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Legal Drinking Age 21

January 8, 2012 by · Comments Off on Legal Drinking Age 21 

Legal Drinking Age 21, The legal drinking age should be reduced from 21 to 18 years of age. This change will effectively tear down the mystique of drinking among young people, and with it, decrease the number of fatalities and damage affiliated with excessive drinking. In conjunction with a reduction in the drinking age, penalties for DWI and sexual assault should be elevated to mirror the severity and societal impact of these crimes.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2009 release indicates that during the period from 2001-2005, the U.S. recorded 79,000 deaths resulting from excessive alcohol use, making it the third leading preventable cause of death in America. Additionally, 30% of all sexual assaults occur when the perpetrator is under the influence of alcohol making it easier for him to ignore sexual boundaries, while a victim’s intoxication makes it more difficult for her to guard against an attack. Ninety percent of all campus rapes occur under the influence of alcohol.

Binge drinking is commonly defined as four or more alcoholic drinks by women and five or more for men, and further elucidated by prevalence (the percentage of people who binged during the last month), frequency (how many times drinkers binged the in last month), and intensity (the highest number of drinks consumed by those who binged in the last month). Binge drinking represents about half of the alcohol consumed by adults in the U.S.

In the study, overall binge drinking among adults was 15.2%; for men (20.8%), it was two times higher than for women (10%). The survey showed that 25.6% of young adults 18-24 binged during the last month; they did it 4.1 times, and they ingested 9.1 drinks at each sitting. All of these totals declined as the age of the respondents to the survey increased.

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