Social Problems: Continuity and Change

Cullen Tonge

Social Problems

Professor Ellis

Project 1

        One major social problem in the United States and even the world is underage drinking. In the United States, this is “the consumption of alcohol under a legally specified age, usually before one’s 21st birthday” (Underage Drinking). This is a social problem because it effects such a large amount of people. Whether it be the person participating in the underage drinking and risking getting into a lot of legal trouble or perhaps the parents of the drinker who are stressed because they do not know what their child is up to, underage drinking can have a lot of consequences for a lot of people.

        The social problem of underage drinking can be related to the other social problem of alcoholism and drug addiction. Many times, if a young adult drinks alcohol, they can quickly become addicted to it and begin to binge drink it. According to the textbook, “Among full-time college students ages 18-20, who are all too young to drink legally, about 40 percent have engaged in binge drinking in the past month, and 17 percent have engaged in heavy drinking as defined earlier. Binge drinking on and off campus is so common that binge drinkers consume 91 percent of all the alcohol that college students drink” (“Social Problem: Continuity and Change” 289). This means that students that are under the legal age to drink alcohol are consuming five or more drinks during the same occasion or within a two-hour time frame. Doing this at a young age can lead to the students becoming alcoholics in a very short period of time and feeling that they need alcohol to function as a human being.

        This problem has one major cause: peer pressure. Students want to fit in with their friends while they are in high school or are away at college. According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “an adolescent girl with an older or adult boyfriend is more likely to use alcohol and other drugs and to engage in delinquent behaviors” (“Underage Drinking- Why do adolescents drink, What are the risks, and How can underage drinking be prevented?”) In today’s society, everyone wants to fit in. If a student sees someone drinking and deems them as “a cool kid”, they will want to drink as well to fit in and become friends with the “cool kid”.

        In my opinion, overcoming this social problem isn’t going to ever happen unless the drinking age is lowered. There are already laws in place to stop people underage from getting and drinking alcohol and yet they are still finding ways to do just that. I think that the drinking age should be lowered back down to 18 or quite possibly 16. Other countries around the world have lower drinking ages than 21 so why can’t the United States. If the government is worried about health risks, then why is it only the United States and not other countries like Germany who have the drinking age set at 14 with a legal guardian present and 16 without? I feel that if teenagers, mainly college students, will continue to drink underage and illegally no matter how much enforcement the government wants to place on the laws that are already in place. However, if there were no laws regarding alcohol or the legal drinking age was lowered, then a lot of the underage drinking would go down because a vast majority of it is because of college students who are above the age of 18 but not yet 21. If the age was lowered, people should be ready to suffer the natural consequences such medical problems and be prepared to deal with the consequences of drinking such as missing class. Legally, I feel that there is no way to stop underage drinking except for changing the legal age so that it would no longer be a social problem that is talked about the entire country.