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The current purchase age of 21 remains a point of contention among many Americans, because of it being higher than the age of majority (18 in most states) and higher than the purchase ages of most other countries. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act is also seen as a congressional sidestep of the Tenth Amendment.
Although the purchase of alcohol by persons under the age of 21 is illegal, people aged 12–20 years old consume 11% of all alcohol consumed in the US. [7] Among the 14 million adults aged 21 or older who were classified as having alcohol dependence or abuse in the past year, more than 13 million had started using alcohol before age 21. [ 8 ]
In 2007, the drinking age debate in the United States was renewed when nonprofit organization Choose Responsibility began promoting the lowering of the drinking age coupled with education and rules to persuade people to drink responsibly before they are of legal age. Before one is eligible to buy, possess and consume alcohol, an alcohol ...
In Paraguay, the legal drinking age and purchase age is 20 years. In Guyana, minors aged 16 or 17 may consume a glass of beer or wine in a restaurant provided they buy a meal. In North America the legal drinking age and legal purchase age varies from 18 to 21 years: In Mexico, the drinking age is 18 in all states.
The Act requires all states to either set their minimum age to purchase alcoholic beverages and the minimum age to possess alcoholic beverages in public to no lower than 21 years of age or lose 10% (Changed to 8% in 2012) of their allocated federal highway funding if the minimum age for the aforementioned is lower than 21 years of age.
In 1998, the National Youth Rights Association was founded, in part, to seek to lower the drinking age back to 18. In 2004, the president of Vermont's Middlebury College, John McCardell, Jr. wrote in The New York Times that "the 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law" that has made the college drinking problem far worse. [9]
In particular, alcohol laws set the legal drinking age, which usually varies between 15 and 21 years old, sometimes depending upon the type of alcoholic drink (e.g., beer vs wine vs hard liquor or distillates). Some countries do not have a legal drinking or purchasing age, but most countries set the minimum age at 18 years. [1]
The Amethyst Initiative states that, in their experience as university presidents, they have observed, "Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students," and therefore they urge lawmakers "to invite new ideas about the best ways to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol".