Students debate dropping the drinking age to 18

 BY HAELEY CARPENTER / Multimedia Journalist

Tarleton State University held their biannual debate on Nov. 1 where the opposition won the vote to lower the minimum legal drinking age to 18.

The debate is directed by Winston Dawson, an instructor at Tarleton. Dawson said that the topic every year is going to be controversial, things in the times and more often than not, a free speech issue. They also let the students in the class help decide the topic.

Students in Dawson’s class debate the topic throughout the day leading up to the main debate at 6 p.m.

This debate was a parliamentary style debate which means there were two sides of the argument, the affirmative and the opposition. 

Scoring was based on the Oxford Style, which means the debate is to persuade people one way or the other rather than the majority vote.

 “It doesn’t matter who gets the majority, it matters who changes the most minds,” Dawson said.

To do this, the audience voted on the topic before and after the debate and compared the scores to see whose numbers improved. The pre-debate vote was 63 affirmative and 37 against.

The government side plus the affirmative side of the argument featured students Sophie Gambill, Maya Rhoades and Chelsie Johnson.

Some of the government’s points were that other countries have a higher minimum legal drinking age and they don’t have as many problems. 

“[Lowering the legal drinking age] would allow current underage drinkers to consume alcohol in a healthier and more regulated environment,” Rhoades said.

One of the main points from the government side was that at the age of 18 you can go out and fight for our country, but you can’t go out and buy a drink after.

“Lowering the minimum legal drinking age to 18 would also help to boost the economy by increasing the alcohol sales in small businesses and restaurants,” Johnson said.

The opposition side included students Curtis Land, Brady Millstid and Alexis Mackey.

The opposition argued that if the drinking age were lowered it would cause problems in brain development because brains are not fully developed until the age 25. 

“There is no reason to assume that this would reduce the amount of teenagers that consume alcohol underage,” Land said. “ Except now, the underage people are 15, 16 and 17 year olds that are exposed to their peers drinking as opposed to the 18, 19 and 20 year olds that are exposed to their peers drinking now.”

The post-debate vote was 51 affirmative and 49 against.

This means that, even though the government side got more votes, the opposition won because they swayed the most minds. The opposition worked for over five weeks leading up to the debate.