Be sure to reply to posat no later than midnight on Sunday, February 4 (100 words minimum for each reply).
After much thought and consideration about this answer, I think that the legal drinking age should remain the same. I stand by this decision because if the drinking age were lowered like before, this could cause more chaos and confusion in the world. I think regardless of whether the drinking age should stay the same or should change, children are still going to make their own choices when choosing what to do and what not to do. I think the main reason that the articles talk about underage drinking, binge drinking, excessive drinking, and many different accidents that happen, I think that the awareness and attention of this widespread issue needs to be made more clear. Now that our society has changed with increasing amounts of dangers in our society, many people can have mixed reviews about whether the age should stay or change.
Also, being that European nations have a higher tendency to have more alcohol-related problems, this goes to show that many countries are also having a huge problem. Even when people go out of state for traveling purposes, the legal drinking age changes as well so this could cause some people to rebel and move away so they can legally drink elsewhere.
According to the CDC, there are many consequences and bad patterns that begin to develop if drinking alcohol becomes excessive especially for our youth:
- School problems, such as higher absence and poor or failing grades.
- Social problems, such as fighting and lack of participation in youth activities.
- Legal problems, such as arrest for driving or physically hurting someone while drunk.
- Physical problems, such as hangovers or illnesses.
- Unwanted, unplanned, and unprotected sexual activity.
- Disruption of normal growth and sexual development.
- Physical and sexual assault.
- Higher risk for suicide and homicide.
- Alcohol-related car crashes and other unintentional injuries, such as burns, falls, and drowning.
- Memory problems.
- Abuse of other drugs.
- Changes in brain development that may have life-long effects.
- Death from alcohol poisoning.
In general, the risk of youth experiencing these problems is greater for those who binge drink than for those who do not binge drink. Youth who start drinking before age 15 years are six times more likely to develop alcohol dependence or abuse later in life than those who begin drinking at or after age 21 years (CDC, 2016).
Reference
CDC – Fact Sheets-Underage Drinking – Alcohol. (2016, October 20). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm