Drinking age Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Drinking age - Essay Example It is stated in the act, along with other enforcements that the states should legislate or enforce the minimum legal drinking age to be twenty one years old. It is also stated under the Federal Aid Highway Act, that the state that fails to mandate or enforce the twenty one years old law of drinking age, is at risk of losing ten percent of the federal funding for highway appointments. There have been several controversies related to the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. The law was effective in 1984, when President Reagan signed this law for implementation, many people are convinced that the most influential supporter for the act was Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) (Stefan, K, pp.25). Even if it is true or not, there is one thing very apparent that was the act was imposed as a law due to extraordinary support from the groups of special interests among which MADD was one of them. From a very long time, drinking has been considered as a government lack of control issue. Du ring the year 1919, a prohibition was effective which imposed a ban on everyone from drinking alcohol regardless of age group. It was considered as a criminal offense to manufacture, possess, sell or drink alcoholic beverages. The prohibition was lifted by the year 1933, and once again the consumption and possession alcoholic drink was legal. It was official prompted to many states, cities and municipalities that they control drinking by creating legislation. Through several studies, it is suggested that the brain of a youngster is not completely developed until the age of twenty one that is the reason why the brain of youngster is affected differently as compared to the effects on an adult. After several discussions it was settled that the age of twenty one was ideal for legal drinking age and an act was passed, it was required by the states to increase the age of legal drinking to twenty one otherwise their percentage of funding for highways will be reduced by ten percent. The tim e duration provided for implementation was two years. Some of the states enforced the law, some states did not but at present all the states have implemented the law. There are additional exceptions available in the Federal law, if youngsters want to pursue employment in a place where there is dealing of alcoholic beverages. An eighteen year old is eligible to work in a restaurant, bar and serve alcohol at a liquor store, the possession of alcohol in such case is legal, but they are not allowed to consume it. In some states the prohibition are more specifically defined as compared to others, whereas some municipalities have no legislation defined in this regard related to the legal age of drinking. To date there has been a lot of confusion raised with regards to what is allowed and what is not, as the implementation varied from state to state, but it is better to be precautious by being safe and not consuming or possessing alcohol beverages under the age of twenty one. United States of America has implemented highest age of legal drinking as compared to all other countries. Russia, Spain, Ireland, Mexico, Australia and England all these countries have the legal drinking age eighteen. Portugal, Greece, Germany, Italy and few other countries have allowed the young citizen to consume beer at a young age of sixteen, whereas some of the countries have no defined