Kyle+O.

Should the Drinking Age be Lowered to Eighteen?




 * Introduction: **

 Imagine waking up in a hospital bed, you don’t know where you are and you don’t recall anything that had happened the night before. A doctor enters the room and begins to tell you what had happened to you the night before. He tells you that you were in a very serious car crash. He also tells you that while you were driving you were intoxicated to a dangerous level. Obviously you are okay, but your friend sitting next to you in the passenger seat was not so lucky. Unfortunately, while you were driving you lost control of the car and collided with another car. It turns out that your friend sitting next to you was not wearing his seat belt and because of this he flew through the wind shield. Due to blood loss your friend died. Your friend’s family does not blame you for the loss of their son, but you seem to believe that his death was still caused by you. Could you live with the guilt believing that the death of your friend was caused by you? It turns out that things like this happen all the time and people die every day because of alcohol.

   [|Where do teenagers get alcohol?] According to this website the majority of teens get alcohol from there own parents or from a friends parent**. ** It also states that two out of three teens are able to steal alcohol from a parent without them even knowing. If teens have access to alcohol from parents that can supply a party from thirty to forty people, imagine how much alcohol teens could have if it was legal for them to buy alcohol. The truth is teens who drink [|alcohol] are not educated enough to know when to stop drinking. Teenagers do not understand that when you drink alcohol it takes about twenty to thirty minutes to feel the effect of the alcohol. So instead of drinking two drinks and waiting to drink more, teens are just continuously drinking until they feel the effects of the first drinks. So as the effects of the first drinks are hitting them the effects from all of the other drinks are also hitting them and they end up being dangerously intoxicated. It turns out that the effects of being dangerously intoxicated are doing very dangerous things.


 * How can we stop teens from drinking?: **

The truth is there is no way that we can actually stop teens from drinking alcohol. Regardless of what we do Teenagers are going to drink alcohol. But there are certain things that we can do reduce the rate of alcohol consumption in teenagers. For example parents who own and drink alcohol, lock your alcohol up in a cabinet. If a teenager is found drinking alcohol, take away personal items, such as cell phones, computer use, and don’t allow them to go out for a few days. Don’t allow teens to see grownups drinking alcohol, don’t set an example for them. Also we should educate teens more on alcohol usage so if they do drink they can know when to stop drinking or what not to do when drinking.


 * Conclusion: ** 

According to this information there are plenty of good reasons why we should not lower the drinking age to eighteen. Although regardless of what we do teenagers are still going to drink, lowering the drinking age would just give them more access to alcoholic beverages. Also teenagers are not yet mature enough to drink alcohol. Teens that drink alcohol drink until they are dangerously intoxicated, and if the alcohol does not kill them the stupid things that they do will. According to this information [|alcohol is a leading factor in deaths among teens]. Also alcohol may lead to an unwanted pregnancy, or sexually transmitted disease. Teenagers need to understand that alcohol can be very dangerous. They need to see that anyone can die from alcohol intake or an accident while intoxicated. But most of all teenagers need to understand that at the end of the day alcohol is still a [|toxin].


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 * works cited: **

Cook, Caroline. "Saving Drunk Teens from Themselves." Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA) 18 Jan 2010: A.23. //SIRS Researcher. // Web. 08 February 2010.

Hadnot, Ira J. "Measuring Maturity." Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX) 24 Jun 2001: 1J+. //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">SIRS Researcher. // Web. 08 February 2010.

Payne, Elizabeth. "Parents Largely Unaware Teen Binge Drinking Is Growing Deadlier." Edmonton Journal (Alberta, Canada) 16 Nov 2009: A.18. //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">SIRS Researcher. // Web. 08 February 2010.