Running Head: SHOULD THE DRINKING AGE BE LOWERED?
Jacklym Rincon
Florida National College
Abstract
This article is creative to show opinions and points of view about the lowered drinking age to 18. Some causes and effects that I personally find really interesting, as a matter of fact alcohol is a reality in the lives of young Americans. “It cannot be ignored or denied, most important it cannot be legislated”.
Every year around this time, millions of Americans kids graduate from high school, throw massive parties and get drunk. Police end up arresting a lot of these kids, causing them legal trouble for months or even years. So, every year around this time, there is a new debate about this situation.
John MacCardell, a former college president that wants to promote the idea that drinking should be lowered from 21 to 18. He founded Choose Responsibility, a non – profit organization (2007), is an organization interested in consequences of the 21 year-old drinking age.
This organization claim that legal age 21 has postponed fatalities-not reduced them-. Choose Responsibility supporters have also claimed that others countries that have not risen their drinking ages saw their drunk-driving fatalities drop even faster than the U.S in 2006. Being one of the only four nations worldwide with a drinking as high as 21- we share this rank with Indonesia, Mongolia and Palau.
But there’s a more basic problem: if the drinking age is lowered to 18 who is going to provide the supervision that Choose Responsibility or John MacCardell suggest?. Obviously not bars owners. Who wants to sell them as many drinks as possible that’s a fact.
In others aspects, the critics like John Cloud, a journalist from TIME MAGAZINE (June 06, 2008) says that MacCardell is right that the U.S has an odd and dysfunctional relationship with alcohol, and his voice is also a refreshment for those high school and college students, “but lowering the drinking age is going...