Aufgabenstellung:
Essay writing: In order to combat teenage drinking, the British government is thinking about raising the legal drnking age to 21. Write an argumentative essay supporting or opposing this initiative.
The tree of alcohol abuse
-and why its roots must be cut in other ways
BBC London has published a statistics showing that the number of London teenagers going to hospital with alcohol-related injuries has risen by 40% in the time of 2002 to 2007.
Doubtless a number that forces the British government to act, in order to combat teenage drinking.
Their modest proposal lies in raising the legal drinking age to 21.
Will older teenagers really behave in a more mature way than the kids of today?
Perhaps you should realize the root of all evil before you can come to a conclusion that definitely helps these pitiful teenagers.
Of course, there are many young people enjoying the taste of alcohol on a party, sometimes more boisterous, sometimes less.
All in all, alcohol is just an addition and not necessarily a forerunner of getting hammered.
Basically, such a governmental decision could seem kind of paradox in the eyes of some.
On the one hand the states allows 16 years old to work full-time and to drive a car at the age of 17 and on the other hand they would have to wait with drinking alcohol until they are 21.
Even in the world of the grown-ups alcohol is part of the life of all kinds of people, from the good flagship citizen to the worthy representatives of government.
The contact with alcohol and the responsible dealing with it –even if they become convinced to take a bottle in hand nevermore- is part of the development modern teenagers must pass in order to become mature adults.
The real problem cases are the sort of young people who need alcohol as a way of forgetting and running away from their daily life.
Especially kids from broken homes, neglected from their parents, investigating not enough time in school do lack social acceptance. They are desperate, insecure, but they are unfortunately not alone.
As the number of those kids has been rising the recent years they have built up a new social network, many of them have become criminal and flocked together in any of 170 known gangs solely in London.
Consequently the consumption of alcohol is their solution to the problems, but the opinion is rather unanimous that this is anything but the right.
Topping the branches does not kill the tree, so the British government would be well-advised, if they cut the root. The suitable knife on that account is called social work that helps young people to orientate themselves and make them use their own heads-no longer being influenced by the pretended coolness of alcohol and its absolute necessity in order to be accepted in dubious milieus.
As if Heinz Rühmann had predicted today’s problems, he said: “Sorrows do not drown in alcohol. They can swim.”