Will lowering the legal drinking age to 18 have a positive or negative Research Proposal

Will lowering the legal drinking age to 18 have a positive or negative impact (could narrow it to binge-drinking by college students) - Research Proposal Example Societies form concepts from experience; what defines a chair in one culture could very well differ from the definition of a chair in another. In certain cultures, what is perceived as an adult human being often too differs from culture to culture. There is no easy, clear-cut biological answer to the question of how one is to differentiate between the pre-adult and adult stages of human development; if there were, many ethical and political dilemmas which face contemporary societies would be answered without difficulty. Nevertheless, modern Western civilization has a clear ambivalence towards the subject of what it considers to be an adequate level of maturity in a human being to make him or her an adult human being. One concern which is intimately connected with and ultimately contingent upon the dividing line between these two stages of human life is the age at which young people are allowed to consume alcohol without restrictions. Most states in the United States have set the MLDA 1 at 21 years; thus, the age which the government respects individuals as having the proper level of maturity stands at 21 years (Montgomer, Foley and Wolfson). Youth drinking beneath this MLDA represents a serious public safety risk, both to the offenders themselves and those around them. This includes large social costs which come from irresponsible behavior. Public policies in the United States either aim to reduce alcohol supply to or alcohol demand from youth. Certain factors stand in the way of state public policies being properly enforced or having their intended effect: neighboring states may have differing policies, alcohol companies may lobby against strict enforcement, and the ubiquity of alcohol in contemporary society makes the acquisition of the substance almost too easy for underage drinkers. Whether or not such policies are, or can be, enforced according to law is a question to be addressed in turn. For much time, the solution to the rising occurrences