Even a 43-year-old can get Wasted- Critical Refutation

Lessons From the Drinking Age

This website is pro raising the age a person can smoke to 21 and uses the current United States drinking age as an example of why raising the smoking age would be beneficial to the country.

However, many facts presented about alcohol, used as support for their cause, are questionable, and inaccurate. The first issue is presented:

“The substantial drop in adolescent consumption of alcohol occurred in the absence of increased enforcement."

As demonstrated in the 60 Minutes video, underage drinking is proven difficult to enforce. Of course alcohol consumption in adolescents is down because it’s not recorded. The video went on to mention that more and more kids are drinking, but they are drinking underground, in the privacy of their own homes and house parties where law enforcement cannot consistently monitor.

"Thus if access is raised to age 21, teens younger than 18 will face increased scrutiny from sales clerks, further inhibiting their chance of ever starting or impeding their progression to established addiction."

This seems to be the consensus amongst many blogs and websites pro maintaing the current drinking age. They have this idea that by keeping the drinking age at 21, teens will not fall in to bad habits or put their lives or others’ in danger. This does not make sense to me. Raising the drinking age does not take away the side-effects of alcohol. Anybody under the influence, at any age, can get alcohol poising or be involved in a drunk driving accident. Just like one can still get lung cancer from smoking cigarettes.

Point: taking underage drinking and smoking out of context, say somebody never drank or smoked till they were 21. Are they all the sudden, exempt from the side-effects and dangers drinking and smoking causes at 18?

The source fails to mention lung cancer or emphysema or any other side effect of smoking. Instead, they focus on the risk of addiction on teens. However, many “30” something adults are addicted to smoking, likewise, many “30” something adults still abuse their alcohol consumption.

The reason why I decided to critique a source that was not specifically opposite to our stance on raising the drinking age is because drinking, like smoking, is a risk, no matter who you are. If at the age of 18 you are an adult, than you should have the right to make your own decisions.