Nobody can debate how unhealthy alcohol is for babies and young children, but when do these babies and young children grow up enough that they should be legally allowed to drink alcohol? At what age should they be given the privilege to drink alcohol responsibly and also be held accountable for their actions under the influence?
These are questions that lawmakers have been asking themselves for centuries in the regard of the legality of alcohol. In the United States the current legal age to consume alcohol is 21. This is one of the highest drinking ages among countries around the world, with many European countries having drinking ages as low as 16.
Jay Brooks © 2009http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/world-drinking-age-maps/
These countries with lower drinking age also enjoy a surprisingly low DUI percentage as compared to the United States. In the United States there is an annual rate of about 37% of car fatalities that are caused by alcohol. However in a country like Sweden which has a lower drinking age, there is only a 16% rate of car accidents caused by alcohol, even though they use a .05 BAC instead of a .08 for the establishing whether or not the driver is over the legal limit to drive. (source: ©2010 AlcoholAlert.com) If the law is designed to keep people safe one of the only solution seems to be to lower the drinking age to a reasonable age such as 18 and put a bigger emphasis on road safety and cracking down on DUI's. Another factor that makes drinking safer when introduced at a younger age is the underground environment that it avoids.
http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k8/location/UnderageAlcLocFig1.jpgWhen drinking is made illegal to young adults 18-21 it drives a larger percentage of the drinking population to drink in a setting in which they normally wouldn't. ( Source: SAMHSA, 2006 NSDUH.) This change in settings can lead to these young adults to putting themselves at increased risk as is seen in the following segment done by 60 minutes:
Underage Drinking relates to our class because it has to do with the definition of the rights of different people. This directly relates to the Vindication of the Rights of Men, in which Wollstonecraft explicitly talks about age discrimination. This topic also directly relates to the constitution in which the legality of alcohol appears in the 18th and 21st amendments.
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