Alcohol has been a major controversial topic since the beginning of prohibition, which was the prevention of manufacturing, selling, and transporting alcoholic beverages, was passed as the 18th Amendment in 1920, and long after it was abolished in 1933. This amendment was passed in order to reduce crime levels, relieve tax build-up in prisons, and also as a stepping stone to improving health and hygiene in America. However, instead of reducing crime the 18th Amendment increases it tenth fold and instead of relieving the tax build-up in prisons the amendment piled it up with all the ‘organized crime’ taking place in order to get alcohol illegally. Overall, multiple ideas have been used to try and reduce these problems, but none of them have seemed to work if anything it worsens the problem instead of fixing.
Alcohol is held to an extremely high standard, to the point where the law states you have to be 21 years old to purchase and consume alcohol. Whereas, being able to vote, get married, buy a firearm, buy cigarettes, and join the military take a greater amount of responsibility and thought process than consuming alcohol but you only need to be 18 years old to do these things. Alcohol is a serious activity, and should be done with caution and care, however, having a higher drinking age seems redundant when 18-year olds are allowed to risk their lives on active duty in the military. According to, “American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics” by Nese F. DeBruyne who is a senior research librarian, 0.1% of the population who serve and are on active duty in the military die. When compared with alcohol the military is 1.5 times deadlier, the statistics from DeBruyne aren’t from a draft or a war but when there was a war the deadliness rose by 10 times. If 18 is the age considered responsible enough to risk their lives in the military, then 18 should be the age an adult can make the responsible decision to drink alcohol or not.
Many people believe if the drinking age was lowered than there would be an even greater influx of teen alcohol related driving accidents. For instance, an article called, “Teen Drunk Driving: The Consequences of an Underage DUI,” by a law specialist who graduated from UC San Diego whose name is John McCurley states, “Drivers under the age of 21 represent 10 percent of licensed drivers they are responsible for 17 percent of fatal alcohol-related crashes.” However, “alcohol-related” is not the same as alcohol caused. According to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, even if the driver was sober and not drinking at all, accidents are classified as “alcohol-related” if a driver or a nonoccupant such as a pedestrian/passenger has a blood alcohol concentration, (BAC), above 0.01%. Labeling accidents as “alcohol-related” has severely affected statistics involving teen crashes, when in reality a very small portion of accidents have alcohol as a direct factor. With this information
