Minimum Legal Drinking Age Essay

The minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) was put in place to potentially save lives and protect people’s health. The legal drinking age in Manitoba, as of today, is 18 years of age. Look at the rest of the country, the majority of them have raised their drinking age to 19. Should the legal drinking age in Manitoba be raised? Hospital rates, motor vehicle related accidents while under the influence, and suicide-alcohol rates are the key points that seemed to have changed after the MLDA was put into place. These went up in rate when the drinking age was reduced from the ages 20-21 down to 18-19 in the 1970’s to help align the minimum legal drinking age with the age of majority. This proves that, yes, the drinking age in Manitoba should be raised

Now most of these are not significant increases but are still evidence that shows the increase in visits after MLDA. We have a total of approximately 9.6% increase in self-inflicted injuries, a total of approximately 2.2% in assaults, and a total of approximately 3.4% increase in external injuries. All these were recorded while the person was under the influence of alcohol. The one major increase we can all see as the minimum legal drinking age has gone down is that the number of alcohol poisoning related visits has significantly gone up in numbers, for males and females. In males, we saw an increase of about 17.3% in alcohol poisoning related visits to the hospital. Females have an approximately 21.1% increase in alcohol poisoning related visits to the hospital. Although we do see a pretty significant increase in alcohol poisoning visits. That does not mean that everyone involved with this is at the legal drinking age. Lowering the age, however, may have influenced younger teens to peruse this experience as well. This shows that more people are drinking because of this law and one thing will increase for sure and that is motor vehicle