Drinking Age?

The drinking age is fine, if anything I believe that it should be raised. It is very hard to ignore the fact that this law is broken every day. It is the 90's, and all teens just want to fit in. Kids are drinking at a much younger age. Now, even 13 and 14 year olds are trying to fit in with us older kids. At a recent party, I attended there was a two boys there that couldn t have been older than 15. It's amazing and sometimes grossly funny what kids will do just to fit in with the in crowd. Well to some people, they are considered the drug users and drinkers. Our parents call them the "bad" crowd with good reason. I speak from experience. I will try to explain to you my views on parties, consequences, how easy it is to get alcohol, and the drinking problem in general.

I read an article on the internet the really emphasizes what I am going to say about why people drink. The author Robyn Followwill wrote, When American pop media culture invented tenn-agerhood in the 1950 s, the image of teen age drinking was reserved for the set that aspired to be the badest and boldest. But the secret world of young people has evolved, and drinking has gone from an act of rebellion to a way of life, (Followwill). This is clearly the truth where I live.

Here's what parties today look like for teens. The setting is house with no adults around to say what's wrong. If at all, there is one person in there twenties not even twenty-one. The people are a bunch of teens of both sexes. The environment is any kind of drugs and or alcohol. These consist of hard liquor like Aftershock, Jack Daniel's, and Everclear. Then there is the lighter stuff like beer, and wine coolers, and two dogs. A lot of the problems with alcohol comes from the pressure of older drinkers to try and get the younger people to drink the hard liquor. Then you have the people that want to go early or came by themselves that have no sober drivers. Teens that drive are in big trouble and are at big risk. I'm not blaming all of the drinking related accidents on teens either, but by cutting down on the teen age drinking you cut down on the drinking of people as they get older, or at least teach them to drink responsibly. Drunk drivers are of all ages. I'm not trying to say that all teens drink either. But most of the ones that do and are stupid enough to say they are sober enough to drive home safely are putting innocent citizens at risk. The drunken teens that drive should be looking at getting their license revoked, a night in jail, their cars impounded, and of course, getting a DUI. But in the town where I live, Columbus, things are different. Most of the policemen here are god ol boys who would rather just look past the problem. I know that many times I have been with people who have been drinking all night long then will leave a party and go cruising around. They do this because they no here if they get pulled over and the police find there alcohol that they will just tell them to pour it all out or just take it from them.

I see this as a big problem, mainly just because of the fact that I have had to many of my friends involved in alcohol related accidents. One of them rolled his Blazer, while he had about seven people in there with him. Another got so drunk the night after, he woke up went out to his truck and the right front end was smashed in, but he had no idea how it happened because he was he had gotten so intoxicated the night before.

Most of the teenagers that I know would have no problem getting any kind of alcohol that they wanted for the weekend. For some that s all they would have to do is ask there parents and it was as good as theirs . For others all they needed to do was find anyone that was of age or looked like it to go and buy them there alcohol. In Columbus the cops never ask any one who they catch with alcohol who bought it for them, even if they do they never do anything to the person who bought it. This problem could easily be solved and is starting to get solved because they city is now hiring a bunch of fresh cops right out of school who are looking to make a name for themselves. I think will do a much better job of up holding the laws and slowing down the underage-drinking problem. I think that once word gets out to these new cops about they selling and distributing of alcohol to minors they will start cracking down hard. I talked to one of the new cops that is my friend s father. He told me that they have more meeting s now than they have ever had about drug raids and underage drinking. He also said that the new judge will not let teen-agers get off without some kind of punishment for underage drinking citations.

All together I think it's pretty stupid to even think about changing the drinking age to 18. There will be even more illegal drinking if they knock down the age. There is always the argument; if you are old enough to serve your country, you are old enough to drink. It makes a good point, but in my opinion, most 18 year olds are not mature enough to drink, and this problem needs to be solved or at least worked on a little harder and it all starts right at home.