Alcohol Consumption under Age

'Should the U.S. lower the drinking age to 18?'

Drinking age in America

The age of drinking alcoholic beverages is US according to law is 21 years. Any individual who is found guilty of consuming alcohol below the age of 21 years is subjected to criminal prosecution. Alcohol consumption at the age where it is illegal and excessive alcohol consumption accounts for more than half of adult alcohol consumption in the United States (Ames, 2008). To estimate the number of drinkers under 21 years old, the researchers used three national databases - the National Report on Households by Addicting surfactant (National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) for the year 2011, a report Monitoring the Future (Monitoring the Future survey) in 1999, a report on the Study of risk behavior among young people (Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) for the same year.

According to the study, 19.7% of all alcohol consumed in the United States is accounted for the age group 12-20 years. Although the rate of drinkers in this age group decreased in the last 20 years, with 72.9% in 1979 to 63.7% in 2001, but in the last decade, the dynamics of this indicator is insignificant. Most alarming, according to the researchers, the trend should be considered as reducing the age of onset of alcohol consumption, which greatly increases the likelihood of alcohol problems throughout life. The number of young people who started drinking in the 8th grade school in the past for the period from 1975 to 2001 increased by 33 percent. The report for 2000 NHSDA shows that the average age of onset of alcohol use in this age group is 14 years. According to study, the risk of alcohol dependence in people who began drinking at age 15 is 4 times more than those who did not use it until 21. A new study of people who were legally allowed to consume alcohol before age 21, reveals that, compared with those they were not allowed to consume it before age 21 have a higher risk of committing suicide or a murder in his maturity, particularly women born after 1960.

The Effects of Alcohol on Health in Adolescence

Alcohol affects adolescents as in adults. A characteristic feature of adolescence is that the young brain is under the age of 20 years is different from the adult brain in response to information received. The young brain is created in order to learn. It is in the process of establishing these connections between nerve cells. Alcohol can disrupt the function.

The brain has the property to change and become more resistant to alcohol with repeated use of it. In adolescents, as this resistance may be very low, so the effects of alcohol other than in adults. The conducted experiments on animals show that juvenile alcohol breaks down chemicals in the brain responsible for learning, more sharply than in adult animals. This occurs at the lowest doses of alcohol, even after a single dose.

Low doses that do not cause harm to ...