The 21-year-old legal drinking age is morally and lawfully wrong. The federal government is over stepping its bounds. Legal adults cannot drink alcohol lawfully based on federal law; but is outlawing drinking the answer or is there another choice.
The federal government is illegally forcing laws they do not have the power to make. The 10th amendment of the Constitution states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The federal government is taking reserved powers from the states. The states were blackmailed into changing the legal drinking age to 21 or else they would have lost millions of dollars in transportation funds. The federal government says that the 21-year-old drinking age is for our safety because there are over 3,000 drunk driving accidents involving people under the age of 21 each year. However, there are far more drunk driving accidents involving people over the age of 21. (McClenaghan, 87) .
The 21-year-old drinking age actually makes underage drinking worse. Just like prohibition, outlawing drinking tends to destroy moderation. "People tended to gulp alcohol in large quantities on those occasions when they could obtain it. The laws force people to hide it." What we currently have is age-specific prohibition. "Young people are forced to create their own "speakeasies" in secret locations where they, too, must gulp their alcohol in the absence of moderating social control." The thrill of breaking the law gone and the access to the bar granted, people in the 18- to 20-age group would be treated like adults. (Engs, 3).
All the theories that young adults are not responsible enough to drink legally are made up those who are worried that a lowered drinking age will lead to a greater number of alcoholics. These theories have not been proven but were created to scare the general public.
