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Researched Argument 1st

  PromptThis assignment offers the opportunity to join an academic or civic conversation and present an argument on an issue that matters to you. Research an issue of your choice, and present an argument that proposes a solution to the problem. You will need to consult 3-5 secondary sources for this ess/ay: At least 3 of them must be peer-reviewed sources, such as articles from academic journals or chapters from scholarly books. Read and respond to others’ arguments on this issue to hone your ideas. Take care not to simply report facts about your topic or summarize other writers’ claims. This ess/ay aims to use sources purposefully and responsibly to support an original argument. Your ess/ay should defend a clearly-stated, contestable thesis that not only reflects your stance on the issue but also hints at a “so what?” statement (i.e. the broader implications of your argument) that you will elaborate upon in the conclusion. Your ess/ay must include a call to action.
 

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Requirements

  • Address the prompt.
  • Write an ess/ay of 1500-1800 words, excluding heading, title, and Works Cited.
  • Adhere to MLA general format.
  • Do not plagiarize: Cite sources according to MLA style for in-text citations and Works Cited pages.
  • Include a title that describes what your ess/ay is about.
  • Include an introduction that introduces your specific topic, explains why the issue is problematic and significant and presents a thesis statement with a clear call to action.
  • Closely read and annotate at least three scholarly, critical sources representing a range of perspectives on your topic.
  • Refine your thesis as your thinking on the issue evolves.
  • Craft cohesive body paragraphs with clear topic sentences and properly-documented supporting evidence.
  • Use body paragraphs to defend the primary points offered in support of your thesis.
  • Anticipate and respond to counterarguments.
  • Write a conclusion that discusses the broader implications of your thesis and elaborates on your call to action.
  • Meticulously proofread and edit your ess/ay to correct errors in grammar, usage, mechanics, and documentation.
  •  

Requirements

    Address the prompt.
    Write an ess/ay of 1500-1800 words, excluding heading, title, and Works Cited.
    Adhere to MLA general format.
    Do not plagiarize: Cite sources according to MLA style for in-text citations and Works Cited pages.
    Include a title that describes what your ess/ay is about.
    Include an introduction that introduces your specific topic, explains why the issue is problematic and significant and presents a thesis statement with a clear call to action.
    Closely read and annotate at least three scholarly, critical sources representing a range of perspectives on your topic.
    Refine your thesis as your thinking on the issue evolves.
    Craft cohesive body paragraphs with clear topic sentences and properly-documented supporting evidence.
    Use body paragraphs to defend the primary points offered in support of your thesis.
    Anticipate and respond to counterarguments.
    Write a conclusion that discusses the broader implications of your thesis and elaborates on your call to action.
    Meticulously proofread and edit your ess/ay to correct errors in grammar, usage, mechanics, and documentation.

——————————————————— IMPORTANT ————————————————————–

1) The topic is “Lowering the Drinking Age to 18” (PLEASE STICK TO THE TOPIC).

2) Make sure you include these sources:

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  – Carla T. Main, The Minimum Legal Drinking Age Should Not Be Lowered (PDF provided).

  – Michelle Minton, The Minimum Legal Drinking Age Should Be Lowered (PDF provided). 

The Minimum Legal Drinking Age Should Not
Be Lowered
Teens at Risk, 2013

“Alcohol should be forbidden to 18- to 20-year-olds precisely because they have a
propensity to binge drink whether the stuff is illegal or not.”

In the following viewpoint, Carla T. Main assesses the arguments for and against lowering the
legal drinking age from the current age of twenty-one. Main contends that the arguments in
favor of a lower drinking age—especially the argument that binge drinking would
diminish—are simply wrong. She argues that the solution to the problem of underage
drinking is to better enforce the laws that are currently in place. Main, who produced this
policy study for the Hoover Institute of Stanford University, is the author of Bulldozed (2007),
and she writes frequently about issues of law and society.

As you read, consider the following questions:

Why, according to the author, did many states lower the drinking age to eighteen in the1.
early 1970s?

What grassroots organization played a big role in getting the drinking age moved back up2.
to twenty-one?

In the viewpoint, one expert on college drinking believes that what percent of students have3.
“deeply engrained drinking habits” by the time they arrive at college?

The problem of underage drinking on college campuses has been brewing for many years, to the
continued vexation of higher education administrators. In 2008, John McCardell, president emeritus of
Middlebury College, began to circulate for signature a public statement among colleagues titled “The
Amethyst Initiative,” which calls for elected officials to reexamine underage drinking laws. The project
grew out of outreach efforts of a nonprofit organization he founded in 2007 called Choose
Responsibility. The nonprofit advocates lowering the drinking age to 18 and licensing alcohol use for
young people in much the same manner as driving—following coursework and an exam. Choose
Responsibility also favors the repeal of the laws that set 21 as the mandatory minimum age for
drinking (known as the “21 laws”) and encourages states at the least to adopt exceptions to the 21
laws that would allow minors to drink at home and in private clubs. It also favors social changes that
shift the focus on alcohol use among youth to the home, family, and individual.

The Amethyst Initiative’s statement has been signed by 135 college presidents and chancellors at
schools from Duke to Bennington. The majority is private; most are in the Northeast. The statement
takes no formal position, unlike Choose Responsibility. It does, however, drop heavy hints as to
where the debate ought to come out. The statement says “21 is not working” and asks “How many
times must we relearn the lessons of Prohibition?” It draws comparisons to other age-of-majority

rights conferred on 18-year-olds, such as voting and serving in the military, and calls upon elected
officials to consider “whether current public policies are in line with current realities.”…

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Removing the Allure of Drinking

The primary argument made in the Initiative’s statement in favor of repealing the 21 laws is that the
21 laws make alcohol taboo, thus driving underage drinking underground and causing more binge
drinking to take place than otherwise would, due to the allure of forbidden fruit and the need for
secrecy. Hence, by lowering the drinking age, youth consumption would come out in the open and
binge drinking would be largely reduced or even eliminated. The second salutary effect of lowering
the drinking age, the Initiative argues, would be educational: Colleges would be allowed to have open,
frank discussions about responsible drinking. In other words, institutions of higher education could
teach young people how to drink responsibly. The Initiative makes vague references to the
“unintended consequences” of 21 “posing increasing risks to young people,” and says that the
original impetus for the 21 laws—reduction of highway fatalities by young drivers—has outlived its
usefulness….

The Initiative is a welcome development insofar as it challenges us to examine whether 21 “is
working.” The answer: It is not, as currently enforced. So should 21 be scrapped or salvaged? First, a
look at how we got here, and why the 21 laws are broken….

Raising the Minimum Drinking Age to Twenty-One

During the 19th century, cultural and social norms prevented young people from drinking. The

expense and limited availability of liquor also helped keep it out of youthful hands. After Prohibition, it
was left up to the states to regulate alcohol, and most states made the legal drinking age 21, the
same as the age for voting and other adult rights. The issue remained largely untouched until the late
1960s when protests over the Vietnam War raised the question of the national voting age. For the first
time, the question of the draft age and the voting age were linked in the popular imagination, at least
among the left. “If a boy is old enough to fight and the for his country, why isn’t he old enough to
vote?” was the popular refrain.

The legal drinking age got swept up in the political upheaval of the era, as states generally
reexamined their age-of-majority laws. Between 1970 and 1976, 29 states lowered their age for
drinking alcohol. The results were catastrophic. Highway deaths among teenagers and young adults

skyrocketed. Almost immediately, states began raising the minimum drinking age again—years
before Congress in 1982 and 1984 dangled the carrot of federal highway monies as an incentive.
Between 1976 and 1984, 24 of the 29 states raised the age back up again. By 1984, only three states
allowed 18-year-olds to drink. Five states and the District of Columbia regulated various degrees of
alcohol consumption among those 18 and over. The remaining states had a patchwork of minimum
ages ranging from 19 to 21.

The Link Between the Drinking Age and Drunk
Driving

While states experimented with age-of-majority laws, a cultural shift was taking place in how society

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regarded drunk driving. In 1980, a 13-year-old California girl named Cari Lightner was walking to a
carnival when she was struck by a hit-and-run drunk driver and killed instantly. Her mother became
enraged when she learned that drunk driving was not treated seriously in the American judicial
system. What followed was one of the great stories of American grassroots activism. Together with a
friend, Candace Lightner founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which quickly garnered

local and later national support in a campaign that focused on putting a human face on the damage
done by drunk drivers. By 1982, with MADD 100-chapters strong, President [Ronald] Reagan created
a presidential commission to study drunk driving and Congress authorized highway funds to states
that passed stiffer drunk driving laws. In 1984, Congress passed the Uniform Drinking Age Act, which
required states to have a minimum drinking age of 21 for all types of alcohol consumption if they
wanted to receive federal highway monies. The legal drinking age has stayed at 21 since then.

In most of the television debates about the Amethyst Initiative, the success or failure of 21 has been
primarily linked to the issue of highway deaths, with the debaters arguing fatality statistics to prove
whether the 21 laws should be shelved because of the advent of safer cars. But that suggests,
wrongly, that the debate largely begins and ends with the question of teenage bodies splattered
across the interstates. While drunk driving among underage drinkers remains a problem,
unfortunately it is only one of several ways that underage drinking threatens young people. Time has
not stood still since 1984. American campuses and drinking patterns have changed, and not for the
better.

The Law Does Not Lead to Binge Drinking

The logic of the Initiative is that if we take away the allure of illegality, American youth will stop
binging. That conclusion is wrong. Alcohol should be forbidden to 18- to 20-year-olds precisely
because they have a propensity to binge drink whether the stuff is illegal or not—especially males.

Henry Wechsler and Toben F. Nelson, in the landmark Harvard School of Public Health College

Alcohol Study, or CAS, which tracked college student drinking patterns from 1992 to 2001, explained
that binge drinking is five or more drinks on one occasion. Binge drinking brings the blood alcohol

concentration to 0.08 gram percent or above (typically five drinks for a man or four for a woman within
two hours). To understand just how drunk that makes a person, consider that it violates criminal laws
to drive with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 gram percent or above.

To call alcohol taboo implies that drinking is done in secret and rarely. Yet college drinking is so
common as to have lost all tinge of intrigue. Drinking greases the social wheels, and college life for
many is saturated with popular drinking games that no doubt seem brilliant to the late-adolescent:
Beerchesi, Beergammon, BeerSoftball, coin games like Psycho, Quarters, and BeerBattleship, and
card and dice games linked to beer.

When undergraduates binge drink, they get into trouble—a lot of it. They endanger and sometimes
kill their fellow students by setting fires. They sexually assault their female companions
(approximately 100,000 incidents annually). They get into fights with other young undergrads (some
700,000 assaults annually). On average 1,100 a year die from alcohol-related traffic crashes and
another 300 die in non-traffic alcohol-related deaths. According to the CAS, among the 8 million

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college students in the United States surveyed in one study year, more than 2 million drove under the

influence of alcohol and more than 3 million rode in cars with drivers who had been drinking. Eight
percent of students—474,000—have unprotected consensual sex each year because they have
been drinking. In short, college students do stupid, illegal, dangerous, and sometimes deadly things
when they drink.

Students Bring Drinking Habits to College

Moreover, the drinking doesn’t begin in college. More kids drink alcohol than smoke pot, which is the
most commonly used illicit drug. A third of our youth taste their first drink before the age of 13 and
have drinking patterns as early as 8th to 10th grade. In a pattern that continues in college, boys fall
into binge drinking patterns in greater numbers than girls by 12th grade. The Pacific Institute for
Research and Evaluation has estimated the social cost of underage drinking (for all youth) at some
$53 billion. That includes only highway deaths and injuries and does not factor in brain damage
associated with early adolescent drinking, or the array of other injuries and social problems such as
opportunity costs that crop up when children drink.

The majority of those who binge drink in college started down that road long before they
matriculated—they simply continue their drinking habits once they arrive on campus. Brett Sokolow,
president of the consulting firm National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, which
counsels colleges on reducing “risk” through educational programs and institutional policies, said in
an interview that based on his anecdotal experience, 60 to 70 percent of the students attending his
on-campus alcohol seminars have had drinking experiences prior to attending college and about 40
percent have “deeply engrained drinking habits” by the time they get to college….

Enforcing the Law

The Amethyst Initiative says, in essence, that the phenomenon of underage drinking is a tidal wave
that society cannot stop. Our only hope is to ride the wave along with our children, give them an oar,
and hope they don’t drown. That relies on the very big—and untested—assumption that their young
minds have the capacity to listen when it comes to alcohol, no matter how badly they want to party,
hook up, fit in.

Given the stakes, America should not throw in the towel on the 21 laws until we have actually
enforced them as they were meant to be enforced though it will require a clear dedication of political
will. It can be done; a similar revolution occurred during the 1980s with respect to driving under the
influence laws. Disparities in enforcement do not mean that the laws are impossible to enforce. It
signals that we have not gotten serious as a nation about using the laws we have—and improving
them where needed.

Further Readings
Books

Joseph Allen and Claudia Worrell Allen Escaping the Endless Adolescence. New York: Ballantine

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Books, 2009.

Mark Bauerlein The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and
Jeopardizes Our Future. New York: Tarcher, 2008.

Donna J. Cornett Beat Binge Drinking: A Smart Drinking Guide for Teens, College Students and
Young Adults Who Choose to Drink. Santa Rosa, CA: People Friendly Books, 2011.

Michael A. Corriero Judging Children as Children: A Proposal for a Juvenile Justice System.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006.

Kathi A. Earles and Sandra E. Moore Scale Back: Why Childhood Obesity Is Not Just About
Weight. Chicago: Hilton, 2008.

Annette Fuentes Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse. New York:
VersoBooks, 2011.

Gina Guddat Unwrapped: Real Questions Asked by Real Girls (About Sex). Houston TX:
Providence, 2007.

Stephen Hinshaw with Rachel Krantz The Triple Bind: Saving Our Teenage Girls from Today’s
Pressures. New York: Ballantine Books, 2009.

Kelly Huegel GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and
Questioning Teens. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing, 2011.

Matt Ivester lol … OMG!: What Every Student Needs to Know About Online Reputation
Management, Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying. CreateSpace, 2011.

Thomas A. Jacobs Teen Cyberbullying Investigated: Where Do Your Rights End and
Consequences Begin? Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing, 2010.

KidsPeace I’ve Got This Friend Who: Advice for Teens and Their Friends on Alcohol, Drugs,
Eating Disorders, Risky Behavior and More. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2007.

Catherine Kim, Daniel Losen, and Damon Hewitt The School-to-Prison Pipeline. New York: NYU
Press, 2010.

Robin M. Kowalski, Susan P. Limber, and Patricia W. Agatston Cyberbullying: Bullying in the
Digital Age. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent
Video Games. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.

Elizabeth Magill, ed. Drug Information for Teens: Health Tips About the Physical and Mental
Effects of Substance Abuse. Aston, PA: Omnigraphics, Inc., 2011.

Mike Males Teenage Sex and Pregnancy: Modern Myths, Unsexy Realities. Santa Barbara, CA:
Praeger, 2010.

Courtney E. Martin Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating
Your Body. New York: Free Press, 2007.

Jane McGonigal Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the
World. New York: Penguin, 2011.

Pedro A. Noguera The Trouble With Black Boys and Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the
Future of Public Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008.

Garrett Peck The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America from Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet.
Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009.

Mark D. Regnerus Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2007.

Marsha Rosenbaum Safety First: A Reality-Based Approach to Teens and Drugs. San Francisco:
Drug Policy Alliance, 2007.

Dan Savage and Terry Miller, eds. It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating
a Life Worth Living. New York: Dutton, 2011.

Wendy Shalit Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It’s Not Bad to Be
Good. New York: Random House, 2007.

Don Tapscott Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2009.

Jessica Valenti The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young
Women. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2009.

Periodicals
The American Cancer Society “Child and Teen Tobacco Use: Understanding the Problem,”
November 10, 2011. www.cancer.org.

Morris E. Chafetz “The 21-Year-Old Drinking Age: I Voted for It; It Doesn’t Work,” Huffington Post,
August 18, 2009. www.huffingonpost.com.

Steve Elliott “Federal Report: Most in Pot Rehab Were Forced Into It,” May 28, 2010.
www.tokeofthetown.com.

David J. Hanson “Underage Drinking,” 2011. www2.potsdam.edu.

David J. Hanson “Underage Drinking Rates,” 2011. www2.potsdam.edu.

Huffington Post “Marijuana Use and Driving Under the Influence on the Rise Among Teens, Study
Says,” February 23, 2012. www.huffingtonpost.com.

John M. McCardell, Jr. “Commentary: Drinking Age of 21 Doesn’t Work,” CNN.com, September
16, 2009.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving “Myths and Facts About the 21 Minimum Drinking Age,”
www.madd.org.

National Institute on Drug Abuse “Marijuana: Facts for Teens,” 2011. www.drugabuse.gov.

National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign “Marijuana Facts,” 2011. www.theantidrug.com.

Karen O’Keefe and Mitch Earleywine “The Impact of State Medical Marijuana Laws,” The
Marijuana Policy Project, June 2011. www.mpp.org.

Philip Smith “Teens Rejecting Alcohol, Tobacco; Selecting Marijuana,” December 14, 2011.
www.stopthedrugwar.org.

Michael Winerip “High Season: Teens and Marijuana Use,” Family Circle, 2012.
www.familycircle.com.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2013 Greenhaven Press, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning.

Source Citation
Main, Carla T. “The Minimum Legal Drinking Age Should Not Be Lowered.” Teens at

Risk. Ed. Stephen P. Thompson. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing
Viewpoints. Rpt. from “Underage Drinking and the Drinking Age.” www.hoover.org 1
55 (1 June 2009). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.

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Gale Document Number: GALE|EJ3010167407

The Minimum Legal Drinking Age Should Be
Lowered
Teens at Risk, 2013

“An individual legally enjoys nearly all other rights of adulthood upon turning 18…. It is
time to reduce the drinking age for all Americans.”

In the following viewpoint, Michelle Minton contends that the current minimum legal drinking
age of twenty-one is discriminatory and counterproductive, and leads to widespread
disrespect for the law. She argues that the drinking age of twenty-one pushes drinking
underground where dangerous and unhealthy practices such as binge drinking predominate.
Minton compares US practices to those of European countries where a lower drinking age
has not led to harmful results. Minton is the director of insurance studies at the Competitive
Enterprise Institute.

As you read, consider the following questions:

According to the viewpoint, what percent of graduating high school seniors have broken the1.
law by consuming alcohol?

In the viewpoint, the author contends that the drinking age of twenty-one promotes what2.
unhealthy activity?

The viewpoint argues that the reduction in traffic fatalities since the establishment of the3.
drinking age of twenty-one is actually more accurately attributed to what factors?

Alaska state representative Bob Lynn (R., Anchorage) is asking the long overdue question: Why do
we consider 18-year-olds old enough to join the military, to fight and die for our country, but not to
have a drink with their friends before they ship out or while they’re home on leave? Lynn has
introduced a bill [in March 2011] that would allow anyone 18 years and older with a military ID to drink
alcohol in Alaska.

The bill is already facing strong opposition from self-styled public-health advocates. However, the
data indicate that the 21-minimum drinking age has not only done zero good, it may actually have
done harm. In addition, an individual legally enjoys nearly all other rights of adulthood upon turning
18—including the rights to vote, get married, and sign contracts. It is time to reduce the drinking age
for all Americans.

How Twenty-One Became the Legal Drinking Age

In the early 1970s, with the passage of the 26th amendment (which lowered the voting age to 18), 29
states lowered their minimum legal drinking age to 18, 19, or 20 years old. Other states already
allowed those as young as 18 to buy alcohol, such as Louisiana, New York, and Colorado. However,
after some reports showed an increase in teenage traffic fatalities, some advocacy groups pushed for
a higher drinking age. They eventually gained passage of the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age
Act, which lets Congress withhold 10 percent of a state’s federal highway funds if it sets its minimum

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legal drinking age below 21. (Alaska would reportedly lose up to $50 million a year if Lynn’s bill
passes.)

By 1988, all states had raised their drinking age to 21. In the years since, the idea of lowering the
drinking age has periodically returned to the public debate, but groups such as Mothers Against
Drunk Driving (MADD) have been able to fight back attempts to change the law. (Louisiana briefly
lowered its age limit in back to 18 in 1996, after the state Supreme Court ruled that the 21 limit was a
form of age discrimination, but the court reversed that decision a few months later.)

A Culture of Underground Drinking

It’s true that America has a problem with drinking: The rates of alcoholism and teenage problem

drinking are far greater here than in Europe. Yet in most European countries, the drinking age is far
lower than 21. Some, such as Italy, have no drinking age at all. The likely reason for the disparity is
the way in which American teens are introduced to alcohol versus their European counterparts. While
French or Italian children learn to think of alcohol as part of a meal, American teens learn to drink in
the unmonitored environment of a basement or the backwoods with their friends. A 2009 study by the
National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Health, and U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services concluded that 72 percent of graduating high-school seniors had already consumed
alcohol.

The problem is even worse on college campuses, where there is an unspoken understanding
between students, administrators, local law enforcement, and parents that renders drinking-age

restrictions effectively moot as students drink alcohol at frat or house parties and in their dorm rooms.
The result is dangerous, secret binge drinking. This unspoken agreement and the problems it creates
led a group of college chancellors and presidents from around the nation to form the Amethyst
Initiative, which proposes a reconsideration of the current drinking age.

Middlebury College president emeritus John M. McCardell, who is also a charter member of
Presidents Against Drunk Driving, came out in favor of lowering the drinking age to 18 years old in a
2004 New York Times opinion article. “Our latter-day prohibitionists have driven drinking behind
closed doors and underground,” he wrote. “Colleges should be given the chance to educate students,
who in all other respects are adults, in the appropriate use of alcohol, within campus boundaries and
out in the open.”

The Link Between Traffic Fatalities and the Drinking
Age

The most powerful argument, at least emotionally, for leaving the drinking age at 21 is that the higher
age limit has prevented alcohol-related traffic fatalities. Such fatalities indeed decreased about 33
percent from 1988 to 1998—but the trend is not restricted to the United States. In Germany, for

example, where the drinking age is 16, alcohol-related fatalities decreased by 57 percent between
1975 and 1990. The most likely cause for the decrease in traffic fatalities is a combination of law

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enforcement, education, and advances in automobile-safety technologies such as airbags and roll
cages.

In addition, statistics indicate that these fatalities may not even have been prevented but rather
displaced by three years, and that fatalities might even have increased over the long run because of
the reduced drinking age. In an award-winning study in 2010, University of Notre Dame
undergraduate Dan Dirscherl found that banning the purchase of alcohol between the ages of 18 and
21 actually increased traffic fatalities of those between the ages of 18 and 24 by 3 percent. Dirscherl’s
findings lend credence to the “experienced drinker” hypothesis, which holds that when people begin
driving at 16 and gain confidence for five years before they are legally able to drink, they are more
likely to overestimate their driving ability and have less understanding of how alcohol consumption
affects their ability to drive.

Statistics aside, the drinking age in the U.S. is difficult to enforce and discriminatory toward adults
between 18 and 21 years old. The current age limit has created a culture of hidden drinking and
disrespect for the law. Regardless of whether an adult is in the military or a civilian, she ought to be
treated as just that: an adult. If you are old and responsible enough to go to war, get married, vote, or
sign a contract, then you are old and responsible enough to buy a bottle of beer and toast to living in
a country that respects and protects individual rights. It is long past time the law caught up with that
reality.

Further Readings
Books

Joseph Allen and Claudia Worrell Allen Escaping the Endless Adolescence. New York: Ballantine
Books, 2009.

Mark Bauerlein The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and
Jeopardizes Our Future. New York: Tarcher, 2008.

Donna J. Cornett Beat Binge Drinking: A Smart Drinking Guide for Teens, College Students and
Young Adults Who Choose to Drink. Santa Rosa, CA: People Friendly Books, 2011.

Michael A. Corriero Judging Children as Children: A Proposal for a Juvenile Justice System.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006.

Kathi A. Earles and Sandra E. Moore Scale Back: Why Childhood Obesity Is Not Just About
Weight. Chicago: Hilton, 2008.

Annette Fuentes Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse. New York:
VersoBooks, 2011.

Gina Guddat Unwrapped: Real Questions Asked by Real Girls (About Sex). Houston TX:
Providence, 2007.

Stephen Hinshaw with Rachel Krantz The Triple Bind: Saving Our Teenage Girls from Today’s
Pressures. New York: Ballantine Books, 2009.

Kelly Huegel GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and
Questioning Teens. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing, 2011.

Matt Ivester lol … OMG!: What Every Student Needs to Know About Online Reputation
Management, Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying. CreateSpace, 2011.

Thomas A. Jacobs Teen Cyberbullying Investigated: Where Do Your Rights End and

Consequences Begin? Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing, 2010.

KidsPeace I’ve Got This Friend Who: Advice for Teens and Their Friends on Alcohol, Drugs,
Eating Disorders, Risky Behavior and More. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2007.

Catherine Kim, Daniel Losen, and Damon Hewitt The School-to-Prison Pipeline. New York: NYU
Press, 2010.

Robin M. Kowalski, Susan P. Limber, and Patricia W. Agatston Cyberbullying: Bullying in the
Digital Age. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent
Video Games. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.

Elizabeth Magill, ed. Drug Information for Teens: Health Tips About the Physical and Mental
Effects of Substance Abuse. Aston, PA: Omnigraphics, Inc., 2011.

Mike Males Teenage Sex and Pregnancy: Modern Myths, Unsexy Realities. Santa Barbara, CA:
Praeger, 2010.

Courtney E. Martin Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating
Your Body. New York: Free Press, 2007.

Jane McGonigal Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the
World. New York: Penguin, 2011.

Pedro A. Noguera The Trouble With Black Boys and Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the
Future of Public Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008.

Garrett Peck The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America from Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet.
Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009.

Mark D. Regnerus Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2007.

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Drug Policy Alliance, 2007.

Dan Savage and Terry Miller, eds. It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating
a Life Worth Living. New York: Dutton, 2011.

Wendy Shalit Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It’s Not Bad to Be
Good. New York: Random House, 2007.

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McGraw-Hill, 2009.

Jessica Valenti The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young
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November 10, 2011. www.cancer.org.

Morris E. Chafetz “The 21-Year-Old Drinking Age: I Voted for It; It Doesn’t Work,” Huffington Post,
August 18, 2009. www.huffingonpost.com.

Steve Elliott “Federal Report: Most in Pot Rehab Were Forced Into It,” May 28, 2010.
www.tokeofthetown.com.

David J. Hanson “Underage Drinking,” 2011. www2.potsdam.edu.

David J. Hanson “Underage Drinking Rates,” 2011. www2.potsdam.edu.

Huffington Post “Marijuana Use and Driving Under the Influence on the Rise Among Teens, Study
Says,” February 23, 2012. www.huffingtonpost.com.

John M. McCardell, Jr. “Commentary: Drinking Age of 21 Doesn’t Work,” CNN.com, September
16, 2009.

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Karen O’Keefe and Mitch Earleywine “The Impact of State Medical Marijuana Laws,” The
Marijuana Policy Project, June 2011. www.mpp.org.

Philip Smith “Teens Rejecting Alcohol, Tobacco; Selecting Marijuana,” December 14, 2011.
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Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2013 Greenhaven Press, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning.

Source Citation
Minton, Michelle. “The Minimum Legal Drinking Age Should Be Lowered.” Teens at

Risk. Ed. Stephen P. Thompson. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing
Viewpoints. Rpt. from “Lower the Drinking Age for Everyone.” www.nationalreview.c
om. 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.

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