Underage Drinking

Paper Summary:

America has a worse relationship with its alcohol than most other Western countries where drinking is an important social affair. In fact, Italians (for whom wine is something of a national obsession) are 86% less likely to experience drinking-related problems or alcoholism. This paper examines what America is doing differently and why alcohol is such a large problem there, especially among the teenagers who are prohibited by law to drink alcohol. The paper questions the merits of prohibiting youth from drinking. It argues that the best answer to the problems caused by underage drinking is to end youth prohibition and replace it with intensive alcohol-responsibility training, zero-tolerance drunk driving laws and putting more social pressure on parents and establishments to monitor the drinking of the young. The paper also includes a detailed outline.

From the Paper:

"It is commonly believed that drinking is an especially significant problem among the young. According to MADD's Brandy Anderson: "Alcohol use is America's No. 1 youth drug problem." Is it possible that the problems in America stem from America's youth? At the very least, alcohol must be a very important problem for American youngsters. According to MADD and others, teenagers are more likely to binge drink, to become dangerous drunk drivers, and to be unable to responsibly handle alcohol than are adults. Because of these concerns, drinking before age 21 has been made illegal in every state. One might say this is a triumph -- and yet these problems remain worse in America, after more than a decade of teen prohibition, than in countries like France where even very young children drink. If underage drinking is the problem, why has prohibition failed to solve it?"

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