Self Analysis Post

Hello again bloggers…
It has been a great journey telling you all about the different aspects of the drinking age and informing you all about my opinions on it. This has been a great experience for me because I feel that this form of writing has helped expand my writing expidentures. Not only did I get to write in a brand new way I also feel as if blogging about the debate on the drinking age helped to improve my argumentative writing skills.
When my professor first gave me this assignment to pick a controversial topic and blog about it, I was a bit hesitant. My initial response was, “What the heck how do I even blog and how is this going to aid me in writing about the drinking age?” Little did I know how interesting it would be to complete this assignment. In addition, I feel that blogging has many unknown benefits that I never truly knew about. One benefit that specifically helped me grow with my topic was the direct connection with other bloggers. I found it extremely helpful to hear their feedback on my blog posts, and have them bring up questions and topics that I had not thought about before. Therefore, this caused me to have even deeper thinking with my topic.
I chose the topic of the drinking age because I have always felt passionate about this issue, but as I continued to research this topic my reasons for being so passionate and actual knowledge about the topic strengthened and diversified immensely. Originally I believed that the drinking age should be lowered because I figured if you are 18 and can fight and die for your country why can’t you have a beer in a bar? Along with this common reasoning I believed in others such as being able to buy cigarettes, one can be put in jail at age eighteen, etc., but do not get me wrong I still believe these are extremely valid arguments I just expanded these arguments with my research. Now I feel that the most important reason as to why the drinking age should be lowered is to help decrease bad drinking habits and the amount of overall deaths from activities such as binge drinking.
Not only did I state my opinion of the argument through this whole blogging process, but I also learned about the other side of the debate and somewhat sympathized with what they believe in. Having to write two different blog posts a week allowed me to cover every aspect possible about drinking. From this journey I discovered the psychological aspects of drinking (why younger people want to drink and what causes alcohol dependency), as well as general facts and statistics that I had never truly known about before. I got the opportunity to learn about other groups that are in favor of lowering the drinking age to eighteen such as Choose Responsibility and the Amethyst Initiative. I also heard the voice of the opposing side in favor of keeping the drinking age at twenty-one with groups such as MADD. In addition to covering different aspects of my topic I was able to form my own theories and ideas about what would happen if this debate would have no end, and predict what the future would hold. This whole blogging process has been a long one folks, but I do believe that it has been a beneficial one as well. I feel as if I have a whole new respect for bloggers/blogging, and I have been able to fully connect with my topic because of it. It is also extremely convenient to be able to connect my newfound knowledge/research via hyperlinks in my blog posts! So if anything I have learned how to make hyperlinks J just kidding, but on a more serious note I want to thank all of you for leaving me comments and helping me consider new angles to my argument

A Sobering Experience

I wanted to write my last regular blog post about a true story that happened to one of my good friends. It was a Thursday night, which is a typical night to go out in college, and my friend got invited to go out with a bunch of people. They were all going to go to a bar to hang out, but of course they were not twenty-one yet so they were not going to be able to drink while they were there. One girl out of the group decided to have everyone come to her place to “pregame” (drink a lot) before they headed out to the bar. My friend decided to go to the pregame, but she got there a little late and everyone else was ready to go. Therefore, she ended up drinking wayyyy too much and way too fast because she knew she was not going to be able to drink anything when she was at the bar. It turns out that my friend lost complete control over her body when they arrived at the bar, and was falling around everywhere and they kicked her out of the bar. Her eyes began to roll in the back of her head and she continued to go in and out of consciousness; her friends decided that she needed to go to the hospital. She got there and she was okay but her BAC was ridiculously high and she had to get IVs in her arm to help her stay hydrated; she ended up having to spend the night in the hospital.
My friend got very lucky that she was okay, and she was with people that cared about her. If she had taken one more drink or one more shot of alcohol who knows how things could have turned out for her. These types of experiences are becoming more and more popular among college drinkers and underage drinkers in general. Groups such as the Amethyst Initiative and myself believe that lowering the drinking age along with alcohol education will reduce these bad habits.

Implications Post!

Whats up Blogggers??
As you all know I have been blogging about this debate on the drinking age for quite some time now, and you all should also know that this debate is still unresolved. The question now is what will happen if the issue remains unresolved? Technically right now this issue is not really open because currently the law is that people must be 21 to drink legally. Therefore, if this debate continues with no resolution then nothing is going to change; the law will just remain for the drinking age to be and stay at age 21. Unfortunately, I believe that if this situation were to occur there would still be tension with the issue and the debate would still somewhat go on. I also predict that if the issue remains unresolved then more groups such as the amethesyt Initiative and others will continue to grow and gain more strength.
If this issue continues to have no end then the affects are not going to be that devastating. On the other hand, I do believe that bad drinking habits will continue to be an issue among underage drinkers and could possibly start to get worse. According to these binge drinking statistics it is already a major issue, and causing many problems, are we just going to sit around and let it get worse?

Interesting Political Cartoon

Hey Bloggers!
So I just found this interesting political cartoon about the drinking age online. My interpretation of this image is that drinking at age 21 and drinking at age 18 do not really look that different. Yes it is different in the sense that drinkers at age 21 are legally allowed to drink, and drinkers at age 18 are not, but the manner in which they are drinking really are not that different. I think this cartoon is sending out the message that what is the point of having the drinking age at 21. Do you guys think that this cartoon is bringing up any other specific points or ideas?
I also noticed a small detail of this political cartoon in which one of the males in the front row has on a shirt that says “alpha” which makes me infer that it is supposed to represent a fraternity or Greek life in general. In addition to that, another boy in the cartoon has on a shirt that says “OSU”. Thus, I do not know if that is important at all or of this cartoon is specifically pointing to drinking in college, but I just thought it was an interesting detail that I noticed. If it is referring to drinking at college, I definitely have to agree that the drinking habits of an 18 yr old and a 21 year old are extremely similar, based what I have observed in college thus far. Do you all you bloggers out there think that there is such a big difference in maturity level from an 18 year old to a 21 year old that it makes it necessary to have the drinking age at 21?

Annotated Links Post

This post will offer specific descriptions of the websites I have been using for my research and in my blogs

Underage Drinking
This website basically points out all of the issues with underage drinking and does a great job of defining it. This website is broken up into five different sections entitled the issue, a solution, alcohol and society, scare tactics, and a better way. I really like this website because it takes a realistic approach to the issue and it has great information, facts, and statistics. It even has specific information about drinking at UNC!

Minimum Age Limits Worldwide
This website was extremely useful in my research because it offers a chart of the different drinking ages around the world. This website allowed me to compare and contrast the different ages and connect that to different drinking cultures. If you are planning a vacation any time soon or if you are just curious you should definitely check out this website!

Should the drinking age be lowered from 21 to a younger age?
This website offers a chart of pros and cons of lowering the drinking age to eighteen. I found this website extremely helpful when trying to explore each side of the argument and helping me form my own opinion. Even though I am a firm believer in lowering the drinking age this pro/con chart helped me sympathize with the other side and understand why they might want to keep the drinking age at twenty-one .

Debate Over Legal Drinking Age in South Carolina Far From Over
This article does a great job of explaining South Carolina’s efforts to lower the drinking age to eighteen. This article also provides more information about the Amethyst Initiative and their efforts to lower the drinking age. This article is also extremely informative because it provides specific examples of underage drinking penalties.

Why Do Adolescents Drink, What Are the Risks, and How Can Underage Drinking Be Prevented?
This website offers more information about the psychological aspects to drinking and why younger people are so attracted to it. In addition to that, it offers some great statistics related to drinking, which is sometimes important to consider. This website also discusses some major effects of drinking specifically how it affects the body.

The Debate On Lowering The Drinking Age
I found a lot of useful information from this CBS News article. This article is a bit lengthy, but it is worth reading because it goes in depth with the debate on lowering the drinking age. This news article also tells a frightening story about a college student that died from binge drinking. This article outlines the theory that lowering the drinking age will be beneficial by eliminating all alcohol related deaths rather than just ones related to drunk driving accidents.

Class Links Post!

Hey everyone! If you have been enjoying my blog then you should check out some of my classmates blogs too!

Cheers!
If you guys like my blog then you will definitely enjoy this one! This blog deals with the same issue as my blog, the drinking age. This blog is also in favor of lowering the drinking age which is why I enjoy following this blog because I like to see what this bloggers reasons are for supporting this side and some different forms of exploration on this topic. The links throughout this blog are very helpful and relatable so you guys should definitely check this blog out if you want to learn even more about the debate on lowering the drinking age.

nonlinearperspectives
This is another blog that I loved to read and I highly recommend all you bloggers to start reading and following as well. This blog explores the topic of legalization of marijuana. The blog posts on this page are highly thought-provoking and bring up new topics to this topic that are extremely interesting, new, and refreshing. The language of this blog is highly intellectual and it is clear that the writer has a complete grasp on his subject and has done much research. Check out this blog for yourself and learn about the pros and cons of the legalization of marijuana and deep pondering about this subject.

Drinking Age
Another great blog to check out is this one! I follow this blog for the same reasons that I follow Cheers! I follow this blog because it has to do with the same topic I have been so avidly blogging about. This blog also supports lowering the drinking age to eighteen. I have really enjoyed these informative blog posts, and I have noticed that we have been finding out similar information about our topics, but this blog still offers different examples and explorations as well which makes it interesting to compare to mine. This blog also offers a lot of personality in it tone which makes it that much more enjoyable to read!

Theory Post!

Hello again bloggers! This post is supposed to provide my theory as to why the drinking age became so “contentious” in the first place. Well… let’s start with history of drinking alcohol. According to this website that alcohol has been around for tens of thousands of years and has only gotten more popular over time. Therefore, the issue is prevalent and has been around for awhile. Let’s consider another fact, people like to drink, and a lot of people do it (some people drink legally and others do drink illegally). It is becoming a common trend that underage drinkers are participating in bad drinking habits. Thus, this ongoing battle of lowering the drinking age to 18 or keeping it at 21 is just a continuous and vicious cycle because of all the gray areas and contradictions (mentioned here: “…double standard between 18-year-olds being able to vote, sign contracts, serve on juries or enlist in the military, but who are then denied the ability to legally drink alcohol”). One major issue with the debate is that it has been proven that raising the drinking age to 21 has decreased alcohol related car fatalities. On the other hand, the belief that lowering it to 18 will decrease all alcohol related deaths in general is just a hypothesis, it has not yet been proven, and some people just do not want to take that chance. Personally, I believe that people are always going to have their opinions on this subject and it does not matter if the government continuously changes the age or they never change it this argument is still going to continue.

Underage Drinking is Inevitable !

Many people argue that lowering the drinking age to eighteen would not be a good idea because it will cause underage drinkers to start drinking at even younger ages. Why do you think this will happen? What causes younger teens and underage drinkers to be interested in drinking? I believe that some underage drinkers want to drink because of the new youthful attractions associated with it. These new associations are called drinking games. Yes there are “games” that go along with drinking and there are many of them. I am not going to post a link to any websites that explain these numerous games, but I will tell you they are out there, and if you are looking for proof simply Google search “drinking games”. The only problem associated with these games is that the main goal is to get drunk. To be specific, this type of behavior and culture is what makes people want to keep the drinking age at twenty-one because it could be considered irresponsible or immature behavior with drinking, and I can definitely understand this side of the argument. The only concept that I think that people do not seem to accept is that underage drinking is happening and is going to continue happening for a long time. According to this website, “By the time they reach the eighth grade, nearly 50 percent of adolescents have had at least one drink, and over 20 percent report having been “drunk” (1). Approximately 20 percent of 8th graders and almost 50 percent of 12th graders have consumed alcohol within the past 30 days (1). Among 12th graders, almost 30 percent report drinking on 3 or more occasions per month.” A major issue with this is that these underage drinkers are trying to take this drinking more underground, and in unsafe places.

Nonsufficient Alcohol Education

Another major issue with drinking is the education that is available with it in the United States. As a child we may have some basic courses giving us limited information about it. For example, in the fifth grade I took a course called D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and it was about a week long course at my elementary school. I do not even remember what exactly we were taught during this week, but I know it consisted mainly of the theme that drugs and alcohol are very bad for you and you should not do them. Do not get me wrong this information is appropriate to learn at this age because of course the educators are not going to go in depth of the short term and long term effects, consequences, etc. My point is that this course is not efficient enough to be the sole component of alcohol education. I think a more realistic approach, along with lowering the drinking age to eighteen, would be to have teens take mandatory alcohol classes, pass a test, and then have some sort of a license to drink. (Somewhat similar to the process of obtaining a drivers license). I believe that these classes should be included in a basic high school curriculum so they are available to all teens. After the student has turned eighteen, and has taken the classes the student must pass a cumulative written test. They must receive a passing score in order to obtain their drinking license. If license holder breaks any drinking laws or any other significant laws in general, they shall lose their license for a certain period of time, or permanently.

Analysis Post!

Hello Bloggers!
If you have been an avid reader of my blog then you should know where I stand with the drinking age debate, but if you are a newcomer then this is a good first post to start with. This is my first analysis post, and I am going to re-cap on what I have been blogging about, further define/explain my topic, analyze each side of the debate, and much more! So hop on the blog bus with me and explore the issue of the drinking age.
In my very first blog post, I discussed why the debate about the drinking age was important to me. Additionally, some of my other classmates have been blogging about this issue as well, so if you want to see why it is important to them then just click 1 2 and 3. To sum it up, the drinking age is a major issue. One side of the debate is to lower the drinking age to eighteen and the other is to keep it at 21. I have chosen to argue the side that the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen, and I have given a few reasons in my previous posts.
When did this debate come about you ask? Well most states voluntarily set their minimum drinking age to twenty-one, then during the Vietnam War era, some states started lowering it to age eighteen. As a result of that, a lot of states started following this trend, until the fatalities involved with alcohol and driving began to increase. Consequently in 1984, Ronald Reagan made it a law to have twenty-one be the legal drinking age in all states. To read more about the history just click here! Although it is a fact that the fatalities involved with alcohol and driving have decreased, there is a newer issue that has become extremely prevalent and that has been causing deaths. This issue is called binge drinking and as I mentioned in my binge drinking blog post, it is a major problem with underage college students. Here is a website with some interesting statistics on college alcohol related problems. Therefore, one of the sub-arguments within this huge debate is keeping the drinking age at twenty-one will keep the number of fatalities involved with alcohol and driving down, but lowering the drinking age will decrease the number of deaths related to poor alcohol behavior such as binge drinking. Dr Ruth Engs agrees with me and follows the side that believes that lowering the drinking age will decrease the number of overall fatalities by reducing dangerous drinking habits. According to this CNN article it states that, “Of the 5,000 lives lost to alcohol each year by those under 21, more than 60 percent are lost OFF the roadways, according to the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. The principal problem of 2009 is not drunken driving. The principal problem of 2009 is clandestine binge drinking.” In addition, this sub-argument is further explained on this website!
One of the main reasons I am so intrigued by this argument is because of the whole double standard of age that this issue personifies. For example, in the United States, we are considered adults at age eighteen, but one adult right is not available for 18, 19, or even 20 year olds to take part in, and that is legally drinking. So wait, at eighteen we are adults, but we are not adult enough to drink? As a result of this question, the definition of adult becomes blurred at this point, so let’s consult this website to help clarify it. It says that an adult is “adjective 1. having attained full size and strength; grown up; mature: an adult person, animal, or plant. 2. of, pertaining to, or befitting adults. 3. intended for adults; not suitable for children: adult entertainment. –noun 4. a person who is fully grown or developed or of age. 5. a full-grown animal or plant. 6. a person who has attained the age of maturity as specified by law.” Well that was not much help either… the definition is still unclear.
Many people feel that an eighteen year old is not mature enough to be able to legally drink. Recently, one of my classmates brought up the point that age is irrelevant to maturity and being able to be responsible, and when it comes to drinking maturity and responsibility are key. Thus, my argument is if we are supposed to be adults at eighteen why can’t we legally drink at eighteen too? Some people are never going to be mature and responsible until the day they die, but the ones who are should not have to suffer too. Another reason why age is somewhat irrelevant to the issues with binge drinking and dangerous drinking habits is because of the culture of drinking in the United States. In other countries, drinking is not that big of an issue and in a majority of them the drinking age is 18 or lower. To get a complete list of different drinking ages around the world click here. In a recent article that I have read, an American boy talks about his experiences with drinking at Oxford University and how much more laid back their drinking culture is compared to the U.S. There are definitely not as many drinking issues in countries where drinking is more of a socially accepted concept because so many people have been doing it for so long.
Recently, we did an exercise in class which required me to look at the other side of this argument and try to understand why some people would want to keep the drinking age at twenty-one. Although I do feel passionate about my position on this issue, this exercise enabled me to understand and agree with the other side’s reasoning to an extent. For instance, there is the major argument of car fatalities, the effects drinking has on a young person’s body, higher chance of alcoholism, and the trickledown effect to even younger drinkers. However, the truth is that the whole debate has many pros and cons for each side, and unfortunately they are almost equal. Therefore, one of my solutions to this problem is to lower the drinking age to eighteen, but have a required education class for a lengthy period of time, followed by a test, and receiving some sort of license. Moreover, this solution will be explored further in an upcoming blog post!
For people who do not want the drinking age to be lowered, you are in luck because President Obama agrees with you. Specifically, nothing about the drinking age is going to change while he is President; he even said so to a twenty-three year old Army veteran, but others are trying their best to persuade everyone that the drinking age should be lowered. Namely, people such as Duke University’s president, other major Universities presidents, and states such as South Carolina are working hard to try and persuade people to change the law. They have even created and bolstered the Amethyst Initiative to help get their message well known. I hope the post has helped you followers understand more about the issue at hand; I know it has sure help me! Unfortunately, this is where the blog bus stops, but keep posting and reading bloggers. Catch ya later!

Different Drinking Cultures

This week in class one of my classmates brought up an idea on my topic (the drinking age) that I had not really thought of before, and I decided to contemplate this idea through a blog post. This student mentioned that she thought a big problem with drinking was the whole culture of it, especially in the United States. This student is not from the United States and I am not exactly sure which country she is from so I am not going to guess and get it wrong, but where she is from there is not really a drinking age at all.
The drinking culture in America seems to have a completely different theme to it compared to other cultures. For underage drinkers and younger legal drinkers (in the U.S.A) the main goal of drinking is typically to get “wasted”, but other countries do not really follow this trend. The U.S.A has the highest drinking age around the world, but at the same time doesn’t it have one of the worst drinking problems? So age should not really be the main issue with drinking, it should be the culture, education, and connotations associated with drinking. In most European countries the legal drinking age is 16 or lower, and they have hardly any issues with drinking. That is because drinking is part of their culture; they socially drink, and do not drink just to get wasted. If the United States took after these examples then the drinking problem may slowly start to disappear.

The Appeals of Drinking

Hello again bloggers!
Have you heard any stories recently about your friends getting completely wasted at a party and not remembering anything? I have heard many such stories, and usually these stories are a result of the binge drinking I mentioned in my previous post. I believe that lowering the drinking age to eighteen would help decrease these problems because it would take away the rebellious appeal that comes along with drinking illegally. Many underage teens are curious as to why this substance is illegal, and why they have to wait until they are twenty-one to partake in this experience. Therefore, it makes them that more tempted to try it and to see what this illegal drink is all about. Even growing up as a kid myself, I had heard about drinking, and that it makes you feel funny, and maybe it would make you do things you typically would not do. After hearing something like this of course a person is going to be curious about it. Another factor that makes alcohol so appealing to underage teens is the fact that if an underage teen tries alcohol and gets away with it that may give them a rebellious rush because they broke a law and got away with it. A lot of the reasons for this are physiological; click here to read more about the psychology behind underage drinking. I believe that if the rebellious appeal is taken away then teens would be less likely to experiment, and wait until they are eighteen to legally drink. As far as binge drinking goes, I feel that lowering the drinking age would decrease this habit as well because eighteen year olds would be able to go out and drink rather than having to get extremely drunk before going out. Please let me know of you have any contrasting ideas or thoughts in general! Be on the lookout for my next post! Until then peace and love…

Binge Drinking

Hello again bloggers!
I wanted to direct this blog post to a specific problem with drinking that has recently been linked to age, and that is binge drinking. According to dictionary.com the definition of binge drinking is the consumption of dangerously large quantities of alcoholic beverages in one session. Binge drinking has become a major issue among college students, and has been linked to many alcohol-related deaths. I have to agree with the idea that many people are binge drinking in college because they are not twenty-one yet, and cannot drink legally. Generally people do not turn twenty-one in college until late in their junior year through their senior year. Through my own experiences, I know that college students that are under age try to drink as much as possible in the shortest amount of time possible in order to get drunk and stay drunk. Students participate in this type of drinking because they know they cannot drink when they go out to dinner or to the club, or whichever public place they are going to, so they “pre-game” before. For anyone that is not familiar with the term “pre-game” it has become a common word to describe the act of drinking before going out.
Binge drinking is a major issue because a person does not realize how trying to drink a lot really fast is going to affect them in the next thirty minutes to an hour. Students try to push each other by taking shot after shot and before they know it, they are already completely drunk. There is an extremely interesting story on cnn.com about a young college boy that died as a result of binge drinking. Ultimately, his fraternity brothers left him on a couch to die by himself because they were scared that they would get in trouble for underage drinking if they would have called 911 for help. In my opinion, I believe that this growing problem could be decreased if the drinking age was lowered to age eighteen, and some sort of alcohol education program was required in high school. My reasons for why I believe this will help decrease the problem and more drinking related information will be posted in my next blog… until then keep posting!

Why the Debate of The Drinking Age is Important to Me

It is obvious that my blog is about the drinking age, but I am going to begin these series of blogs about this subject by telling all of you fellow bloggers why this subject is so important to me. To begin, I am in college and I am eighteen years old; this is an important reason in itself. With my experiences in college so far, I have noticed that drinking is an activity that many college students take part in. It is a definite fact that not every college student drinks, but a lot of them do. Another reason why this topic is important to me is because my parents could drink when they were eighteen, and it is interesting to hear how their young adult life experiences were different because of that. Lastly, I find this topic to be important because of the question it brings up concerning age; specifically, what makes an adult? From this question stems many others such as if one can fight and die for their country why can one not have a beer in a bar? Also if eighteen is considered the age to be an adult why are eighteen year olds considered not responsible enough to drink?
These questions must give away my position on this subject, and my position is that I feel the drinking age should be lowered back to eighteen years old rather than twenty-one. Throughout the rest of my blog posts I will further explore the many routes of this subject, and provide in depth discussions to support my arguments.