionment by
ten percent. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act concerns all the fifty states but a big
number of states are attempting to introduce legislation that would lower the drinking age to
eighteen. Wechsler can better explain the push from Washington to the local state to adopt what
many call arbitrary law by this words; requiring that states prohibit the purchase and public
possession of alcohol for persons aged younger than 21years in order to receive all of their
federal highway funds.16 By 1988 all states had a minimum legal drinking age of 21 years.
(Wechsler) Wisconsin is one of this state debating publicly about lowering the minimum drinking
age. The way to obtain the change can seem as long as difficult with some critics that appear
since this idea is formulate by some local legislators. For the unfavorable to the lowering the
drinking age, the unique argument is that the raising age to twenty-one have the advantage to
reduce the traffic fatalities and alcohol-related accidents. They cite for example some cases of
sexual violence. For many people, thinking age and drinking, it is also thinking safety. The recent
history of the United States can present different position for different states on minimum
drinking ages depending on the circumstances. But when research showed an increase in traffic
fatalities in these states, state legislatures began to reverse course . ( Hennessy ) The truth is that
the law has not stopped minors from drinking. More than thirty years since the National
Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 was passed, teens behavior have never change. On the
contrary, most of the American campuses have to deal with a real problem of alcohol abuse by
students. Outside these campuses to situation is the same with teens doing the same thing but in
different environment.

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To show the real controversy around this question of legal age for drinking, two
articles will serve like support. The first one is written by Dennis Tamburello who is a Franciscan
friar and a professor of religious studies at Siena College, in Loudonville, New York.
The Legal Drinking Age Exacerbates Underage Drinking. Should the Legal Drinking Age Be
Lowered? is the title of this article write by a catholic friar on the form of a moral point of view
on the matter of the legal drinking age of twenty-one. The second is a viewpoint appear on the
Daily the Press-telegram and signed by Tom Hennessy with the title Lower the age of drinking
age is no solution. If the first article seems to be in favor of lowering the minimum age of
drinking, the press-telegram one is completely oppose to this idea by one major argument
expressing that young they consume alcohol; unsafe it is for themselves and others.
Responsibility is the key for a better understand of drinking problem. The author suggests that
the law endangers lives because adolescents have no chance of learning how to drink responsibly. He also
considers that the law as far from being the solution to the problem of underage drinking. On contrary, has
forced young adults eighteen to twenty to drink illegally and without supervision. If the legal drinking age
cannot be lowered as soon we think, a change in the American culture of drinking is the first step for a change,
along with more responsible and mature behavior by teenagers.
This article is very interesting because it shows that most the time researcher suggests that alcohol causes
more damage to the developing brains of teenagers them significantly more than it does adult brains, and also
early heavy drinking may undermine the precise neurological capacities needed to protect oneself from
alcoholism but the author share his own experience with students by claiming different point of view. For him,
not all students are expose on heavy drinking. In fact, its an excuse for all students to proclaim drinking heavy
because: "Everyone is doing it. It's part of being in college."
This article is related to many others favorable to the lowering drinking because his conclusion is the same
like shown before: education is the key if we want to change the way students drink. The only one difference is
the ton or kind of voice. Most of articles are write by jurist or scientist working on the health field but this one

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is different because his author proposes a moral or religious point of View. After all, Jesus himself was known
to drink wine the author underlines.

In Tom Hennessys article, the pathos is the best way to treat this question that he
thinks is attach the safety and health of not only the young consumer, but also the general
population. His article is concentrate more on the situation inside and around the Americans
campuses where alcohol become a big problem. He cited Duke as an example of school officials
taking action to push students to more responsible choices but at the end, the question is more
difficult to answer than questioning. The article put the question of alcohol and young Americans
in the historical context before trying to give an appropriate answer to the Amethyst initiative to
lower the drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen proposes by college and university
presidents like Duke, Ohio State and others. Historically, the movement of opposition the
lowering of drinking age have a big argument by using the number of death between early 1960
and after 1980 with the Reagan Act. This fact is confirmed in the article by Dr. Henry Wechsler,
retired director of the College of Alcohol Study at Harvards school of Public Health, who treats
the presidents of college initiative as bureaucratic nuisance . The reality is different than
present by the group of president of college with the number of death in the 1970s higher than
when the age was raised in the 1980s. Conclusion drinking at twenty-one have in effect lessened
deaths by traffic accidents.
The most effective in fulfilling his intention is the first article not because he think
the age should be lower but because he took the time to investigate with different experts and
made a real choice with the permit that can be a practical choice than different theory and
example like in the College campuses without real impact. Even though the Amethyst initiative
is not the perfect solution to the drinking problem among students in America, starting the public

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debate about this issue is better than nothing. Using the number of death as argument to maintain
the legal age of drinking at his actuals state is simply a short way to solve a problem that impact
multitude of domain like health, psychology, mental .
The two point of view are completely opposed with the first one that the raising of the legal
drinking age to 21 is part of the problem, not the solution when the second suggests that twentyone like legal age have a tremendous effect on the decreasing number of deaths-related to drunk
driving.

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Works Cited

Tamburello, Friar Dennis. "The Legal Drinking Age Exacerbates Underage

Drinking." Should the Legal Drinking Age Be Lowered? Ed. Stefan Kiesbye. Detroit:
Greenhaven Press, 2008. At Issue. Rpt. from "Clean and Sober." Timesunion.com 15 July
2006. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.

Tom Hennessy: Lower Drinking Age is no Solution." Press - TelegramAug 23 2008.

ProQuest. Web. 1 Sep.

2016. Wechsler, Henry, PhD., and Toben F. Nelson ScD. "Will Increasing

Alcohol Availability by Lowering the Minimum Legal Drinking Age Decrease Drinking and Related
Consequences among Youths?" American Journal of Public Health 100.6 (2010): 986-92. ProQuest. Web. 6
Sep. 2016.