Since July 17, 1984, when the United States Congress enacted the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, people only above the age of 21 could have the opportunity to legally purchase and publically possess an alcoholic beverage. The Congress’s purpose for establishing the law was primarily to combat motorist under the influence of alcohol, as the death rate of traffic accidents were significantly high before 1984 in the US where the typical minimum age to drink was 18.
Which is the average age for a first year student in college, and apparently the age where minors become involved around alcohol. Meanwhile, it has been nearly unavoidable to prevent underage students in college the consumption of alcohol. As according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, about four out five college students drink alcohol, including adolescents. Numerous of college campuses across the nation suffer from the struggle of issues concerning their underage students obtaining the possession of alcoholic beverages.
Allowing the belief that once a minor is uplifted from the authority of their parent or guardian to the freedom of living at college campus, they may perhaps become influenced towards explicit activities, such as the consumption of alcohol. For instance, in a 2006 study by Aaron White, then an assistant professor at the Duke University Medical Center, discovered that 40% of college freshman admitted to engaging in binge drinking, which involves five or more drinks on one occasion, and 20% freshman admitted to consuming between 10 and 15 drinks per session.
These results utterly shows how underage college students continue to violate minimum drinking age law, while the negative outcomes produced by drinking is well known. In order to drastically decrease the percentage of underage drinkers in college, the jurisdiction of college campuses should enforce strict policies in concern of the proliferating issue. As without the heavy degree of authority, the rates of deaths and injuries, unwanted sexual experiences, and academic failures, which are all directly and indirectly caused by the alteration of a person’s brain composition due to alcohol, will not change.
As a result, any college student who chooses to make the hazardous decision to consume alcohol to the threshold of intoxication becomes a potential victim of the harmful consequences attributed by the effects of the adult beverage. Those outcomes comprise of widespread impairments in cognitive abilities, including decision-making and impulse control, and impairments in motor skills, such as balance and hand-eye coordination (O’Brien et al. 2006). These deficiencies are all key factors leading into primarily three dangerous actions that surely result in death.
According to the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, in the year 2005, more than 1,800 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 died from alcohol related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes, suicides, and overdoses. Driving intoxicated was the number one cause of death for that year with being responsible for 75% of college students killed. It is clearly visible that drunk driving can effortlessly endanger the safety of college students the minute they get behind the wheel of a car, but nearly 2. million college students between the same ages drive under the influence of alcohol annually.
This exceedingly large number should be quickly reduced by universities as the chances of one of them injuring or killing themselves is only inevitable. Additionally, their students are also confronted with possibilities of when consuming large quantities of alcohol during an episode of binge drinking, it can cause death directly from suppressing brain stem nuclei that control vital reflexes, such as breathing and gagging to clear the airway.
The effect of alcohol poisoning or overdose will lead to hospitalization, and usually leading to death. Which finally bring us to the impulsive control that alcohol tends to create has been branded as a cause for suicide attempts. In a 2005 research study, between 1. 2 and 1. 5 percent of college students indicate that they tried to commit suicide within the past year as a result of drinking and/or drug use. Then six years later, another study based on data from 157 schools, representing 1. 36 million students ages 18 to 24, concluded that alcohol-related suicides accounted for 4. 86 deaths per 100,000 students.
Every single factor caused by the effects of alcohol that encourages the death of college students needs to be recognized by universities to ensure a protective environment on campus. Furthermore, other than sustaining injuries and sadly being killed by the consequences of being intoxicated, another consequence caused by alcohol can bring about devastating trauma from sexual assaults. Though the victim keeps their life, they unfortunately lose the ability to maintain trust throughout social interactions. Sexual assault is an unescapable problem on college campuses across the nation and alcohol plays a central role in it.
According to a study from Journal of American College Health, uncovered that 5,500 college females on two campuses revealed that nearly 20 percent experienced some form of sexual assault while at college (Krebs et al. 2009). Then from a familiar name, the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study suggested that 5 percent of female college students surveyed were raped while at college (Mohler-Kuo et al. 2004). 72 percent of the respondents also reported that they were intoxicated at the time where they became victimized.
Both of these studies prove to show that cases of sexual assault had the involvement of alcohol, thus putting potential victims at risk during the moment of intoxication. As by having impaired perceptions that one is in danger and by reducing the ability to respond effectively to sexual aggression are factors triggered by the effects of alcohol that increase the risk of sexual assault (Abby 2002; McCauley et al. 2010; Testa and Livingston 2009). Male or female, both sexes can experience the unforgettable horrors of being taken advantaged of during occasions where alcohol is present.
It is the university’s duty to ensure the safety of their students during parties, especially underage college students that irresponsibly chooses to drink illegally, since Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 requires universities to address sexual harassment and sexual violence. More importantly, every college student stands underneath the struggles of maintaining their precious GPA, but once alcohol becomes an influence in their life, they are vulnerable to obtaining poor grades, missing classes, and subsequently falling behind.
No college student would want to waste their time and money if they receive negative grades, but alcohol can end up grabbing individuals while they spend at least one occasion binge drinking. In a study, conducted by the Faculty of Applied Sciences of the University of Gloucestershire, on whether alcohol consumption is associated with academic achievement stated that the consumption of alcohol displayed negative associations with motivation for and subjectively achieved academic performance.
Students who are considered as heavy consistent drinkers are more likely than non-heavy drinkers to experience much more occurrences where their drinking caused them to miss a numerous amount of classes, perform unsuccessfully on tests or exams, and fall behind in schoolwork. As well in American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse; Karen Jenner from the Department of Sociology of the University of Northern Colorado declared in her study that based on a national prospective study, reported binge drinkers in college were more likely to drop out of college, work in less prestigious jobs or careers, and experience alcohol dependence 10 years later.
Collectively, both of the researches strongly suggests that heavy drinking is linked with poorer academic success in college. Which the relationship between problematic alcohol consumption and academic performance is undoubtedly a major concern for university administrators and officials. It has already been executed that it is the responsibility of the university to establish a program or class on alcohol abuse. However, this solution tend to not show promising results at all as underage college students are still able to obtain an alcoholic beverage at ease.
The evidence is overwhelming: the consequences of alcohol is highly irreversible once it has taken affect. College students of all ages, legal and illegal, are potential victims of succumbing to the deadly poison. It can stated without being figurative that if the minimum drinking age was at 19, then three quarters of college students would not be committing an illegal act. As underage drinking is nearly impossible to prevent college campuses because access to alcoholic beverages is ext easy.
A minor would simply have to attend a party full of upperclassmen or have a friend that is of the minimum drinking age to supply them with a beverage. Once they have alcohol in their possession, it is up to their mental capabilities to allow them to logically make decisions, but if they lead to choose the wrong decision, then the stakes of endangering themselves becomes inevitable. It is not uncommon to hear, view, or read reports of alcohol-related deaths or injuries from drunk driving, overdose, or suicides, and unwanted sexual experiences that result in being the victim of sexual assault.
In order to prevent these occurrences, or at least reduce them, all universities need to implement intervention programs in there budget as an importance for their students. The lack of authority that universities present on campus correlates to underage college students involved in dangerous instances that is solely an outcome of alcohol consumption. Without any significant enhancements for policies toward alcohol will not show progress with minimizing the problem.
Reluctantly, there are institutes that have established policies in regard for the safety of their students, such as the University of Notre Dame and Stanford University. Both universities have banned the distribution and possession of hard alcohol (anything above 14 percent) in undergraduate dorms and at parties. If the majority of universities in the United States take the same consideration of the risk that alcohol implements on their students’ wellbeing, then a remarkable chance of an advantageous sobriety will take full effect.
