The Minimum Drinking Age Should Be Legal - 1983 Words

The minimum age limit has been a topic of debate for years even though the choice is simple. Did you know that most parents living in Kansas nowadays grew up in a time in Kansas when they could drink a little alcohol when they were only 18 years old? Many people believe that if we allow drinking at younger ages such as 18 or 19 it would get rid of the â€Å"forbidden fruit† effect on alcohol. This is a way of thinking for fools about the problem of legal age of alcohol consumption. The reasons why we shouldn’t change the drinking age to 18 are it damages brain development and it causes more social problems. This problem came about soon after the Prohibition on alcohol was repealed in 1933, it was left up to the state to decide what†¦show more content†¦In order to prevent more deaths, 24 of the 29 states that had originally lowered their drinking age quickly raised the age back to 21 between 1976 and 1984. In 1984, there were still three states left that still allowed 18-year-olds to drink any and all types of alcoholic liquor. The other remaining states had adopted some sort of stair-step age requirement policy that was based on the type of liquor being consumed with higher levels of alcohol requiring higher ages to drink. Federal transportation authorities viewed this wide range of varying state laws as a real safety problem for all roads and traffic. Alcohol-related traffic injuries or deaths were increasing and many of these accidents were a result of kids traveling from their home states to neighboring states that had lower drinking ages and then becoming injured or killed as they returned to their home states drunk. These borders to states that had differing drinking ages and many accidents became known as â€Å"blood borders† for obvious reasons. Congress wanted a solution so they enacted the National Minimum Drinking Age Act which was recommended by President Reagan’s Commission on Drunk Driving in 1984. Sta tes were going to lose 10% of their federal highway funds unless they raised the minimum drinking age in their state to 21 for all alcoholic beverages. All the states had complied after a short time so that now all 50 states have a minimum drinking age of 21. There is