Taylor Gabriel
Mrs. Zimmerman
Public Speaking
13 April 2015
Why Should the Legal Drinking Age be Lowered? How many people in here have ever had an alcoholic beverage? Don’t be shy, even if you’re under-age, be honest because I’ll be honest with you….I have drank. A few times, and im only 18. I am three years underage, just like many of you in here. For those of you who are a few years older than me above the age of 21, this won’t really apply to you unless you’re against lowering the drinking age. But today I am going to let you see from my point of view why I believe that lowering the drinking age would be beneficial and a smart decision. I am going to tell you how it will reduce many of the underage arrests made in local bars and clubs all around the United States, how 18 is the legal age of adulthood and how lowering the drinking age would tie into that, and lastly how it can be good for our economy. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on average, underage drinkers consume more drinks per drinking occasion than adult drinkers. This means more of a buzz to cause people to act foolish and get arrested right? Well if the drinking age were lowered to 18, then not as many people would be arrested for underage drinking because a lot of the people who get arrested, happen to be somewhere between the age 18 and 20. Yeah, there will still be young drinkers who will make stupid mistakes and drink at parties or drive drunk, but honestly if you’re stupid enough to drive while intoxicated, then you’re obviously not very smart and never should have started drinking in the first place. People don’t use their heads and act responsible and I can understand why the government hasn’t hesitated to try and reduce the drinking age, but because they don’t, people like me and many of you have to suffer. Drinking is not something that I do every day, in fact I barely ever drink. Im 18 and I live with my parents, and I don’t really feel the need to drink, unless im laying on the beach, or hanging with a group of friends somewhere I know I won’t have to drive until morning. But enough about that. I feel really strongly about this topic because of what happened to me this past spring break when I went to the beach with my family. It was a nice trip, I spent a majority of it with my boyfriend and his family, rather than my own family. But one day we were headed to put the boat in the water and I got a call from my stepmom who said she was looking for her makeup in my bag, thinking I mistakenly had put it in there, and she found a small bottle of 99 cent peaches, you know the little $1 bottle you can get at liquor stores? Well she called me and embarrassed me in front of my boyfriend and his entire family saying “where did you get this, you had me fooled in to thinking you were a good child, you’re an alcoholic,” and that I needed to turn around and come home. The funny thing about this is that the bottle had never been opened, ive had it since my birthday last august and still have never touched it, it just happened to be in my makeup bag that I never clean out, as gross as that sounds. It was a birthday present from one of my girlfriends last year right before I moved here to Greenville and she just so happened to find it in my bag and made a big deal about it. I just think that if the drinking age were lowered, it would make my crazy stepmom chill out and not freak out on me when she