Education is another great way to prevent the number of teenage alcoholics from rising any further. We can control this situation with just a couple lessons and speeches to inform kids about the consumption of alcohol by explaining how it affects their mind psychologically. Sure, drinking may cause stress relief and relaxation to the teenagers burdened with the amount of schoolwork and deciding their future. However, when they become drunk, they can ‘look very stupid’ since ‘the nervous system changes that come from drinking alcohol can make people do stupid or embarrassing things, like throwing up or peeing on themselves’ (Alcohol. TeensHealth). Since one’s brain function is slowed, drunken people can perform disturbing scenes they’d regret without realizing it. Imagine if this was you, and your schoolmates saw you in this behavior! Rumors would disperse around your school about the shameful action you’ve committed. Your reputation would hit rock bottom, friends may pretend to have never met you, and suffer a huge drop on your self-esteem. Loss of friends brings loneliness and depression, but your abashing events and lack of popularity would make it extremely difficult to create new ones. Thus, brings a vicious cycle, as one’s self-esteem is greatly lowered due to continuous rejections from schoolmates, and this would eventually connect to your performance in academics. Feeling regretful and unappreciated, one may choose to stop caring about everything in their life, which leads to a deep case of depression, or even suicide.
In addition to embarrassing themselves, drunken people can also become berserk. In this state, people of all ages are ‘more likely to get into fights and commit crimes than those who don't’ (Alcohol. TeensHealth). Again, this is due to the lack of common sense, as alcohol alters the function of brain, and reduces the ability to comprehend consequences of their action. Therefore, becoming drunk can easily lead to poor judgment, which leads to severely harming and violent acts. Thus, drunken teens may violate the law and most likely arrests and court hearing often follows, depending on the severity of the crime. ‘… Alcohol offenses, which exceeded 50% of all arrests in the early 1950s … and continued to do so’ (DrugLibrary News). No teenager would want to do their time in the miserable, unstable juvenile centers. Even after one has served their time, they would be tagged as a criminal for their remaining days of his/her life. This would negatively affect the person in many ways, such as job availability. When adolescents become informed about embarrassment and violence that is caused by alcohol, they may give second thoughts about starting to drink. Since the cons without a doubt outweigh the pros in drinking, fewer kids would select the option of drinking since they have been informed about the risks and senseless actions one may commit.
Teachers must also inform students that alcohol significantly threatens the health of the teens. Since adolescents are still developing into mature adults, it is critical not to consume alcohol because it would affect their growth hormones. ‘Drinking alcohol during this period of rapid growth and development (i.e., prior to or during puberty) may upset the critical hormonal balance necessary for normal development of organs, muscles, and bones’ (Alcohol Alert). Since development of vital body parts are halted, teenagers wouldn’t receive the full benefits of puberty. For example, an adult who began consuming beer products at their teens may have the average strength of a 15-year-old, and be inches shorter than the ordinary height. In other words, imagine being imprisoned inside an adolescent’s body for the rest of your life! Doesn’t it sound dreadful and suffocating? This fact would definitely make teens give second thoughts about drinking. With all these reasons, education would help discourage teens from drinking since it results in many negative impacts.
The U.S should consider tweaking some laws to see further improvement on eliminating underage drinking. Current punishments for consuming alcohol as a minor results paying ‘a fine of $500, 8 to 40 hours community service, and 30 to 180 days loss or denial of driver's license.’ (Hanson).This sounds like a typical consequence on all breaches against the law, and will not teach anything to the underage drinkers about the detrimental events that drunken people may cause, and will continue smuggling beverages as they had before. Some may ponder that we should make all alcohol products illegal. This wouldn’t be a very effective answer, since it will lead to higher crime rates as alcoholics from all ages will search and use violence to hunt beverages needed for their broken lifestyle. It will also lead to creating untested and dangerous products as an alternate of alcohol, and many other serious problems. You may ask, then; what is the solution? We can increase taxes on alcohol beverages, limit the time that they can be purchased, and control the amount of alcohol that can be sold daily. Increasing taxes will discourage many teens from buying beverages due to their unstable support of cash. Next, setting a time limit will decrease even more illegal purchases of alcohol due to lack of time. Lastly, controlling the number of adult beverages that can be sold daily allows further decrease in teenage alcohol consumption since only a handful of them would have the opportunity to take a sip of beer. These new restrictions may be biased to those who have the right to drink, and begin to resent the government. They could begin protesting about why everyone has to accept the new laws when it is only intended for illegal purchases by teenagers. However, we must realize that we need this sacrifice to save our teens from the dangers of drinking. With all of the three suggestions put in effect, it is basically guaranteed that there will be a major decrease in adolescent drinking.
Underage drinking must be stopped right now at all costs, as the Preamble of the Constitution states: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The Constitution was written to establish welfare, justice and domestic tranquility. Neglecting the problem of underage drinking wouldn’t be considered justice done, since most teens get away with smuggling alcohol today. There would be no domestic tranquility because alcohol leads to chaos in family peace, since the drinker is emotionally and physically affected when consuming alcohol. Fights may often breakout between the child and parents, creating a distant relationship between them. Since alcoholics are not likely to lead a typical life, it is difficult for them to receive proper education, which in turn minimizes their career availability in the future, and would not be considered welfare. As a result, we must establish new laws preventing children to drink alcohol, since it is against the values of the Constitution.
With all that in mind, ponder the options of either minimizing teen alcoholics with the methods stated above, or continue to ignore it. However, if this situation is left unattained, the numbers would continuously grow. We must fix this problem early, or as time passes by, the situation will become more challenging for us to solve. The ‘blueprint’ to save our children from a highly addictive and lethal chemical has been given to you, and you have the ability to bring it into reality. Tomorrow is too late; we must react today to save our future generation.
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“Alcohol.” TeensHealth Answers & Advice. Nov. 2006. Nemours Foundation. 25 Feb. 2009.
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“DrugLibrary News – Latest drug news from around the world.” Schaffer Library of Drug Policy.
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Hanson, David J.”Alcohol Facts.” Alcohol Problems and Solutions 2007. 23 Feb, 2009.
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