Essay on "Values Alcohol 18 Versus 21"

Essay 6 pages (1913 words) Sources: 10 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Drinking Age

Values and the Lowering of the Drinking Age to 18

Health professionals, educators and public officials have argued that underage drinking is a serious sociological concern and a major public health crisis in the United States. The impression that America's youth trend toward binge drinking, intoxicated driving and a range of other unhealthy behaviors associated with alcohol consumption at a greater rate than is true in other countries may have less to do with distinctions in America's culture than its laws. Indeed, the United States has long struggled to define its position on the sale and consumption of spirituous beverages, with the prohibition of the early 20th century demonstrating the sharp contrast between moral watchdog groups which target alcohol and the major sectors of public and private interest who embrace it.

Though prohibition was quickly repealed due to its total lack of enforceability, lawmakers have battled over a drinking age that has wavered between 18 and 21. The last time that it was at this former point was during the Vietnam Era. Here, lawmakers would bend to one of the clearest rationales for lowering the age, with critics asking, "how can we as a society say that 18-year-olds are old enough to kill or die in the armed forces, participate in the course of the nation in the voting booth, judge their peers in a jury, and, yes, operate automobiles ... But that they are insufficiently mature to take a drink." (Schlesinger, 1) This logic would produce a change in law and would simultaneously establish a basis for many of the arguments made today.

This is because the wave of political pressure and the resident ideology of a conservative presidency would roll the age back up once more, demonstrating a dubious relationship between lobby interests and the policy's malleable nature. Accordingly, "the legal drinking age in the United States of America is twenty one, raised to such in all fifty states by 1988, though the first few began in 1984. This was due to the National Minimum Age Drinking Act, signed into law in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan." (Faler, 1)

Thesis:

The Reagan Act would deliver us to our current situation, which many critics liken to the scenario facing lawmakers during the time of prohibition. With all logic appearing to dictate that Americans are regarded in every other legal sense as adults by the age of 18, there is a clear cultural and ideological unwillingness on the part of individuals and groups to obey these laws. In turn, they cannot be enforced, which has produced an underground drinking pattern which only intensifies such concerns as driving with intoxicated or developing teen alcoholism. These conditions insist that a lowering of the legal age to 18 is the only way to adjust alcohol standards to meet the terms of our general legal system.

Punch List:

The failure of America's policy may well have been foretold by the implications of its law. Accordingly, "the U.S. currently has the highest minimum drinking age of any country in the entire world. This is a radical social experiment both historically and internationally. Unfortunately, there is considerable evidence that such a high minimum drinking age, which criminalizes drinking by millions of citizens who are socially and legally adults, has many unintended consequences." (MI, 1) Among those unintended consequences, the experiences of America's college students are of particular concern. In these contexts, where little supervision is either provided or intended, students will engage in recreational substance use, with alcohol being the most prominent among said substances. For college presidents, campus police and students alike, it is generally understood that students will engage in these behaviors, with enforcement extending only so far as preventative education and a punitive system designed for those who are caught.

As law enforcement agents in major college towns indicate though, those who are caught hardly show the tip of the iceberg where college drinking is concerned. Accordingly, "Mark Beckner, the chief of police in Boulder, Colo. - a college town - deals with underage drinking every day. 'We're not in a situation where we can stop it. The best we can do is try to contain it.'" (Stahl, 1) This is a perspective which is contributing to the movement to alter laws which are clearly not working.

This is not just amongst students, who already actively defy most underage drinking laws. Indeed, the movement has gained strength amongst university level advocates who recognize the irrational nature of the law. To the point, there is a contention that students have tended to engage in alcohol consumption in secretive and therefore unconstrained ways as a result of current laws. The Associated Press (2009) reports that "college presidents from about 100 of the best-known U.S. universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus." (AP, 1)

University level advocates are joined by law enforcement agents and organizations that have long struggled in vain to keep a lid on underage drinking. To many law enforcement officials, such threats as drunk driving and alcohol poisoning have been heightened by the proclivity of college students to drink in obscurity of campus security. There is a real danger presented here the confirms many of the very concerns that the 21-year drinking age was designed to prevent. This is a perspective endorsed by "David J. Hanson, an alcohol policy expert at the State University of New York-Potsdam; 'Just like during national Prohibition, the law has pushed and forced underage drinking and youthful drinking underground, where we have no control over it.'" (Johnson, 1)

Concession:

The strongest argument which can be made against the central thesis of the research here conducted is that which acknowledges the debate over alcoholism itself. With the understanding that our efforts to classify this condition have varied depending on the values and socio-scientific perspective of those conducting the evaluation, it is clear that alcohol is a complex condition with some distinctly sociological parameters encompassing it. Therefore, it is deductible that the drinking age is in some matter a tool used to stand in the way of the sociological impulses that may drive excessive drinking for those of the college age. Here, where social setting and outside pressures may combine to stimulate alcohol consumption tendencies that are neither normal or healthy, an examination of the ways that alcoholism is classified is appropriate.

To this point, according to a definition offered by the Association of Psychologists of Nova Scotia, "alcohol abuse occurs when there are ongoing negative consequences from drinking." (Psychology Works, 1) Using just such a definition, it becomes even easier to justify prohibition for those whom society may argue lack the age-based wherewithal to prevent such tendencies. Indeed,, the assertion is made that patterns of abuse are reflected in symptoms of alcoholism. Though there is a value to the individual nature in which this allows us to understand different types of alcohol consumers, running the gamut from those who drink only on special occasions to those who are classified as having the disease known as alcoholism, the argument nonetheless may be made that those within the age range of 18 to 20 are faced with undue social and psychological pressures which can inflame tendencies toward life-forming habits.

Additionally, under this classification, the tendencies which may be said to indicate alcoholism are likely to be more evident in those who are not quite of the age to handle its implications. Here, the idea is expressed that abuse may be judged to occur by 'negative consequences.' As behavioral consequences are frequently the most immediately observable symptoms of alcohol abuse, we may consider this one cause for the assumptions informing prohibition decisions. However, the idea prompts a question of difficulty in understanding the psychology of alcoholism. This is to say that it is not entirely clear to us whether there are behavioral tendencies in individuals which magnify a proclivity toward alcoholism or whether alcoholism is the primary stimulant for the negative behavior there associated. Indeed, it is sensible to hypothesize that the answer lay in some combination of the two possibilities. Thus, with respect to the drinking age, it may not be the case the empirical evidence supports the claim of greater vulnerability to negative consequence in those between 18 and 20 but it is probable that considerable anecdotal evidence has contributed to this conclusion.

To this point, dependency and fatality may be more likely amongst this age group. To the point, "research has found more than 40% of college students reported at least one symptom of alcohol abuse or dependence. One study has estimated more than 500,000 full-time students at four-year colleges suffer injuries each year related in some way to drinking, and about 1,700 die in such accidents." (AP, 1) This might serve as a counterpoint to the argument made by university level advocates for a change in the drinking age.

Additionally, referring again… READ MORE

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