Minimum Legal Drinking Age ( Tietjen ) - 1700 Words

Minimum Legal Drinking Age On July 17 of 1984 President Ronald Reagan signed to make the National Minimum Drinking Age Act a law. This law required all states to have a minimum drinking age of 21, if a state did not comply with this law they could face up to a 10% cut in funding for their federal highways (Tietjen). Since this act became a law there has been two distinct sides arguing whether they agree with the minimum drinking age, or whether they disagree. One side believes having a minimum drinking age makes alcohol seem like a â€Å"forbidden fruit† of sorts and because people always want what they can’t have, a minimum drinking age makes underage drinking an even bigger problem. The other side of this argument is basically that if a†¦show more content†¦Those for lowering the minimum legal drinking age have many reasons why they believe it should be lowered. One issue they see with setting the minimum legal drinking age to 21 is how extremely disobeyed this law has become, as Jeffe ry A. Tucker explains in his Newsweek article, â€Å"The Drinking Age Should be Lowered, Fast,† below: The drinking-age law would surely be a winner in a competition for the least obeyed law. The notion that this law is accomplishing anything to actually stop or even curb teen drinking is preposterous. Instead, we see all the unintended effects of Prohibition: over-indulgence, anti-social behavior, disrespect for the law, secrecy and sneaking and a massive diversion of human energy. As Tucker explains, the minimum legal drinking act does nothing to stop teens from drinking underage. It’s so easy these days for an underage person to get a fake ID to buy alcohol with or to ask another friend over 21 to buy them drinks. The large amount of people drinking age then causes another problem that people believe could be solved if the legal drinking age was lower, people having less respect for the law. People who drink underage know they are breaking a law, but they aren’t very worried about that, this may then lead into them breaking other laws as well as not having much respect for the law in