Teen Drinking
Teen drinking is a serious problem and each year the statistics go higher and higher and more and more teens are drinking. This is a safety issue for teens are not old enough to know how to control their drinking. In an article I read called, “let my teenager drink”, written by T. R. Reid, suggests that it’s okay to let our teens drink. On the opposed side, Author Joseph A. Califano writes in his article that it is not okay to allow teens to drink. Reid does make some good points in his article.
He believes that it is safer for our teens to be allowed to drink. He brought up binge drinking and how bad it is for teens. He says, “the only reason for this binge drinking is because teens are not allowed to drink so they do it secretly, most often in unsafe places like a car, or a house where adult supervision is not present”(REID). Reid claims that if we let our teens legally drink then teens can be safer and be able to drink throughout the evening instead of getting drunk in the short amount of time they have before a social event.
He believes teenagers are going to drink no matter what law is put in place, and that we should all just allow teens to legally drink. Author and current president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Joseph A. Califano suggests the first article is a dangerous opinion to go by. He lists straight facts on this specific issue like, “in 2001 the Justice Department released an analysis comparing drinking rates in Europe and the United States.
The conclusion: American tenth graders are less likely to use and abuse alcohol that the people of the same age in almost all European countries”(CALIFANO). Califano also said how Reid was wrong about the binge drinking, since British fifteen year olds are more than twice as likely to binge drink as those of American teens. He also lists the dangers of teen drinking. Califano says it can seriously damage the growth process of the brain, and how teen drinking can lead to poor school performance.
My opinion on this issue is teens should not be allowed to drink yet. I believe the drinking age should stay at twenty one. That is when a person is mature and developed enough to drink alcohol. There is a good reason why there are age limits on things. Rules and laws are made for good reasons, to keep us safe. I would not want to live in a country where there were no age limits on drinking, for I believe we Americans would get dumber than we already are.
