The legal drinking age is unrealistic. Prohibiting the sale of liquor to young adults creates an atmosphere where binge drinking and alcohol abuse have become a problem. Banning drinking for young people makes it a badge of adulthood and emdash; a tantalizing forbidden fruit. In order to get a drink, teenagers will carry fake I.D.s or sneak drinks from their parent’s liquor cabinets. This kind of devious attitude does not encourage responsible drinking. When the opportunity to drink arises, there is a kind of “Let’s make up for lost time” attitude. This results in binge drinking (www.ilstu.edu).

As it is, high school and college students unprepared for the responsibility easily obtain alcohol. This widespread availability of alcohol to minors discounts the effectiveness of the minimum drinking age

On the other hand, lowering the drinking age is not a good idea. Young people in their late teens and early twenties are likely to be more affected by alcohol than older adults for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are they have not yet learned how to compensate for the changes that alcohol brings about in their physiological and psychological makeups. They don’t realize their body becomes impaired. Their livers are more susceptible to damage by alcohol because they aren’t fully mature. Those who weigh less are affected more by alcohol than older people. Finally, they are more likely to have more stresses and tensions, or at least be more sensitive to these pressures than older people are (Pace & Cross, pg. 90).

As it is, those of us young adults who are college students are considered binge drinkers, and are more likely to be violent, take risks and create dangerous situations for themselves and others (Mitchell, pg51). If the drinking age would be lowered, and college students could drink the situation would be different. Students could better control circumstances of their experiences with alcohol, and drinking would lose its “forbidden fruit” stigma, thus making the pressure of drinking to “be cool” significantly less (cavalierdaily

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Approximate Word count = 877
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)