Drinking of alcohol by young people has been viewed for a long period, as a vice to be condemned, yet the quarters that condemn it are still the ones that promote drinking. Age has been implied as a factor to be considered on whether one should take alcohol or not. In my opinion, the average minimum drinking age should be lowered to eighteen years of age because various sources have shown that drinking alcohol for many youths begins as early as the age of eleven years. (Cucchiaro and Ferreira 17). This implies that even if in the law it is illegal for such underage to drink alcohol, there have been many loopholes, which allow teenagers to access alcohol at a very young age. Unless proper mechanisms are put in place, increasing the minimum drinking age is of little or no effect.
Increasing the minimum drinking age to twenty-one years serves as an undoing in the fight against underage drinking. Humans have nature, which craves for the forbidden. As the saying goes that forbidden water tastes sweetest proves to be right, when alcohol is forbidden to youths who are above eighteen years, it tends to heighten curiosity and the desire to know why they are not being allowed to drink. This leads to unregulated drinking in binges and in parties where they have exposure to alcohol. Recent researches have shown that in states where their minimum drinking age has been lowered to eighteen years of age have lower rates of underage drinking compared to states that had their minimum drinking age being twenty-one years.
It is also a fact that excessive consumption of alcohol is harmful irrespective of one’s age. Legal drinkers, as well as underage drinkers, have caused many accidents. Those who want to justify and politicize the causes of many automobile accidents, which are caused by alcohol, only use age as an excuse. Though there are instances where many teenagers have lost lives after driving when drunk, there are twice as many cases of people above the age of twenty-one years who have been involved in drunken-driving accidents? (Clark and Firkins 33) Policymakers should therefore not blame the age of drinkers but the negligence of the drinkers.
Another problem, which has been associated with the minimum drinking age of twenty-one years, is the massive crackdown on young people by authorities. The immense crackdown gets many young people in prisons and jails often exposing them to drugs such as cocaine and massive resentment towards authorities who they feel are harassing them for no apparent reason. There is also a tendency by authorities to arrest only the young people while sparing the merchants who sell alcohol to them.
In Conclusion, the age limitation of alcohol drinking should be of eighteen years rather than twenty-one years. This is because by the age of eighteen years the young person is a mature person capable of making reasonable decisions based on the proper cognitive evaluation. The legal redress of underage drinking should not be addressed by having a higher age limit but through compulsory education on the effects of alcohol on young people. The education will serve a better purpose in portraying the effects of alcohol drinking such as accidents, diseases such as liver cirrhosis among others. This will go a long way in curbing underage drinking rather than putting an age limit on whom to drink.
Works Cited
Clark, Fredrick and Firkins, Douglass. The Effect of Lower Legal Drinking Ages on Youth. California: Highway Safety Research Institute, 1974. Print.
Cucchiaro, Steve and Ferreira, Joseph. The Effect of the 18-Year-Old Drinking Age on Auto Accidents. Massachusetts: Institute of Technology, 1974. Print.