Legalization of Underage Drinking
- Introduction
Legally, underage drinking is the use of alcohol by persons under the age of 21. Apart from the Federal government, state laws also govern underage drinking, where some states prosecute it as offense while others prosecute it as a criminal offense. This research focuses on underage drinking since there a link between it, negative behavior and psychological outcomes like difficulty in school, social, physical, and mental health problems (Mason and Spoth 1215). Alcohol also stops brain development and memory problems, as brain growth and development continues throughout the adolescent years. Moreover, there is a relationship between underage drinking and serious public health problems for the youth like suicides, homicides, and accidents (Schwartz and Zhong 911). Underage drinking is a serious public health concern since alcohol is the most used and abused drug by the youth in America (CDC 1). According to the CDC, alcohol related annual deaths among underage youth are at 4,700. Though the legal age is 21, adolescents between 12 and 20 make up 11% of alcohol consumers in the U.S. with 90% of this going to binge drinking (CDC 1). Moreover, underage drinkers take more alcohol than the adult drinker does in a single drinking occasion. The situation is serious as approximately 189,000 of the emergency visits in 2010 were by persons under the age of 21 from injuries and conditions associated with alcohol. Therefore, the legalization of underage drinking should not occur as it has negative health and social effects.
II- Proponents for Legalization
Those for legalization of underage drinking use the relation of the minimum drinking age with other normative ages (Bonnie and O’Connell 91). Bonnie and O’Connell equated this to the U.S.’s practice of arguing on, “the relation of the minimum drinking age to minimum driving age” (91). Proponents argue that it does not make sense, to make it legal for a sixteen year old to drive, but at the age of twenty, they cannot drink. The argument is that if the law considers a person responsible enough to drive, then they should be responsible enough to drink and handle the consequences of drinking.
Laws prohibiting underage drinking encourage underage drinking rather than discourage creating a health hazard, since the circumstances initiation of drinking occurs are not conducive. Bonnie and O’Connell arguments cite the opinion of Males Mike, who stated that in the U.S., “Drinking age laws discourage rather than encourage a transition period between youthful abstinence and adult use of alcohol beverages” (207). This implies that, under such laws, many youth learn how to drink under unsafe environments like basements parties. Therefore, rather than discouraging underage drinking, these laws encourage alcohol abuse among youth. Therefore, the youth tend to overuse alcohol or “binge drink” due to the prohibition rather than see alcohol as an accompaniment of food.
Re-legalization laws do not necessarily restrict underage drinking or access to alcohol. Dhywood cites that “heightened access restrictions to alcohol don’t seem to have much effect on underage drinking and do not reduce underage availability” (224). This implies that laws on restriction on alcohol do not prevent underage drinking or reduce the availability of alcohol to underage persons (Dhywood 224). These proponents feel that tighter restrictions and laws on underage drinking or access to alcohol do not necessarily prevent minors from accessing alcohol. This is because underage drinking often occurs through family, family friends, older siblings, and young adults who purchase alcohol for the underage. Dhywood draws from the study of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2008, which found that, “underage drinkers drink substantially less when their drinking is provided by a parent or guardian than when it is provided by an unrelated adult” (Dhywood, p.224). Underage drinking occurs mostly when they socialize of young adults who are sympathizing with their plight” (224). There is an indication that underage youth often drink within the home environment with access to alcohol provided by their older siblings, a parent, elder relative, neighbor, or older friend. This drinking often occurs at home parties, social gatherings, private parties, or college binge parties, where conditions may not be conducive. Therefore, this leads proponents for the legalization of underage drinking to reduce the health hazard associated with these situations.
Therefore, there is a need to educate opponents of anti-underage age drinking on several issues concerning underage drinkers. Proponents need to understand that underage drinkers have not fully developed emotionally, psychologically, or mentally let alone physically to handle the responsibility of the consequences of drinking. This is because according to Spear (2000), “brain, emotional and psychological development are ongoing throughout the teen years” (417). They argue that legalization accompanied by drinking lessons from adults like those done by other cultures, as the Jews, Greeks and Italians do, can reduce underage alcoholism. They cite studies like that of Hanson J. David in 1996, which show that drinking with education encourages moderate alcohol use among the youth (Bonnie and O’Connell 91). This implies that the young can learn moderate drinking under the guardianship of an adult. This is applicable as the Mediterranean do, where they introduce children to moderate and small amounts of alcohol. However, this is a serious challenge since the culture function of alcohol in the U.S. is different from that in the Mediterranean and European cultures. Socially available alcohol can still lead to easy access and high desirability of alcohol among the youth, making them users and abusers in the end.
III- Evidence of the Dangers of Underage Drinking
The current research uses studies on association between alcohol use and adverse consequences in the subjective well being of youth, to support the legalization of underage drinking. Experimental study like those carried out by Barnett et al. (2005) show that early alcohol use in adolescents leads to serious consequences in health, psychology, mental, and emotional well-being of adolescents, as it is “associated with lower general satisfaction and anticipated future satisfaction” (184). Mason and Spoth (2011) carried out a longitudinal study on “alcohol-related (and other substance-related) consequences, and subjective well being in adolescence, and prediction to problem alcohol use in early adulthood” (1215). These studies show that early use of alcohol by adolescents leads to poor social, emotional, psychological, and mental development. This is because “alcohol harms adolescent’s social skill and social networking development” (Collins et al. 528). The studies cite that, for such adolescents, the only form of social interaction is when they are drinking. This is because as they drink they feel relaxed, friendly, sexually enhanced, (Mason and Spoth 1222). The early use of alcohol to overcome the challenges of social interaction created by shyness or emotional development in teenage years, leads to an increase in alcohol use in adulthood (Barnett et al. 185). There is strong evidence that “alcohol use and problems in adulthood can be predicted by indicators of social background, adjustment, and behavior in childhood and adolescence” (Maggs et al. 7). These studies provide evidence that teenagers and 16 year old at the legal driving age, develop early alcohol use disorders due to underage drinking rather than early, driving disorder.
Studies also show that adolescents that take alcohol are more likely to be or are part of violence, injury, death, miss classes and abdicate their responsibilities (Hingson and Kenkel 2). The studies indicate that underage drinking among adolescence leads to consistent drinking in late adolescence such that “80% become highschool drop outs and 75% do not complete a college or university education” get employment, or settle down in early adulthood (Schwartz and Zhong 912). This trend is similar among boys and girls, such that the teen alcohol use among girls is on the increase. Schwartz and Zhong show that the increasing in drinking with the tendency for binge drinking is causing early pregnancies among teenagers (1215). Underage drinking has a relation to teenage pregnancies, sexual transmission of diseases, due to reduced cognitive functioning in alcohol users (Nelson and Wechsler 986). Alcohol use among teenagers has many health and social consequences as teenage girls drop out of school due to early pregnancies (Loewenstein 1). This is because on rare occasions do underage drinkers, drink moderately as they tend to binge drink, thereby reducing their cognitive skills.
The other consequence of underage drinking is the damage to health. Studies show that underage drinking does increase drug use and abuse. This is because underage drinkers tend to turn to substances like opiods and other narcotics for various reasons. Reasons often given are like experimentation, others are doing it, socially fit in, relive depression, and stress among others. Underage drinkers also influence each other into taking prescriptions drugs like Oxycontin and Vicodin (Nelson and Wechsler 990). Moreover, this affects the health and wellness of the youth. According to the CDC, underage drinking is causing an increase in alcohol-related diseases and health issues (1). This is because underage drinking leads to substance abuse that causes poisonings and deaths, illnesses, falls, sexually transmitted diseases, accidents among others.
IV-Solutions to Abusive Underage Alcohol Users
To reduce the rate of underage drinking, tighter supervision, and control is necessary to support the laws on underage drinking. This research finds that since adult family members are the main source and cause of underage drinking (Bonnie and O’Connell 191). Collaboration between law enforcement and parents is necessary. This calls for tighter monitoring and supervision of youth behavior by parents. This entails knowing who their friends are, supervision by adults during social functions, knowing children’s plans, where and what they are doing away from home (Bonnie and O’Connell 191). Parents must consider making use of curfews, punishment, and reward method to discourage misbehavior. This also includes the “use of law enforcement supervision for underage drinking offences” (Lab and Whitehead 186). This calls for collaboration between adult family members and law enforcement to monitor, control, and supervise underage drinking offenders. There is a need for collaboration between alcohol sellers and law enforcement to restrict the sale of alcohol to minors (Dhywood 247).
Underage drinkers can be discouraged through discussion and workshop sessions with alcohol abusers and medical personnel. The goal of such educational sessions is to “educate the youth on the consequences of alcohol use on their bodies” (Fisher 170). The sessions also assist underage drinkers in comprehending the emotional and psychological effects alcohol has especially its inhibition of developing meaningful relationships. Sessions can assist in educating on the negative effects alcohol has on sexual health, employment, education, and marriage. Underage drinkers can be educated through such sessions on the dangers alcohol has on others, like its “negative effects of drinking on the brain development and growth of a fetus of a pregnant alcoholic mother” (Priest 24).
Alcohol has a close relation with the development of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, poor brain development, emotional development, underweight, alcohol withdraws and dependency in a newborn, among others (Priest 24). Alcohol is the number one drug of choice for underage youth as its effects are not as rapid and adverse at narcotics and other drugs. This calls for the use of such educational counseling sessions to expose the youth to the negative and adverse effects of alcohol.
Conclusion
Underage drinking is a serious public health concern in America as alcohol is the preferred substance of choice among the youth. Proponents for the legalization of underage drinking argue that the prohibition is the cause for this dilemma as laws encourage drinking. Moreover, laws cause legal disparity on the drinking age and do not factor in safe drinking environment. However, underage drinking is directly in correlation to high school dropout rates, early teenage pregnancies, sexually transmission of diseases, accidents, injuries, and drug abuse. Underage drinking is in correlation with poor emotional, psychological, mental, and emotional development, and inability to maintain jobs and sustain marriages in adult life. Therefore, this calls for continued prohibition of underage drinking with tighter law enforcement, parental and community supervision, control, and monitoring.
Works Cited
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