Posted: July 14th, 2022

Keeping the Drinking Age at 21

Keeping the Drinking Age at 21
The Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) law of the united states prohibits the purchase and consumption of alcohol for all persons below the age of 21. Before the enactment of this law in 1984, different states had varying legal age limits for the purchase and consumption of alcohol. Initially, only a few states began by raising the legal age to 21, and there were notable improvements in terms of decline in motor vehicle crushes. More states followed suit, and the consumption of alcohol among people between 18-20 years declined significantly.
Critics against the current MLDA law argue that the minimum legal age limit of 21 forces youths to drink in secret, which can result in binge drinking as they try to stash and consume as much as possible all at once. According to them, lowering the age will reduce binge drinking and int-turn lower alcohol-related deaths.
However, there are equally strong supporters that the legal age should be maintained at 21. And they have quite compelling reasons as to why the legal age should remain 21. Excessive consumption of alcohol by persons under 21 has been associated with many alcohol-related deaths, underage drinking, and addiction. According to statistics, excessive drinking by persons under 21 results in health problems that contribute to more than 3,000 deaths each year.
Multiple pieces of research also tend to support this argument. For instance, researchers from the University of Boston found that maintaining the legal age at 21 saves a lot of lives by reducing cases of drunk driving and crushes. According to the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, more than 88,000 Americans died due to alcohol-related causes between 2000-2010. Researchers also looked at the causes of the seemingly high death cases between 1990 to 20004. They noticed that there were over 200,000 suicidal deaths and more than 130,000 homicides among young people slightly above 18 years. After the National minimum Age limit was enacted in 1984, these numbers plummeted significantly in the succeeding years.
The basic idea behind the minimum legal age is to protect youths from consuming alcohol consumption and other harmful substances until they are adults. Despite the federal law that makes it illegal for people under 21 to take alcohol, it is apparent that approximately 80% of college students still consume alcohol. But even though the law does not eliminate alcohol consumption among teenagers completely, the much that it deters has significant health benefits. The law makes it harder for people under 21 to purchase and consume alcohol, potentially saving thousands of lives in alcohol-related accidents, crimes, liver cirrhosis, among others.

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