Essay, Research Paper: Under Age Drinking

Why would people who are under age want to drink? Well under age drinking isn't to uncommon. (1) Studies say that approximately 6% of 10-11 year old children use alcohol. 25% by the age of 14 and 55% by the age of 17. Approximately 92 percent of high school kids have used alcohol, of the 92 percent 64 percent use alcohol on a regular basis. Sometimes teenage kids drink under stress. Stress can be overwelming and kids don't know how to deel with it. Drinking is a way for them to forget about there problems and have fun. Kids also think that since there young that they can't get sick or even die from drinking. There wrong. Under age drinking is the main cause of alcohol abuse and alcohol related health problems. Alot of kids think that they can't get addicted to alcohol but then they do and can't stop.
(2)Alcohol causes a lot of harm to the human body. Such harm like cirrhosis of the liver, digestive tract diseases, and many types of cancer. There is also some benefits of drinking, but only on moderate levels. Moderate drinking can lower the risk of coronary heart disease and can even help aid the common cold. Even though some drinking is good for the body you have to know how much and not to exceed that level.(3) Alot of teenagers aren't worried about there health so they just drink to get drunk.
If you ever thought just because there is laws against anyone under the age of 21 to buy alcohol, those who are under age can't still buy it. You were wrong. (4)There is so many ways to get alcohol for minors. Some of the ways minors buy there alcohol is with fake I.D's, stealing, having someone of age buy it for you, or if you look old enough you won't get carded. Getting fake I.D's is extremely easy, all you need is about fourty dollars for a good one. They sell fake I.D's in all the major cities every where. Stealing alcohol is also easy to do if you know the right places and how to do it. But you better be carefull if you get caught that's a fellony. Getting someone to buy you alcohol is easy because older people remember when they were that age and older people helped them out. As you can see minors have no problem buying alcohol.
(5)The legal drinking age law is enforced to protect young people from health problems and to lower the drunk driving accidents. They figure by the time your 21 years old you are responsible enough to no when to say when. By the age 21 your body is more developed and is less likely to be seriously affected by the alcohol in a bad way. The drinking law is proven to cut back deaths by drunk driving accidents.
(6)Drinking has been shown to be cool by advertisements on billboards and magazines. Teenagers think that by drinking they can have a good time. So when school celebrations or parties come around teenagers drink and have a good time. Doing this blows up the alcohol company's way of glorifying there product. Alcohol companies put a lot of money into advertisement. The advertisement works more on younger people than older. younger people are more gullible to the promotions companies put out. Teenage years are the years when most people try drinking and smoking. Advertisement just makes more kids try drinking and smoking. The companies might not try to attract young people, but they have eyes to. Beer companies alone spend over 6oo million dollars a year on television ads alone. Distilled alcohols such as vodka, gin, and whiskey, are allowed to put commercials on t.v. but they have to find a station that will put there commercial on the air. Distilled products are usualy seen on billboards or magazine ads. Estimated juniors and seniors in high school drink about31.2 million gallons of wine coolers, that's 35% of all wine colers sold. The same kids drink approximately 1.1 billion cans of beer a year, that's 2% of all beer sold. Advertisement for these product is shown on t.v. More young people see these products as harmless alcohols. These products are also advertised as daily drinkers.
The moderate alcohols like beer and wine can be beneficial to the body. It's the distilled beverages that are more harmfull. Harder beverages like whiskey can cause alcohol poisoning faster than other alcohols. Distilled beverages are alot harder on the body to. Beer and wine are less harmfull because of there lower alcohol level.
Interviewing 6 teenage kids on there views on alcohol. I came up with this.
1: "Alcohol is great." drinks approximately an eighteen pack a weekend. Spends about fifteen dollars on alcohol a weekend.
2: "I love it. Everyone would have a much better time if everyone was drunk." Drinks approximately 30 beers a weekend. Spends about $20 a weekend.
3: "Alcohol is not a good thing, but is a fun thing to do." Drinks approximately a fifth of gin a weekend. spends about $12 a weekend.
4: "I don't particularly like alcohol but all drugs are good." Drinks ocasionally and about 4 beers. spends about $2.5 a weekend.
5: "Drinking is bad, I can't see why people do it." Doesn't drink. Saves her money.
6: "My motto is to drink until I throw up." Drinks about two eighteen packs a weekend. Spends about $20 a weekend.
This proves a point on how many teenagers drink. All the people who were interviewed were 18 or younger.
I feel that the legal drinking age should be lowered to eighteen years old. At the age eighteen you are legally considered an adult. If you are old enough to make decisions as an adult you can make decisions on wether to drink or not. I think that the law is also good because it's lowered deaths and health risks. I think that if kids even under eighteen years old can buy alcohol and drink than the age should be lowered, under age drinking takes place as an every day lifestyle for some kids. I think that the age law doesn't even work that well. But if people of the age eighteen were allowed to drink than a lot of teenagers would become alcoholics. There for I don't think the law is all that bad.
So in the end, drinking is not healthy for kids but there are going to do it anyway. The goverment is going to need to do one of two things. Make drinking legal for younger people or try to stop all under age drinking. They can't take alcohol away from everybody, the found that out in the 20's, and they can't take alcohol away from a certain group of people so the only thing that is left is to let the people that are drinking now do it legally.