Legal drinking age should not change because of survey

Heather kemp, Staff Writer

Do you remember that time when 100 college presidents signed a petition saying that the legal drinking age being 21 is not working?

This sounds like a plot to a teen comedy that would rake in big bucks at the box office.

If it ever was made into a movie, it would be based on true events because this actually happened.

In 2009, the college presidents of over 100 campuses from across the U.S. signed in protest to the current drinking age, according to an article from CBS News.

According to the article, these esteemed, and possibly drunk, scholars argued that the legal drinking age being set at 21 was not realistic and they wanted it lowered to 18.

Today, the debate rages on.

More recently, it is being brought up that perhaps the law still isn’t working and U.S. should lower the legal drinking age to 19 instead, according to an article from CNN.

Let’s face it, almost everyone on a college campus has indulged in some underaged boozing, and even the majority of high school students have tried on their beer goggles.

By their 18th birthday, 70 percent of teenagers have tried some sort of alcohol, according to The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

With drinking rates being so high for those underage partakers, why not decrease the drinking age and avoid all the hassle of punishing them?

This is a seriously dangerous perspective to take.

Yes, some youngsters can handle their liquor, but making it more readily available will not be good for the majority of our youth.

Young people have on average five drinks per occasion, which is binge drinking, according to the NIAAA.

A buzz starts after one drink, and after the second and third the loosey-goosey stage takes effect, before you know it, you’re blacked out and have no concept of what’s going on around you.

A cocktail of bad things can take place after that, like alcohol poisoning, sexual assault or even death.

One may argue that these things can happen no matter what your age group, but shouldn’t we be guarding our youth from this nonetheless?

Having a lower drinking age will just make it easier for younger and younger kids to get their hands on alcohol.

The Connection

People who have their first drink at 15 or younger are five times as likely to have issues with alcohol than those who don’t drink until they’re 21, according to a survey from The National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

It seems ludicrous that with all the bad facts associated with young drinkers there would still be a push to lower the legal drinking age.

The age was set at 21 in 1984 to protect from underage drinking related car accidents, but it has protected everyone from much more harm than that.

It simply should not be lowered.

If we changed every law on the books just because someone wasn’t happy with it, think of the world we would live in.