The National Minimum Drinking Age Act
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The National Minimum Drinking Age Act is a law whose impact on the lives of Americas youth remains as strong today as when it was signed into law on July 17, 1984. While the 21- year- old drinking age seems engraved in American society, it is only a fairly recent thing. Most people do not know that the drinking age was only made a national law in 1984, and only after a determined battle by special interest groups.
The history of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act truly started before it was made a big issue. The temperance movement used certain drinking ages as a stepping stone to get a goal of outlawing all alcohol. Finally it achieved the goal of a total ban of alcohol, and in 1919 the 18th amendment to the Constitution was ratified. Due to the seeming lack of effect of Prohibition and the change in public opinion, the 18th amendment in 1933 was overruled by the 21st amendment. With the passage of the 21st amendment, a compromise was made.
At the end of Prohibition, drinking ages were now determined by the states. Many of them set the age at 21 while several lowered the age to 18 for the purchase of beer. This was fairly consistent until the emergence of the baby boom generation and the Vietnam War. “From 1970 through 1975 nearly all states lowered their legal ages of adulthood, thirty including their legal drinking ages, usually from 21 to 18.” (Males 2003) It was argued that if people were required to fight and die in a foreign war then they should be allowed the privilege of drinking alcohol. Using protest and many strong arguments that generation of youth gained back some lost liberty. After this period, however, public sentiment changed. The baby boomers aged and the freedoms they had sought for themselves, no longer seemed important. This was when the freedom of their children or younger siblings was at stake.
This loss of a powerful ally allowed the modern prohibitionist movement led by Candy Lightner, the president and founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), to gain strength in this country again. The late seventies and early eighties were marked with an excess of highly publicized studies that claimed teenage alcohol use was out of control and was turning into a devastating problem of epidemic proportions. This and the national mood produced a youth legislation that became the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.
The actual bill required “All States to raise their