So, yesterday in STEM my classmates and I talked one on one with eachother about project topics and how to improve our research, in an activity called speed dating. During our speed dating activity we shared suggestions with each other while we talked one one one for four minutes. We exchanged ideas to help each other improve our research topics and help one another with their projects. Overall, the activity was extremely helpful for me because we opened each other's eyes to new ideas we could tie into our projects and all the possibilities we had to create a really awesome project. The ideas and feed back people gave on my research topic helped me understand some aspects of my topic that I would have never even thought to incorporate in my project. When I was the one giving advice I told my classmates to look into many aspects of their topics and to try not to focus on one specific topic. I tried to help them get a broader understanding of all the possibilities people had in their topic.
In a particular conversation with a fellow STEM Capstone student (John) the subject of lowering the drinking age and seeing how components of that debate could tie into my project,came up. He brought to my attention that not all countries have the same drinking age and he encouraged me to research the laws per country and how it affected various aspects related to underage alcohol use. So, here I am blogging about the different laws and their effects around the world. As someone who is opposed to teenage and under age drinking, I started to think how lowering the drinking age in the United States from 21 to 18 or even 16, would be a terribly bad idea. Every one knows the typical view from people who want to reduce the legal drinking age , " if you lower the drinking age to 18, like the Europeans did, the kid's will have less of an urge to experiment heavily with alcohol," well here are a few statistically proven facts that prove the European model of letting kids drink when they are sixteen to avoid heavy binge drinking, does not work.
- Lowering the drinking age would be medically irresponsible because of the of the interference alcohol creates with the developing frontal lobes that are essential for planning, organization, and emotional regulation. When alcohol interferes with teen brain development the potential chronic problems with alcohol later on in life such as risky behavior, memory loss, and even an addiction to alcohol later on in life, increase dramatically.
- If the drinking age was reduced from 21 to 16 or 18 like it is in Canada and most of Europe, kids would have legal access to dangerous environments such as bars and night clubs. During their teenage years, kids should not be subjected to such an environment, and really no one should be subjected to the atmosphere of a bar or a night club.
- Since Ronald Reagan passed the law stating the legal drinking age in all states is 21, in 1984, the amount of intoxication fatalities in teenagers from 16-21,has significantly decreased. In 1980, before Reagan had passed the law stating the legal drinking age in every state was 21, there were 3,500 intoxication fatalities. In 1993, 9 years after Reagan passed the law, there were 1500 intoxication fatalities in teenagers from 16-21, and in 2004, 20 years after passing the law, there were 1400 intoxication fatalities. Therefore, one can clearly see what increasing the legal drinking age did for the intoxication fatality rate.
- Even though the stereotype is often said to be " if you lower the drinking age, perhaps kids will have less of an urge to rebel and drink illegally and underage," recent studies have proven that statement totally incorrect. Recent studies have shown 28.3 % of American teenagers ages 16-17 have drank at least one drink in their teenage years. 20 % of 15- 16 year olds have had at least one drink before and 3.7% of 12-13 year olds have had at least one drink in their life. Now lets compare that to countries who use the European model of having the legal drinking age at 16 or 18, to prevent kids from being rebellious. In France 43 % of 15 year olds, underage might I add, have drank at least one or more drinks in their life compared to America's 20% and in Germany 90 % of 15 year olds drink, while still underage, compared to America's 20%. In America the percent of teenagers who abstain from alcohol until they are legal to drink is 41%, in Germany the percent of teenagers who abstain from alcohol use until they are of legal age is 7 %. In Germany 50% people who binge drank were underage, and only 10.8% of people who binge drank in America, were underage. These proven statistics just go to show that using the European model of letting kids drink at a younger age to introduce them to alcohol to make them less eager to rebel and drink illegally, does not work and the American model is clearly an acceptable age to allow teenagers to start drinking. Well we could still lower the amount of underage drinking and binge drinking to 0 %, but you get my point. European teens are not immune to the affects of drinking on teenage brains just because their drinking age is lower than other countries, their brains are at just as much risk as American teenage brains regardless of the law.
Some other topics that came up in our speed dating activity was how to address my issue of obtaining original evidence of how alcohol structurally and mentally affects neurodevelopment, here are some ideas people gave, feel free to give me some feedback on how I could get data to prove my project topic correct. This is a touchy subject for many teenagers so getting accurate, relevant data would be quite tough in a high school setting.
- anonymous surveys asking whether kids have drank in the last year and what their grade point average was and even add in some questions from a memory test to see if the alcohol does in fact affect teenage memory like many health professionals predicted it would. (Jamie, Eric, Makayla, Shannon, and Lauren)
- ask the local hospital for random, anonymous cat scans or MRI's of teenage brains associated with heavy alcohol use or even moderate alcohol use. ( Gabi, Maria, Evan A, and Jillian)
- interview/ survey someone who is willing to share their experience with teenage alcohol use and how it affected the rest of their teenage years, and their adult life.
- contact bigger hospitals such as Fletcher Allen Medical Center or Massachusetts General Hospital to see if they had any anonymous records or information on teenage alcohol use and the effects on the brain.
Overall the speed dating activity was extremely helpful for me to get a broader sense of my project topic and the vast sub topics I could incorporate into my final project.
Sites used for statistics and evidence:
http://www.conductunbecoming.ie/?p=65
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167463/Uks-teenage-girls-biggest-binge-drinkers-Europe.html
http://drinkingage.procon.org//view.answers.php?questionID=1610