why is the legal drinking age 21 as opposed to 20?
Best Answer:
Because of health/developmental reasons.
Why can you skirmish and die in war at 18 but you cant drink until you're 21? Just a thought...
BECAUSE OF THE DAM GOVERNMENT WHICH IS WILLING TO LE YOU DIE AT 18 AT WAR...BUT NOT CONSUME ALCOHOL AT THAT SAME AGE
It should be 17. If you are allowed to carry a gun surrounded by the military, you should be mature enough for a beer. I'm more than old satisfactory to drink, but I do think the age limit is too imposing.
Politics. That is the reason. Just simply what the politicians agreed to. Why is the speed limit 55 MPH or 60 MPH or 70MPH ? How do politicians make the outcome that 55 MPH is safe and 80MPH is unsafe ?. How come they do not make the automobile safer instead of making the public go slower ? Politics. The same logic for 18 years ripened is too young and 21 years old is just the right time to start.
Because that is the track the legislature set it up. Their reasoning I do not know unless they thought 21 was more mature.* We now know i.e. not true.
because Retards guess you won't "get into heaven) if you drink and smoke tobacco, and smoke weed, and don't fear the giant imaginary man surrounded by the sky. And Props to the Guy with the Classic (Why Can You Die in a War at 18 but Can't Drink until you're 21) If im gettin shot at I deserve a drink and a cigar.
To answer your question bluntly, it is was the legislators agreed upon. Why 21 and not some other age? It was the closest age that adjectives the legislators could agree upon.
Because at age 21 your brain stops developing
Good interrogate and I don't think there's a rational reason for it. I do know that years ago (in the forties and fifties) the thinking go like this: By the age of eighteen you should have graduated from dignified school. By the age of twenty you were either within college or had a job with a couple of years experience below your belt. By the age of twenty-one you were probably married and by then had permitted your responsibilities to your family and to society. The reasoning was rather nouns back then, no so much today. Personally, the way nation act today, I think the age should be raised to sixty-five: collect social indemnity, get your Medicare card, and a license to drink.
Because specifically the way the members of congress and the various state legislature have voted. If you want to know why some representative voted that way, call him/her and ask.
Brief History of the Drinking Age History speaks for itself and the history of the 21 minimum drinking age law is no exception. As one of the nation’s most scrutinize laws, there is wealth of background on the law’s effectiveness and why it works. And it is the history of that law that best illustrates that reality. For almost 40 years, most states voluntarily set their minimum drinking age law at 21. But at the height of the Vietnam War in the impulsive 1970s, 29 states began lowering their drinking age to more closely align with the newly reduced military enlistment and voting age. And of those 29 states, no uniformity within age limits—drinking ages varied from 18 to 20 and sometimes even varied based on the type of alcohol person consumed (e.g. 18 for beer, 20 for liquor). The results of this “natural experiment” were fairly immediate and not easy to miss: The decrease in the drinking age brought about an increase contained by alcohol traffic fatalities and injuries. So much so that, by 1983, 16 states voluntarily raised their drinking age back to 21—a move that brought about an direct decrease in drinking and driving traffic fatalities incidents. Some states, however, kept a lower drinking age. This created a patchwork of states with diverse drinking ages that led to what was known as “blood borders”. They be called blood borders because teens would drive across state lines, drink and then drive back home across state lines bloodbath and injuring themselves and others. Around this time, the nation began taking a firm stance on the issue of drunk driving. And because it was apparent that a 21 drinking age imperative reduced alcohol-related fatalities and injuries, there was a groundswell to help fall off drunk driving deaths and injuries by raising the minimum drinking age to 21. President Ronald Reagan responded to growing evidence that a 21 drinking age law would stockpile lives. On July 17, 1984, President Reagan signed into law the Uniform Drinking Age Act mandating all states to adopt 21 as the legitimate drinking age within five years. By 1988, all states had set 21 as the minimum drinking age. Since that time, the 21 minimum drinking age decree has saved about 900 lives per year as estimated by the National Traffic Highway Administration (NHTSA). In short, in attendance are more than 17,000 people alive today since all states adopted the imperative in 1988. That’s about as many inhabitants in a sold-out crowd at a professional basketball game or a medium-sized U.S. college. In fact, the 21 minimum drinking age tenet has been heralded as one of the most impressive public safety laws ever passed. It is also one of the nation’s most examined laws near countless studies that been conducted to measure the law’s effectiveness—all of which have come to like conclusion: the law saves lives. Youth drinking rates have also decline since the 21 age law went into effect. The 2006 Monitoring the Future study shows declining alcohol consumption among American youth, although alcohol use continues to be indiscriminate among today's youth. A look at all of the research on the minimum drinking age from 1960 to 2000 found that the bulk of the evidence shows that 21 minimum drinking age laws decrease underage consumption of alcohol. Even over the later 15 years, after the passage of the 21 minimum drinking age laws, the percentage of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders who drank alcohol in the recent past year decreased 38 percent, 23 percent and 14 percent respectively. I don't necessarily agree with this, I'm just stating the facts.
Why 21 and not 22? Who knows why the legislature set it up that way. Apperently you're supposed to have a sudden increase of parenthood at that age, but I personally think that's bull. In Europe- and basically everywhere else- you can drink lawfully as a kid and I think that's a good thing. That opening you grow up with it and you're used to it. No need to go out and attain drunk every night after your 21st birthday because you no longer have a fake ID.
At 20 you have more contact with 17 and 18yr olds as they be only 2 yrs behind you in large school. The law was predominately made to get hold of alcohol out of the hands and mouths of high schoolers and jr high schoolers, 15-16yr olds hold a greater amount of contact with 18yrs than they do with people that are 21+, so by making the age 21it severely restricts their access to alcohol. If a 17 or 18 can be asked to die for their country they should be allowed to smoke and drink properly if they so choose. Without removing the minimum drinking age completely I agree that it should be 18, the age wen you are allowed to vote, sign contracts, operate heavy machinery, the point where we as a society stop treating you like a child.
For adjectives the nonsense about brain development, why is it that adjectives those Northern European countries with low drinking ages always seem to outscore Americans on standardized test? The real reason is that we have other had a puritanical streak in our society; ban anything that offend conservative religious mores. Remember that this is a country that tried to ban alcohol outright and only repealed it after its complete failure (which the 21 age consideration is, if you've ever been to any college in the US). We're a pretty strange anomaly for the West: we're a drinking society that demonizes drinking (much of which comes from Puritans trying to legislate their brand of morality on heavier drinking mostly Catholic immigrant groups in the 1800's). Instead of promoting moderate consumption surrounded by open society and holding people accountable for their activities, we like outright bans that never work. MADD is a good example; they've pushed for mandatory closing times for bar, which increases drunk driving accidents, despite claiming to be an anti-drunk driving group. The group's founder left them because they had discarded their original purpose and became an anti-alcohol group. A person at the age of 18 is a official adult and should be afforded the same rights to make decision about their lifestyle as any other adult. It doesn't matter if you don't give attention to they're "mature" enough, either they are legal adults or they aren't. Those lower than 18 should be allowed to drink at the discretion of their parents, their legal guardians.
