Do you know of someone who drinks, but is not old enough to do so legally? Many of us do, and many in high school can relate to witnessing this at parties, dances, football games, or at bars.
Some students have decided to take action: SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) chapters have been established at many schools with large membership drives, and, also, many students are very outspoken against teenage drinking. These are steps in the right direction, but little is being done to counsel those from making those 'destructive' decisions.
What many have overlooked or oversighted is that our underage drinkers today are our future drunken drivers. Instead of setting up road checkpoints to catch those driving intoxicated now, and only putting a band-aid on the problem, police in all areas should make a better effort to crash teenage parties where underage drinking takes place, and prosecute those adults and college students that provide liquor for their naive high school friends.
Underage drinking is not simply bad because it poses a threat for future drunk driving, but it also corrupts young minds in the peak of their maturity from a youth to an adult. In addition, fights are more likely to occur when there is alcohol involved. In the same way, this free drinking encourages premarital sex, and many students who would not have had sex under normal circumstances have wasted their virginity away. This sex initiates the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancies, two negatives which quite frequently put teens with aspiring dreams out of school- or out of their homes.
Not all teens drink, but those who do are more spirited about drinking than those who do not are about curbing the serious problem. Those teens who do not drink cannot complain about those who do until they get involved, and encourage their friends and those around them to make better, more positive choices. Drinking and fun are not exactly related, but drinking and stupidity certainly are one in the same.
You have quite the fallacious slippery slope argument there… Just because someone drinks on occasion, it does not mean that they will end up becoming uncontrollably promiscuous and spread STDs. I think the real problem is how prudish Americans are about drinking. In France, drinking is no big deal, and children, yes CHILDREN from about the age of 7, begin drinking some wine with dinner. And their proportion of alcoholism is remarkably low.
Furthermore, there is no evidence that states that 21 is a good choice for when drinking should be made legal. Of course alcohol can kill brain cells, but is the eighteen year old brain so much more fragile than the 21 year old brain?
The reason underage drinking is such an issue in the United States is because there is such a taboo surrounding drinking. Also, kids get a lot of mixed messages... their parents have wine with dinner, but preach the horrors of drinking.
I agree with you completely. Although the above two comments are right in the links that our country has between drinking and its problems, it doesn't change the fact that there are problems. I know so many people that drink wrecklessly and it is scary to think that they are our future generation. There needs to be a stop put to underage drinking. When people do drink, they need to do it more responsibly. There are too many accidents that arise from underage drinking, and there are too many life changing decisions that are made when a person is under the influence.