Introduction:

There has been much debate that
the drinking age should be lowered to 18 years, the drinking age was set at 21
years in 1984 in the United
States and it should remain at 21 years. The
first question we should ask is who wants the drinking age to be increased, is
it the population aged below 21 years or is it the producers of alcohol or is
it our leaders. The next question is who will benefit when the age is reduced
to 18 years. If the populations aged below 21 years and have attained 18 years
wants the age reduced to 18 years then are they making the right decisions or
are they capable of making the right decisions, adults should guide the younger
generations and therefore we can say the under 21 years are making the right
decision.

The next issue is whether the
under 21 years will benefits, according to the situation they are not likely to
receive any benefits because the producers of alcohol are the ones who will
benefit from this decrease in the drinking age, the first reason is because the
demand for alcohol will increase as a result of introducing the product to a
younger population that previously was not allowed to drink.

This presentation highlights
the reasons why the drinking age should remain at the age of 21 years, some of
the reason include increased accidents, increased diseases associated with
drinking alcohol, increased problems with the law among the under 21 years.

 Reasons
why the drinking age should remain at 21 years:

Increased
accidents:

Drinking among under 21 years
has increased in the past, this has led to increased drink driving fatal
accidents among these teens, according to the national highway traffic safety
administration 12.8% of fatal accidents are alcohol related and that 40% of
these accidents are related with teen drink driving. Therefore if we allow
those aged between 18 to 21 years to drink then this means that we will be
increasing the number of drink driving fatal accidents.

The problem is that when fatal
accidents occur due to drinking innocent road users will also suffer in the
process, this is because despite the laws that exist that prohibit drink
driving teens are more likely to break the law than grown ups and therefore we
should not set the drinking age at 18 years, we should not solve the problem of
drink driving by making more problems on roads by allowing more people to
drink, we should be solving this problems by adopting policy measures that
minimize the drink driving problem among the under 21 years.

The following picture shows an
accident that occurred due to drink driving, the picture was retrieved from http://www.car-accidents.com/drunk-driving-accidents.html.

From the above accident it is
evident that two vehicles were involved in the accident, however it is also
evident that only one of the vehicles caused the accident and the innocent also
suffered.

Scientific evidence show that
those aged below 21 years are less experienced drivers, it is clear that
driving involves reasoning, concentration 
and making proper judgments. If a driver drinks then this slows down
their judgments and concentration leading to fatal accidents, this can be even
worse for drivers who are less experienced example those aged below 21 years.

Below is another picture
showing a fatal accident caused by drink driving, the picture was retrieved
from http://www.car-accidents.com/drunk-driving-accidents.html

From the above image it is
evident that the occupants of the vehicle were badly injured, despite this the
merchandise owner also suffers from the accidents.

Increased accidents will mean
higher medical expenses among the under 21 years, increased deaths among the
under 21 years and other age groups, loss of property, increased court cases
that may be will lead to wastage of time and finally the population will spend
more on alcohol than in other economic development projects such as
investments.

Increased
diseases:

We expect the life expectancy
to decline as a result of the reduction of the legal drinking age to 18 years,
this is because excessive drinking of alcohol leads to major physical problems
example of these problems include liver damage as a  result of excessive drinking which may cause
the Cirrhosis disease, the other problem is that excessive drinking will lead
to stomach ulcers, high blood pressure and heart diseases and finally excessive
alcohol consumption may lead to the killing of brain cells that will lead to
impaired coordination, judgment and reasoning.

For this reason therefore the
increase in the occurrence of this alcohol related diseases will lead to a
decline in life expectancy among the under 21 years, the other problem is that
there will be increased spending on health by both individuals and the
government, there will also be an increase in spending on alcohol which may
reduce economic growth where these funds would have been diverted to other
income generating projects or even spent on clothing, food, investments and
education.

Other
diseases:

When people get drunk they are
more prone to pressure from their friends, for the under 21 years peer pressure
is one of these problems, it is evident that the young women aged below 21
years will be more likely be willing to having sex and worse even unprotected
sex when they are drunk, a thing they may have not done if they were sober,
through this the policy measure to reduce the drinking age will result into
increased sexually transmitted diseases among the under 21 years, increased
unwanted pregnancies and finally increased immorality among the young
generation in the nation. For this reason therefore we should not reduce the
drinking age from 21 years to 18 years in order to protect the young from such
problems that they may face.

Increased
drug abuse:

According to a study undertaken
in 2005 by SADD results showed that there was a rise in the consumption of
alcohol among the under 21 years, it was also evident that those who consumed
alcohol before attaining the age of 21 years we more likely to abuse alcohol
than those who first have alcohol at the age of 21 years, this shows that we
will increase drug addiction by setting the drinking age at 18 years and this
can only be reduced by letting the drinking age to be at 21 years and  also other policy measures.

Who
benefits:

We now analyze who benefits
from the decrease in the drinking age to 18 years, from the above discussion we
have analyzed the problems that the under 21 years will face, the youth will
benefit only because they will be in a position to enjoy alcohol and will have
the freedom to drink it, however the producers of alcohol will benefit more due
to an increase in the demand and therefore will increase their market share, we
must also ask what will happen in the future, if we allow the age to be reduced
to 18 years then the next few years people will want the age to be reduced to
16 years then 10 years, we should make policies that protect the young generation
and not destroy them.

The US census website shows the
population size in 2000 and the following chart summarizes the percentage
composition of the age groups in the year, data was retrieved from http://www.census.gov/popest/datasets.html

From the above chart those aged
between the age of 18 and 21 years comprised of 6% in April 2000, this is a
rough estimate of the percentage today and this means that by lowering the
drinking age to 18 years will allow 6% of the population to abuse alcohol. We
should however try to protect these generation by helping them make the right
decisions and not make them drink and die young. The alcohol producing firms
are well aware of the market share increase if the age is reduced to 18 years
in order for them to make higher profits, however it is better for us to save
lives than allow firms to make selfish proposals in order to increase profits.

 References:

Car accident photos (2008)
drunk driving accident photos, retrieved on 28^th August, available
at http://www.car-accidents.com/drunk-driving-accidents.html

NHTSA (2008) National highway
traffic safety administration drunk driving statistics, retrieved on 28^th
August, available at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/  

SADD (2008) drunk driving
statistics, retrieved on 28^th August, available at http://www.sadd.org/stats.htm

US census
(2008) population size by age 2000, retrieved on 28^th August,
available at http://www.census.gov/popest/datasets.html

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