In basically every college campus across the United States, and also in most high schools, parents and administrators have been dealing with a huge problem of underage drinking. Many feel that it is just too difficult to control and regulate the sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages to those under the national drinking age of 21 years old. It could possibly be only a problem of lack of enforcement and be solved with increased regulation. But this seems to be an obvious answer and many are beginning to feel that the reason why the enforcement of underage drinking is so lax could be because having a national drinking age of 21 years old is just too high. Before 1984, states individually decided how to regulate the sale liquor, but then a push by the federal government and by MADD, Mother’s Against Drunk Driving, to have a national higher drinking age created the now instilled policy(Conant 1). There is much data proving and disproving the effectiveness of the new 21-year-old drinking age, but a new policy on a state regulated drinking age should be considered.

There has been much controversy over the increased national drinking age of 21 years old mainly

Even though this case was tried and decided before the Supreme Court, many still feel that this is another example of the federal government overstepping its powers and violating that states’ power to regulate the sale of liquor. Obviously this decision is not going to be overturned without a huge push by the entire nation or a new approach to interpreting the constitution is taken, but the validity of the decision is still intriguing enough to be debated about.

After much debate about what the United State’s policy should be about a national drinking age and if the policy currently in place is correct, many deem it appropriate to look outside the U.S. to foreign nations and what their policies are. Palicz finds that there are only four nations in the world that have a drinking age as high as 21, which are, Malaysia, South Korea, Ukraine, and the United States (Frazier 2). Every single other country has a drinking age of 18 years old or younger, and most of these countries don’t even strictly enforce these laws. It is obvious to most Americans who travel to other countries, the cultures are quite different in the fact that it is socially acceptable for young people to drink alcohol and that most do it with their parents consent. In the U.S, it’s a secret, a “demonized thing. So you do it in your basement; you do it in backdoor keg parties…If you keep the drinking age where it is and you enforce it as strictly as you do, it’s just going to lead to dangerous results, as we see here, with alcoholism…being much higher than it is in Europe and drunk driving deaths being much higher than they are in Europe” (Frazier 3). Many feel that young people tend to drink more and drink more irresponsibly because it is so unacceptable for them to do it. When those under 21 years of age are able to drink, they go overboard because they know that they are not supposed to and because they don’t know when the next time they are going to be able to. This is quite different from most European countries, which generally most of the cultures normally drink alcohol with dinner and as part of normal social events.

There is much information that defends the current national drinking age at 21 years of age and even more so which reveals many considerations to why the age should be lowered. Even after all the data is shown about which age saves more lives and is smarter, there still remains the question of whether or not it is even constitutional to have a federally imposed national drinking age. Amendment XXI reserves power to the states to impose restrictions on the sale of liquor, and yet the United States has a federal st

Some topics in this essay:
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