Name
Course
Tutor
Date
Speech
Topic: legal drinking age
SP: I want to convince you to reduce the legal drinking age
Thesis: Rising the legal drinking age to 21-year age limit in most states is contributing to an increase in extreme drinking among the minors (Witte and Mitchell, 100).
Introduction: question: how many of you think that banning the drinking age to 21 is actually helping us in any way? Would you feel the same if you found your underage son or daughter consuming alcohol without your knowledge? I do not think that is the case. When the drinking age was reduced to 21 in the 1980s, the main aim was to reduce the rate of highway fatalities. However, everyone knows that the act has done us more harm than good. Everyone knows that the age limit of 21 years have not stopped minors from drinking. Some experts are in the believe that it is contributing to an extreme drinking among the minors. That is why the age of drinking should be reduced to reduce these cases of minors experimenting with alcohol in secrecy.
Reason one: lowering the age of drinking to 18 will make the kids safer.
Kids always have a way of navigating around the 21 years old limit. It has not reduced or eliminated drinking. What it has done is drive it into the underground behind the closed doors or at the most risky and less manageable settings (congress, 17).
My experience in New York, I found a group of youngsters on a weekend in a famous mall. They all had cans of famous alcohol brands which they were sharing and making funny comments at passersby. I wondered around what the parents thought their children were.
Reason two: the increased age of drinking increases the rate of risky behaviors among the youngsters
The law has created a dangerous culture, a reckless one unsupervised binge, and the extreme drinking habits.
Something called the six-ten where children down six cups of beer in ten seconds. Kids are trying to perfect the art of getting drunk faster by playing drinking games.
Statistics: 33% of the number of eighth graders and 70% of other 12 graders tries alcohol each year and the percentage is likely to increase (Bonnie and O’Connel, 13l).
III. Engaging in binge drinking has more risky consequences compared to safer drinking.
Statistics shows those youths who start drinking before 15 years are more likely to develop alcohol dependency five times more than those who commence drinking after 21 years of age.
The rate of current consumption of alcohol increases with an increase in age from approximately 1% at 12 years, 15% at 16 years, and 39% at 20 years.
Alcohol is the most commonly abused in the United States and responsible for more than 4300 deaths annually among underage. Although drinking below 21 years is illegal. 11% of youths, aged 12 to 20 years consume alcohol in the US. More than 90% of this alcohol is in form of binge (Leonard, 100).
Conclusion: the rate of binge drinking is on the rise among the underage youths. It is important for the congress to reduce this rate by reducing the age of drinking (Dasgupta, 12). By making them used to drinking wine at a tender age, they are educated on the risks associated with underage drinking.
Works Cited
Bonnie, Richard J and Mary Ellen O’Connell. Reducing underage drinking. Washington DC: National Academies Press, cop., 2010.
Congress, US. Congressional Record. New York: Government Printing Press, 2010.
Dasgupta, Amitava. The science of drinking. Lanham: Rowman & Little field, 2011.
Leonard, Barry. Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking. New York: DIANE publishing, 2008.
Witte, Philippe De and Mack C Jr Mitchell. Underage drinking. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique: UCL, Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2012.
