Should the drinking age be lowered in the US?

For

Again
st

Return It to 18, and Enforce It

Keep the Drinking Age High

Gabrielle Glaser, author, "Her Best-Kept

Secret: Why Women Drink".

Tamika C. B. Zapolski, assistant professor

of psychology at Indiana UniversityPurdue University Indianapolis.

Raising the drinking age to 21 hasn't

reduced drinking -- its merely driven it
underground, to the riskiest of settings.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2
015/02/10/you-must-be-21-to-drink

Lower It to 19
Laurence Steinberg, adolescent brain
researcher and a professor of psychology
at Temple University.
That would keep it illegal for high school
students and legal for most college
students.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2
015/02/10/you-must-be-21-to-drink
Raising It Was a Disaster

The key to preventing alcohol abuse is to

communicate the risks, harm and
disapproval of its use among young
people.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2
015/02/10/you-must-be-21-to-drink
Lowering It Has Serious Consequences
Tara Watson, health economist.
Any move toward increasing alcohol
availability to young adults must consider
its adverse effects, including traffic
fatalities,
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2
015/02/10/you-must-be-21-to-drink
21 Is Working

S. Georgia Nugent, former college

president of Kenyon College.

Christopher S. Carpenter, economics

professor at Vanderbilt University.

The ubiquity of noncompliance has led to

a diffidence toward the law both a
sense that it may be selectively obeyed
and a perception that one is power

There is clear evidence that assaults

increase sharply at age 21, confirming a
causal chain between alcohol and physical
violence.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2
015/02/10/you-must-be-21-to-drink
"In general, the younger people start to
drink the safer they are,"

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2
015/02/10/you-must-be-21-to-drink
"Research shows that it saves lives,"
Jan Withers, MADD National President.

Dwight B.Heath is Research Professor of

Anthropology at Brown University in
Providence.
Alcohol has no mystique. It's no big deal.
By contrast, where it's banned until age
21, there's something of the 'forbidden
fruit' syndrome.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/16/us/legal
-drinking-age/
Lower the Drinking Age Back to 18
Elizabeth Glass Geltman, Associate
Professor & Program Director.
My biggest frustration with the 21-year-old
age limit is that it makes it illegal for
parents to lawfully teach their own kids
how to drink responsibility while still in the
home.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabethglass-geltman/lower-the-drinking-ageback-to-18_b_6660012.html

When the law was raised to 21, alcoholrelated deaths for young people
decreased; when the drinking age was
lowered, deaths increased.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/16/us/legal
-drinking-age/

Yes, you can go to war, and you can vote

but that doesn't mean you're ready to
drink.
Matt Nagin, a poet, fiction writer, actor
and comedian.
The drinking age shouldn't be lowered
because of three very real risks: drunk
driving, alcohol poisoning, and violent
and/or destructive behaviour.
http://mic.com/articles/14574/top-3reasons-why-the-drinking-age-should-notbe-lowered-to-18#.KExnVP4sC

In this mock, I had a lot of choice for what I wanted to talk about. After a lot of
thought I decided that I would be doing is about Should the drinking age be
lowered? I chose this due to the fact that this question has a lot of argument
behind it and there are a lot of people with a lot of different opinions on this one
topic/question. For this mock I will be talking about people that are completely
for changing the drinking age so that it is lower and I will be talking about the
people that are completely against lowering the drinking age. Also I will discuss
which quotes and evidence are reliable and which are unreliable. I will then
finally conclude and evaluate what I believe is the right decision and why, I must
include valid and invalid reasons and I must not be bias towards lowering the
drinking age or towards keeping the drinking age the same. My evaluation of
what I think will be purely down to what evidence is reliable and to what
evidence is unreliable.
First of all, I found many people that were completely for lowering the drinking
age in the USA, so out of quite a few I found online I chose five that I found most
interesting. The first person I saw who had a positive view on lowering the
drinking age was a woman named Gabrielle Glaser, this Gabrielle is an author.
Her view on this case was that she believes the USA should Return it to 18, and
enforce it, this quote shows that Gabrielles beliefs are that the government in
the US should lower the drinking age back to 18 and they should keep it there to
see how it goes. She then goes on to say that raising the drinking age to 21
hasnt reduced drinking, it has merely driven it underground, to the riskiest
settings. When she is saying this, I think she means that the government
believe that raising it to 21 would have reduced drinking, when really it has gone
and made it ten times worse. I got this information from
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/10/you-must-be-21-to-drink
and I believe this evidence and this information is reliable because the website is
a true and reliable website (its not a dodgy site) and also Gabrielle is an author
and has done a lot of research on this question which is another reason why I
believe this information is reliable. Another person that I found on the internet
that had a positive view on lowering the drinking age is S. Georgia Nugent, who
is a former college president of Kenyon College. She quoted saying, Raising it
was a disaster. This tells us that Georgia believes that when they raised the
drinking age, then it had a massive impact on the country, she is also trying to
state that the government got it wrong when they decided to raise their legal
drinking age to 21. I kept reading what she had to say and then she goes on to
say, When it is legal for an 18-year-old to drive, marry or serve in the military
but illegal for him or her to drink a beer, the illogic of the situation is patent.
What Georgia is saying is that she believes that it doesnt make any sense why
18 year olds are allowed to do them different things but then are not allowed to
drink alcohol. Like my first quote, I also got this quote from
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/10/you-must-be-21-to-drink. I
believe that, yet again, Georgia has reliable information and as a source, she is
very reliable. Also, the website is reliable. My final quote that I have chosen
comes from Elizabeth Glass Geltman, who is currently an Associate Professor and
Program Director. Her main quote that I picked out is Lower the Drinking Age
Back to 18. I chose this because I feel that this Elizabeth Geltman is trying to
demand the American Government to lower the drinking age back down to 18
because she has a lot of frustration due to the fact that the government

changed it to 21 in the first place. Another long quote that I saw her use was,
My biggest frustration with the 21-year-old age limit is that it makes it illegal for
parents to lawfully teach their own kids how to drink responsibility while still in
the home. Again, Elizabeth uses the word frustration, this emphasises the fact
that she is mad with the drinking law in America and it also shows us that
Elizabeth would prefer to teach her kids to positives and the negatives with
drinking, instead of having the drinking law at such a high age. She also believes
that this law stops her children from actually learning what the causes of alcohol
are. I got this information from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-glassgeltman/lower-the-drinking-age-back-to-18_b_6660012.html and as I didnt
know much about this website, I decided to research on whether it was reliable
or not. After opening up a few reviews I can see that this evidence is not very
reliable as some of the reviews I have read say that this website is not the most
reliable and some even say it is not reliable at all. So after this, I have decided
that this evidence and information is not reliable and it is certainly not a reliable
source.
After researching about the different people that were for the drinking age
getting lowered, I then researched about the people that were completely
against the drinking age being lowered. The first website I clicked on, I found
somebody called Tamika C. B. Zapolski, who is currently an assistant professor of
psychology at Indiana University. Her first quote goes on to say, Keep the
Drinking Age High. This quote is short and sweet and it tells us that her beliefs
are that the drinking age should definitely stay the same. She then goes on to
say, The key to preventing alcohol abuse is to communicate the risks, harm and
disapproval of its use among young people. This quote tells us that Tamika
believes that it is so important to teach young people about the risks that alcohol
can do to you, she believes this should be the main focus, to let all young people
know the damage that alcohol can do to a human being. I got this information
from, http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/10/you-must-be-21-todrink and I believe that this evidence is very reliable because of the fact that
this woman is a professor of psychology and she knows what shes talking about,
not only that, the website is a very reliable source. The second piece of evidence
is from Christopher S. Carpenter, who is an economics professor at Vanderbilt
University. 21 Is Working is a quote that he used about the topic of should the
drinking age be lowered. This quote from Christopher is a very simple and calm
quote that is basically saying that the government should keep things how they
are because he believes that things are fine at the minute. He then goes on to
say There is clear evidence that assaults increase sharply at age 21, confirming
a causal chain between alcohol and physical violence. He uses this quote just to
show people some facts about what is happening in the USA with young people
who are drinking, I believe that he uses this quote because of the fact that he
wants to show people that the criminal rates are already high with young people
drinking. I got this information from
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/10/you-must-be-21-to-drink
and I believe that this piece of evidence is reliable because the website that is
used is a completely reliable source. My third and final piece of evidence I have
chosen is from Matt Nagin, who is a poet, fiction writer, actor and comedian. He
quotes saying Yes, you can go to war, and you can vote but that doesn't
mean you're ready to drink. In my opinion I believe that he has used this quote
because he is trying to emphasise the fact that yes maybe you can drive, go to

war, vote in the election, have sexual intercourse but that doesnt therefore
mean that you should be able to drink. He then goes on to say The drinking age
shouldn't be lowered because of three very real risks: drunk driving, alcohol
poisoning, and violent and/or destructive behaviour. He has used this quote and
these examples because he wants to show that there might be an increase in
criminal behaviour is there was to be a lowering of the current drinking age. In
my opinion, he has also used these examples because he wants to try and
change peoples views on the drinking age in the USA by bringing up all these
criminal offences that may happen. I got this information from
http://mic.com/articles/14574/top-3-reasons-why-the-drinking-age-should-notbe-lowered-to-18#.KExnVP4sC and I believe that this evidence is not reliable
what so ever because the website that has provided this information is a very unreliable source, this means that this source is un-reliable.
I have come to the conclusion of that I believe that the evidences that I have
found that are completely for lowering the drinking age are more reliable than
the evidences that I have found that are completely against lowering the
drinking age. I have come to this conclusion because I have found that in my
opinion, I found it much easier when researching from people that were for
lowering the drinking age. I could find so many different sources for people that
were for it but when it came to people that were against it, I found it much
harder to find them sources. If Im honest, I only just scraped 5 different sources
for people that were against it. Another reason why I believe that the evidence
for it is more reliable than the evidence against it is because of the fact that the
Matt Nagin source that was against lowering the drinking age, that I read and
found was completely false and was 100% not a reliable source. This made me
favour towards the sources for lowering the drinking age. Even though the
Elizabeth Geltman source was not completely reliable, there was a few reviews
that said it was reliable and a few that said it wasnt reliable.