Lowering the drinking age to 18: Pathos,logos,and ethos.

(Pathos) Every year thousands of parents receive that dreaded phone call involving their underage child and alcohol use. These calls range from police informing parents that their 17 year old has just been arrested for DUI, to hospital calls informing a worried mother that her only child has just died on the way to the prom because they were drunk and driving. By lowering the drinking age to 18 both of these situations could be drastically reduced. Having myself lost a friend to a car crash while they were driving under the influence, I now realize the importance of understanding alcohol and its effects. Being able to drink at 18 would give parents time to teach their children how alcohol works and the safe ways to use it. When a person reaches 21 they are no longer in the safe environment of their home and their parents hold much less influence in their life.

(Ethos) Would you rather expose your 16 year old to a glass of wine with dinner at night or find them at the police station with DUI charges when they are 21? Many people today don’t realize that by forbidding alcohol use by your child until they are 21, you are only influencing them to break the law in order to obtain this “mysterious” substance. By making it completely off limits for so long kids have to resort to desperate, and often illegal measures to obtain it. This increases the amount of crime among children and young adults. If the drinking age was lowered to 18, then teens wouldn’t be as interested in drinking and would be less inclined to commit crimes to acquire it.

(Logos) Lowering the drinking age to 18 would be extremely beneficial to young America. By cutting off teens from experiencing alcohol, we are increasing their curiosity about it, how much they want to consume it, and we are increasing the time it takes for them to find out how it effects them. America is one of the few countries that has a drinking age of 21. In places like Mexico, Italy, Germany, and the UK teens are allowed to consume alcohol far before 21. This means that by the time they are 21 they no longer have such a strong urge to go out and consistently drink and they know the effects of alcohol and how to stay safe. This drastically reduces the amount of alcohol related deaths and arrests in these countries.