Teen Drinking
Essay by 24 • July 9, 2011 • 320 Words (2 Pages) • 1,285 Views
The drinking age in the United States is a contradiction. At the age of eighteen, one can drive a car, vote in an election, get married, serve in the military and buy tobacco products. In the United States you are legally an adult at eighteen. An eighteen-year-old, however, can not purchase alcoholic beverages. The minimum drinking age should be lowered from twenty-one in the United States. Unbelievably, the United States citizens trust their sixteen-year-old children to drive three thousand pound vehicles. We require our working young to pay taxes. We trust the decision-making abilities of eighteen year olds in public elections, with the right to smoke, and with the choice of marriage without parental consent. Our young adults are encouraged to join the army and fight for their country. We however believe that until the age of twenty-one our young adults can not handle alcohol. There is an ever-growing problem on campuses all across the nation: the abuse of alcohol. College freshman, usually nineteen, enter college with a bias involving the drinking law. “The average age at which Americans begin drinking regularly is 15.9 yrs.” Teen drinking can lead to both metal and physical declines. It can affect friends and family around the victim of the alcohol. Teen alcohol drinking is the #1 for teen deaths; the three most common are intoxicated suicide, Drinking and driving, and as well as murder under the influence of alcohol. It’s very obvious that underage drinking has taken a large toll upon our society today. Drinking affects everyone around you; friends can be lost, and families will have to deal with your consequences. A single DWI in the state of Texas is a fine of 10,000 dollars, but it is quite often that when a person does drive drunk they get in accidents. And at the extreme cases can permanently injure someone and or kill a Driver that is caught in a mad situation.
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