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Should the drinking age be 18?
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Young people drink regardless of the drinking age

A significant percentage of the population engages in underage drinking no matter how low or high the drinking age is.

The Argument

The minimum legal drinking age is irrelevant in practice. Statistics from the United States, which has a relatively high national drinking age of 21, indicate that the U.S. national drinking age law has done little to stop underage drinking, even among teens younger than 18. Approximately one half of American teens aged 16 or 17 drink alcohol, and almost a quarter aged 14 or 15 do so as well. Access to alcohol through illegal means such as false identification, theft, and the assistance of complicit adults is simply too easy for the drinking age to function as a preventative law.

Counter arguments

Proponents

Premises

[P1] Underage drinking continues, regardless of the drinking age. [P2] Functionally useless, drinking ages should be abolished.

Rejecting the premises

References

This page was last edited on Friday, 7 Feb 2020 at 18:14 UTC

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