This generation exercised previously unheard-of clout and political muscle, and through years of protest and many valid arguments this generation of youth gained back some lost liberty. After this period, however, public sentiment changed. The baby boomers were aging and the freedoms they for which they fought for themselves no longer seemed important when they involved someone else. .
This loss of a powerful ally allowed the modern prohibitionist movement led by Candy Lightner, the president and founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), to gain strength in this country again. The late seventies and eighties were marked with an excess of highly publicized studies that claimed teenage alcohol use was out of control and was turning into a devastating problem of epidemic proportion. This and the national mood produced an environment primed for the anti-youth, anti-alcohol legislation that became the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. .
Since 1984, the legal drinking age in the USA was set to be of 21 years of age. Ever since then, Americans have seeked for ways to reduce the accidents and tragedies caused by alcohol consuming people, and the access of minors to it. Is imposing new laws on alcohol and restricting it even more really going to stop young adults and minors from irresponsibly consuming alcohol? .
There is another side to this, considered radical, or a left field point of view . This point of view is shared by many people, specially people that have been exposed to other cultures. They think that by increasing the availability of alcohol and lowering the drinking age people will become more mature faster and see what alcohol does, therefore drinking responsibly or deciding not to drink at all. .
The biggest proof that increasing the availability of alcohol is more effective than reducing it lies on how young people think about alcohol consuming in the different situations.
