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None Provided5

None Provided5 Imagine spending over $250 on a beer. Currently, Wisconsin law reprimands underage drinking offenses with multiple fines and penalties. For any offence, penalties range from fines, suspension of driving priveleges, participation in supervised work programs, or a combination thereof. The first offence costs between $250 and $500. If a second offence is within a twelve month period, fines of up to $300-$500, a third offence raises the bill to $500-$750, and $750-$1,000 is the price tag of fourth and subsequent offences. In all fifty states, it is illegal to purchase or consume alcoholic beverages if you are under the age of twenty-one. Many people agree with this legal restriction and some would even say that it should be raised. However, the legal drinking age sometimes causes more problems that it prevents. First, it is necessary to question this law. Why is twenty-one the “magical” age that makes one intelligent and mature enough to consume alcohol? This seemingly random number is associated with adulthood, as if the day a person turns twenty-one they know everything and are mature. At the age of eighteen, people are considered adults. It is legal for them to fly planes, vote, marry, pay taxes, take out loans, smoke a cigarette and risk their lives in the armed forces. Yet, it is still illegal to drink. At sixteen, people are allowed to drive cars, which cause far more fatalities than alcohol. This in a whole, suggests that the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen. Many parents of today's teenagers were legally allowed to drink at eighteen. Today's teenagers face more responsibility and are treated more like adults than their parents were. This makes the twenty-one restriction seem out of date. People under twenty-one are becoming more responsible. Statistics show that young people are more responsible then any other age group because of greater education about alcohol. According to MADD, the age group between sixteen and twenty-one are more likely than any other age group to use alternative methods when hosting a social event to try to prevent their guest from drinking and driving. Drivers sixteen to twenty involved in fetal crashes and were intoxicated dropped from 47% in 1985 to 13% in 1994. That is the largest decrease then any other age group. The decrease in drinking and driving problems are the result of many factors and not just the rise in purchase age. Education and communication is the reason that people under twenty-one are becoming more mature. According to CQ Researcher, “The drop in death from drunk driving stems from better education, not drinking age.” MADD statistics show that high school seniors who reported any alcohol use in the prior month fell from a peak of 72% in 1980 to 51% in 1993. With the focus on education about safe drinking instead of restriction, many problems would be averted. American teenagers, unlike European teens, would learn to drink gradually, safely and in moderation. Though the per capita consumption of alcohol in countries like France, Spain and Portugal is greater than in the US, the rate of alcoholism and alcohol abuse is lower. This comes from educated and gradual drinking. Young people learn to regard moderate drinking as an enjoyable social activity rather than as something they have to sneak around to do. Without this kind of system, college is viewed as a kind of liberation. If eighteen year olds do not have legal access to even a beer in a public place, they are ill equipped to deal with the responsibilities that come with drinking when they do have the right. Why is the age set at twenty-one then? In 1981 President Regan signed the Legal Age of Consumption Act, which strongly encouraged states to raise the legal drinking age to 21 by denying the 10% of highway funds for the states that didn’t comply. The Tenth amendment states “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by the states are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” This clearly portrays that the government illegally made the age of alcohol consumption twenty-one. The legal age of alcohol consumption is a form of age discrimination. After 9:00, a bar serving alcohol can not have any such person under the age of twenty-one in their establishment even if the person is in the accompaniment of a parent. This law is severely in the effect to age discrimination. The current age has no real basis. With a lowered drinking age, fewer problems will be present. We need to teach safe drinking-drinking in moderation. Today's legal drinking age is unrealistic. Prohibiting the sale of liquor to young adults creates an atmosphere where binge drinking and alcohol abuse have become a problem. Banning drinking for young people makes it a badge of adulthood. It becomes the “forbidden fruit”. Teenagers look at drinking as something glamorous. It is viewed as an adult activity; and teenagers want to be adults as soon as possible. In order to get a drink, teenagers will carry fake I.D.s or sneak drinks from their parents' liquor cabinets. This kind of devious attitude does not encourage responsible drinking. Furthermore, when the opportunity to drink arises, there is a kind of "Let’s be bad" attitude. The result is binge drinking. If the age were lowered to eighteen, this would reduce binge drinking and alcohol consumption would become less taboo. On one’s eighteenth birthday, drinking will not be the only celebration, as it is at twenty-one. Prohibition laws are not working, they didn’t work in the 1920’s and they’re not working now. Because the twenty-one year old drinking age law is not effective, and is counterproductive, it behooves us as a nation to change our current prohibition law and teach responsible drinking techniques for those who chose to consume alcoholic beverages. Bibliography:

Word Count: 973