Drinking Ages in US

The alcohol laws in the U.S that deals with minimum age for the purchase have been changing as time goers by. According to the national minimum drinking act of 1984, all states in the United States were needed to raise their minimum purchase of alcohol age to 21 years. Those states that were not in compliance with the directive were faced with some penalties, for instance, the highway funds that were under the federal highway aid. The United States department of transportation ended up determining that all states were fin agreement with minimum drinking age act 1984. The national law has particularly prohibited both purchase and public possession of beverages containing alcohol. The law at all cost does not prohibit individuals who are bellow twenty one from drinking. As a result, this research proposal looks at why drinking age is set at 21 in America, (Hanson par 1).

The push on the legal age fin the U.S, came in force in 1984 as a result of different groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, along with their leaders, namely; Candy Lighter, who ended up urging that, a raise in the minimum age of drinking in the United States of America, could lead into a situation in the U.S that will be categorized as far fewer drinking driving cases, and "certainly, particularly in the onset, quite a bit of merit to Lighter's argument, and the US saw a reduction in drunk driving deaths and accidents after the 1984 law was established, especially among drivers under the age of 21. Proponents for lowering the limit say this was due not to the new restrictions, but to education on the dangers of drunk driving" (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 56).

According to the statistics to their statistics, has proved that the process of rising the minimum age of drinking in the United State has traffic facilities for individuals that are under the age of 21, reduced by 43%, this represents a 28% reduction of traffic facilities in the whole population. At the time when drinking age was brought down to 18, traffic facilities for individuals under 21 dropped by 14%, this representing 4% in the entire population. As a result, they concluded that, making 21 years as the minimum drinking age had a lot of effects on drivers who are 18-20 years, (MacKinnon, & Woodward, 1334).

There are some States like Louisiana, which deliberately set minimum drinking age at 21, mainly to ensure that they don't miss highway funding, but they still permit 18-20 aged youths to drink just like before. Apart from allowing 18-20 aged individuals to while in private, it contained one of the major loopholes, which is permitting both stores and bars to sell 18-20 aged individuals with alcohol without any penalty, this means, though the law has set 21 years as minimum age, the facto age was still 18 years. This caused an uproar that prompted Supreme Court to reverse its former decision, and rose the age to 21 three month later, though other exemptions still exist.

The state had an idea that, establishing laws that prohibit the selling of alcoholic beverages to minors, provides it with a way of enforcing limits, and ensures the provision of natural consequences of being drunk, that may be the law might punish, hence discouraging underage drinking. In addition to this," individuals under the age of 21 are much immature enough to start handling alcohols", (Barbara, 10). As a result, they might be vulnerable to risky behaviors like binge drinking, as well as addiction like alcoholism.

Raising age limits ensured prevention of underage drinking. Since most youths under the age of 21 are in schools, hence teenage drinking school dropout or even failing grades. In addition, such youngsters might ends up testing other drugs. According to the research by Zylman, "teenagers who drink alcohol or do drug regularly are five times as likely to drop out of high school. What future does a kid that drops out of high school have?" (Zylman, 15)