Teens and Freedom
This essay asserts that youngsters have too much freedom and few duties. I concur with this argument since no one is coerced to take drinks or even go to school. This is a personal responsibility. Having the autonomy to choose attending classes and not starting a career at a formative stage in life, can lead teenagers to two divergent alleyways in life. One of the paths is known to be constructive and leads to success, while the other path is negative and leads to failure. The constructive path can lead young adults to learn personal accountability although the negative path will generally get them in difficulties such as where they are engaged in drugs and alcohol.
In the same vein, the legal drinking age continues to arouse controversy around the world. The minimum drinking age simply refers to the youngest age at which a person is lawfully allowed to take alcoholic drinks. This age and statutes vary from country to country. However, when it comes to law, there’s always a view, some are in support of and some are opposed to. When it comes to the minimum drinking age being twenty-one years I am totally against it. Recently, proposals have been made to lower the minimum legal age that would allow drinking to occur. However, the issue of drinking among teenagers can only be deterred by both parents and the wider society.
Giving responsibilities to teenagers early on in life can make them get acquainted about personal responsibilities as they grow into adults. This will empower teens in decision making later on in life, in terms of how much cash to spend in joints and how much to save up since their parents won’t be available to assist them all the time. Teens will also be able to choose from right and wrong, particularly when influenced by people to engage in drugs and alcohol syndicates. The issue of teens having an occupation cans also the potent danger to them at some point in life. For instance, they can easily engage the self in drugs and alcohol, something they are more likely to regret undertaking in the future.
Consequently, the youngest age at which a person should be permitted by law to drink alcohol beverages should be lowered to about eighteen. Here, young adults would be permitted to consume alcohol in controlled locations such as cafes, pubs, taverns and during school and college functions. In these circumstances, drinking could be taught by way of role modeling and informative programs. Mature and reasonable drinking demeanor would be anticipated. This proposal is based upon a study conducted for a period of twenty years in relation to college students and the history of drinking in the UK and diverse cultures, Ruth, (2002). Even though the authorized buying age is twenty-one years of age, a greater part of college student below this age, drink alcohol in a reckless way.
According to Lovett (2006) research conducted from mid-80s until the present has revealed a nonstop decrease in drinking and driving associated factors which are similar to the nation’s, and also college students, decline in per capita consumption. Nevertheless, these downturns began in 1980 prior to the national 1987 law which allowed states to have twenty-one-year-old alcohol buying laws. The decline in the drinking and driving problems is the end result of diverse factors and not simply the increase in buying age of the declined per capita consumption. Whereas there has been a decline in per capita alcohol drinking and auto crashes, unfortunately, during this same time period there has been a surge in other anomalies associated with heavy and reckless drinking among the college youth.
There was the little shift in this reported behavior until after the twenty-one-year-old policy in 1987. For instance, from 1982 through to 1987, approximately forty-six percent of students reported nausea after drinking. This skyrocketed to fifty percent after the law was changed. In a nutshell, this foul drinking behavior is due to “secretive drinking” that go on in student dens and apartments where same age students assemble and also because of lack of know-how of responsible consumption. The truth is, prohibition laws cannot work in the UK, hence the need for different strategies from the experience of other, and more ancient cultures, which do not have these problems need to experiment. Lovett (2006) contents that antique civilizations such as Italians, Greeks, and Chinese as well as Jews, who experience few drinking irregularities, are predisposed to share some general characteristics.
In conclusion, parents and society at large have a role to play by instilling values in their kids while still young. This way they will manage their time and money responsibly. The policy framework should also be instituted that lowers the legal drinking age to 18. Here most teens will not engage in secretive and destructive ordeals.
