Underage Drinking

Turning 18 is a milestone in every American adolescents life, because they become an adult. There is an almost unlimited amount of privileges that come with becoming of age, including the option to work a full time job, they can join a union, they can get married, or have consensual sex, they can have children, adopt children, abort children, buy cigarettes, own a bar, go to war, own a car, be sentenced to the death penalty, vote and pay taxes, yet it is prohibited to drink alcohol. For twenty-two years, the minimum drinking age in the United States has been 21. This has been a hot topic since prohibition throughout the United States. By adopting a Constitutional Amendment, some American citizens will be rewarded with the freedoms that are already expressed to them in the Constitution.

Limitations on alcohol consumption began with the Prohibition of alcohol from 1920-1933. The 18th amendment made it against the law to manufacture, transport or sell alcohol. A loophole arrived after the 18th amendment- owning liquor or drinking liquor was not illegal, therefore, large quantities of alcohol were smuggled into America from Canada and the Caribbean. There was such a mockery of Prohibition, it was repealed with the twenty-first amendment giving the states the right to restrict the sale of alcohol in 1933 (Wikipedia). After it was left up to states, the drinking age was slowly lowered back to 18, until The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. Heavily influenced by MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), congress passed the act stating that:

The Secretary shall withhold 10 per centum of the amount

required to be apportioned to any State under each section...

...on the first day of each fiscal year after the second fiscal

year beginning after September 30, 1985, in which the purchase

or public possession in such State of any alcoholic beverage

by a person who is less that twenty-one years of age is lawful (Congress).

Since then, this recurring problem has affected adults and teens throughout the U.S. This problem has been addressed by many organizations and government officials, including, The National Youth Rights Association, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Students Against Drunk Driving, Republican Pete Coors, and Kenyon College president S. Georgia Nugent (Stats). Most of the addressings have helped to make congress aware that this is an important issue to the young voters. This problem has really become important now because all of the studies that are being conducted have shown that the 18-20 age group have been wrongly targeted. Today, there are more students seeking higher education than ever, and they have begun to acknowledge