Pros And Cons Of Lowering The Drinking Age

Introduction:

One on-going debate that has caused quite the argument between researchers, and that has been going on for decades in America, has been if the minimum legal drinking age should be lowered from age 21 to 18 for U.S. citizens. It has been clear that there is a drinking problem amongst this age range, for excessive drinking contributes to more than 4,300 deaths a year among those who under 21 in the U.S. (Fact Sheets, 2016). The debate in this argument circles around pinpointing the right method to combat this drinking problem. On one side, there are top professional researchers and institutes that believe that the MLDA, or minimum legal drinking age, should continue to stay at 21. They believe that this is the most appropriate MLDA, because they believe teens younger than this age don’t know how to handle alcohol responsibly, which could ultimately result in harm to themselves or others. On the other side of this argument are those who believe the MLDA should be lowered to around 18 or 19 years old. Proponents of this argument

This means that if the MLDA of 21 were to be changed a whole set of legislation that has proved to be the most effective in the research that we have today would need to be re-thought out, and it could lead to “unknown and potentially serious consequences” (Saylor, 2011). For example, states have implemented effective laws that address issues such as keg registration, fake id’s, open public containers, and providing minors with alcohol in order to complement and make the current 21 MLDA even more effective (Saylor, 2011). Those for the 21 MLDA are worried that taking away these laws that have proved to be the most effective in our research that we have today to try out other methods would provide unknown results that could be very