Self Analysis

Throughout this blog, I logically presented ideas for the lowering of the drinking age. I minimized any emotional arguments. One thing that I did not write much about was the opposite view point, this simply is because there is not much information to keep the age at 21 besides the MADD organization. My blog provides several different reasons to lower the drinking age. First off, I pointed out that the blackmail involved to lower the drinking age could be considered blackmail and is unconstitutional. I then moved to point out that drinking could actually be beneficial to human health and keep off major illnesses. Many people were very astonished by this fact, and I used this to connect to my major idea to lower the drinking age. Lowering the drinking age and building up healthy drinking habits will be better for the country. For the MADD organization I read their website and realized that the arguments they used to lower the drinking age were extremely emotional based. Many of there ‘facts’ were bogus and made no sense if you thought about it, instead they focused heavily on the emotional route claiming that raising the drinking age would save countless innocent lives on the road. When the death count dropped in the 1990’s, MADD took credit for it. One could wonder if maybe it was the fact that cars were becoming safer with features such as air bags. I based my argument on information that I have learned over the course of the blog. I originally thought that the drinking age should be lowered because the government is taking away freedoms that are not constitutional while asking 18 year-olds to risk their life.

Implications

There is two things that I can see changing if the drinking age is not changed, and that is more money will be used to prosecute decent 18-21 year olds who drink instead of spending the money to correct other social problems. We already have agencies stepping up such as the Alcohol Law Enforcements (ALE) who focus mainly on people who drink illegally. They are prosecuting people who other wise could be contributing to society. The other change that I can see would be if that change lies in the health department. If more face can be proven that teaching good drinking habits can be greatly beneficial to human health, and then there may be a cause to think about how people drink. Yet another study has come out to show that drinking may in fact be beneficial to human health. Other than that, little stands to change. When people finally attain the age of 21, the drinking age no longer seems to be a big deal. As people grow older and become more conservative and have kids, they may in fact support the drinking age.

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Class Blogs

This blog is presenting arguments for the legalization of marijuana. It brings to light to States, California and Colorado, that has taken radical steps to legalizing marijuana. It then moves on the present evidence for why marijuana should be legalized. I feel that many people instantly jump against marijuana is because it has all the stereotypes of being a ‘drug’ and there for is horribly wrong. If you look at the facts presented, you can start to realize that, as a ‘drug’ is can be considerably less weak than other substances that are already legal.

This blog takes on the very challenging issue of separation of church and state. Many people once they start talking about religion start relying to much on theology and stray from facts. This blog dissects both sides of a very controversial issue effectively and brings both sides of the issue to light. The blog points out the almost constant hypocrisy of the government and brings up a solution to the problem

This last blots dives into stem cell research, which is also another highly contested issue that has religious pretexts. This blog realizes this and one of the first article posted dives right into the religious context. This blog is full of the political and religious aspects that are involved with the issue of stem cell issue. The information is very interesting and a good read.

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Links

I find this article especially interesting to read. On the MADD website they list a bunch of different reasons on why the drinking age should be set at 21. When I read it, they seemed a little exaggerated to me, and this article clearly debunks most of the reasons if not all the reasons MADD gives.

More information that I find interesting is a transcript of an interview with a professor from Indiana University. Dr. Engs moves to lower the drinking age for several reasons, which I agree with. For the most part, it is to allow people to enjoy alcohol in social environments instead of it becoming a highly fantasized substance.

This article which has I have presented already in this blog is a great article in debunking the idea that American teenagers are better off then their counterparts over the pond with their drinking habits..

This is another article that I found which backs up my idea that a higher drinking age just builds up a stigma when it comes to drinking. It is from a British blogger who moved to America after he was legal to drink, he writes about how the attitude is completely different when it comes to drinking.

For people who are looking for information to keep the drinking age at 21, MADD was the biggest proponent in changing the law to 21; their website is full of information that tries to validate the law change.

Theory

There have always been people against alcohol in America, first there was the prohibition that completely failed in any attempt to stop people from drinking alcohol. In the 1980’s a powerful lobbyist organization was formed, MADD. This was the beginning of having the drinking age at 21. The main issue with the drinking age is drunk driving. People are afraid that if the age is lowered to 18, then more people will hit the roads driving in an unfit condition. An agreement needs to come that backs the government out of controlling aspects of our adult lives that is not included in the constitution, but something has to be done to control drunk drivers. In lowering the drinking age to 18, penalties for drunk driving should increase. There really is no excuse for drunk driving at all; the current punishment for drunk driving is a fine and possible license suspension. The punishment for drunk driving should become a mandatory sentence, that way people can’t bargain for a lower sentence. With a mandatory sentence in place, they will have to pay the penalty, both the fine and the insurance premium up charge (450% increase for four years in NC).

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Binge drinking at UNC

Drinking is often associated with the college experience, after all college is the one time where you have the luxury to be able to study with the repercussions possibly being lower than if you were in your thirties. This is the same at UNC where greek life can play a major role in the accessibility of alcohol to underage drinkers.
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UNC-CH Student Health Service educators used the same Core Institute mail survey in spring 1996. Some 429 of 800 randomly selected students replied. Thirty-seven percent of UNC-CH's respondents reported binge drinking during the previous two weeks. Slightly more than half of the male respondents and a third of the female students reporting binging. Twenty-seven percent of students reported binge drinking more than once in the prior two weeks, and more than 6 percent reported more than five binge drinking episodes during the same period. http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/nov97/cspigt.html

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Having alcohol being apart of everyday society since teenagers were 16 or 18, would the binge drinking numbers go down or increase?