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Legal Drinking Age

The document discusses whether the legal drinking age should remain at 21 or be lowered. It summarizes a study called the Amethyst study that found lowering the drinking age did not reduce binge or heavy episodic drinking and actually led to more drinking among younger populations. The study concluded there was a 25% increase in alcohol use with little evidence of a reduction in binge drinking. Additionally, lowering the drinking age would impose more harm on younger populations due to lack of understanding of alcohol safety and difficulty interpreting information about safe drinking levels. Overall, the document argues the drinking age should stay at 21 to prevent excessive harm to younger populations and because there is no evidence lowering the age would reduce binge drinking issues.

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August Pearson
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35 views

Legal Drinking Age

The document discusses whether the legal drinking age should remain at 21 or be lowered. It summarizes a study called the Amethyst study that found lowering the drinking age did not reduce binge or heavy episodic drinking and actually led to more drinking among younger populations. The study concluded there was a 25% increase in alcohol use with little evidence of a reduction in binge drinking. Additionally, lowering the drinking age would impose more harm on younger populations due to lack of understanding of alcohol safety and difficulty interpreting information about safe drinking levels. Overall, the document argues the drinking age should stay at 21 to prevent excessive harm to younger populations and because there is no evidence lowering the age would reduce binge drinking issues.

Uploaded by

August Pearson
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SHOULD LEGAL DRINKING AGE CHANGE OR REMAIN THE SAME?

-issue of harm on underage drinking populations spark the discussion of whether the drinking age
should remain at 21.
- Amethyst study conducted on the hypothesis that “MLDA-21 encourages underage college students to
drink in unsupervised location where heavy drinking cohorts produce a misconception of normative
drinking that, in turn, leads to heavy episodic drinking (HED) or binge drinking.” (1479)
-however Amethyst study shows that lowering the drinking age resulted in no reduction of HED/Binge
drinking episodes, more harm on younger student populations, and the existence of an innate
misunderstanding of alcohol safety.
STAY THE SAME PLS

DOES NOT LOWER HED/BINGE DRINKING


-study concluded a 25% increase in “wetness” (alcohol use) with little evidence for reduction of HED
-no observed plateau of alcohol use as theorized, drinking increased with the age reduction
-did not lessen instances of binge drinking—more people were prone to binge drinking
-did not work because of the misconception that with availability comes safety
-increase in binge drinking seen in the study pushes us to conclude that widespread MLDA-18 would
increase the primary risk of alcohol on younger people

EXCESS HARM ON YOUNGER POPULATIONS


- Prohibition of underage drinking is not perfectly enforced
-even with MLDA-21 lack of consistency with enforcement, underage drinking would remain a problem
-“Such low rates of enforcement present inadequate deterrence to young people under 21 who choose
to drink.” (2)
-Lowering the drinking age would not solve the issue of underage drinking
-“Thus, we strongly believe that lowering the drinking age will expand the college-age drinking problems
into the younger and more vulnerable high school population.” (1480)
-impose more harm and risk to younger populations therefore only deepening the issue of underage
drinking
-there is always going to be a culture of underage drinking because we as a society have made it
acceptable based on the lack of enforcement on MLDA-21, so the least we can do is keep it from
affecting the younger populations whose risks for binge drinking may increase

LACK OF EDUCATIONAL UNDRESTANDING


-there is an inherent lack of understanding of alcohol safety
-“…young drinkers had difficulty using and interpreting blood alcohol concentration (BAC) information
from self-testers and were prone to using poor judgement in responding to the information…” (1481)
-inexperienced drinkers have not developed any experience or concept of telling when they’ve reached
the legal limit and thus may continue to drink more, increasing their risk to alcohol poisoning
-important to educate young people who may drink the basic safety precautions and processes of
alcohol
-information could only prove beneficial to prospective drinkers to approach their next outing with more
caution
-however “…there is no evidence that lowering the drinking age to 18 for those who complete an
education program will reduce the binge drinking or HED problem.” (1481)
-tells that much of drinking safety comes from experience—thus keeping the drinking age at 21 allows
us to ensure that of-age drinkers are able to interpret and apply the information of alcohol safety more
effectively than possibly younger drinkers could on a basis of maturity

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