During the National Prohibition in the 1920s these laws made every state change their MLDA to 21 years old. But these laws were repealed because they were unenforceable and caused other social problems. Facts show that young adult underage are more likely to be “binge” drinkers. 32% of heavy drinkers were underage while only 24% were of legal age (Why the drinking age should be lowered, 1). Research from the 1980s reveal that there has been a decrease in drinking and drinking among students before the law that made every states MLDA 21 years old.
Since the turn of the new century, researchers and doctors studied carefully the effects of drinking alcohol among different age classes. The category that even continuing as an important subject to discuss is the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) from 18 to 21. The minimum legal drinking age in the United States is 21. After the cancelation of the alcohol prohibition on December, 5, 1933 by the 21st amendment, each state sat their Minimum Legal Drinking Age of 21, but during the Vietnam War the situation change and it required 16 years old young people to go to the war as an adult. By July, 1, 1970 thirty states minimize their MLDA to 18.
This act made it impossible for liquor to be sold to any dry state. This was actually a loss for the dry states because this made methods of getting liquor illegal and the liquor industry soon went hand in hand with crime. Also the government got taxes. In 1917, the 18th amendment was proposed to ban the manufacture of liquor. Many states did not agree on this causing this proposal to be in debate for almost 2 years.
But, keeping the drinking age at 21 avoids negative effects of alcohol consummation before 21, and it allows for less violence in the community. However, our society’s specific age approach tends to come down to restricting the freedoms of the young and increasing their punishments. Debate over the drinking age has been a long battle over the years and has only gotten worse. Almost every other country besides America sets the drinking age at 18. Is a 19 year-old responsible enough to go to war yet not order an alcoholic drink at a bar?
The majority of Americans did not agree with Prohibition and sought for an outright appeal to the Eighteenth Amendment as the 1928 election approached. Prohibition did not official end until December 5, 1933 when the 21st Amendment was ratified repealing the 18th Amendment. The 21st Amendment allowed for alcoholic beverages with a content of 3.2 percent alcohol could be bought and sold once again in the United States.
The congress wanted the ban on alcohol. They added the 18th amendment, which banned the manufacture, transportation, and the sale of intoxicating liquor. The 18th amendment was enacted in 1919. It went affect on January 16th, 1920. Since the drinking was on the rise after the American Revolution, a number of societies were organized as part of the new Temperance movement.
Despite the concern of the people, articles such as “One Year after Newtown, Congress Still Stalled on Gun Control” from the CBS news shows that the Congress had been reluctant on passing such regulations. The Congress rejected most of the executions that President Obama has suggested, but these are the methods that should be valued when speaking of reducing gun violence. Every year, it is estimated about 30,000 people died because of gun violence. If our country had made stricter gun laws, the number would have been much lower. II.
Between the 1920’s and 1933 the use and purchase of alcohol was illegal. In 1933 when prohibition ended, the Twenty First Amendment left states free to legalize, regulate or prohibit alcohol as they saw fit (Miron 317). This caused some states to ban alcohol all together like Alabama and others to not have a drinking age at all, like Colorado (Miron 318). The most common minimum drinking age was 21 where 32 states saw it fit to set it at that. 1970 to 1976, 30 states lowered their drinking age to 18 because of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment.
This is when another law was passed withholding highway funding to any state that l... ... middle of paper ... ... with it and underage drinking would not be such an issue. The debate on this issue has been ongoing since the drinking age was lowered in the 1970’s. The point is, no matter what, underage consumption of alcohol is going to happen with the minimum age it is at right now. The big controversies are the risks that are associated with the consumption of alcohol; however changing the drinking age did not make the death rate due to alcohol go down. “In fact, it is one of the most researched public health laws on the books.
Drunk driving casualties is one of the factors that caused people to question the age of which someone is allowed to drink. Casualty caused by druk driving of the last 40 years. In the 70’s states lowered it to 18 due to the lowering of the reduced military enlistment and voting age. The community will say that raising the age of the drinking age to 21 reduced the amount of casualties caused by drunk driving but that is not true. In 1984 the drinking age was changed to 21 by the federal government any state that did not comply would lose 10 percent of their government funding.