National Minimum Drinking Age Act
The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (23 U.S.C. § 158) was passed on July 17, 1984 by the United States Congress as a mechanism whereby all states would become thereafter required to legislate the age of 21 years as a minimum age for purchasing and publicly possessing alcoholic beverages. Under the Federal Aid Highway Act, a state with a minimum age below 21 would be subjected to a ten percent decrease in its annual federal highway apportionment.
While this act did not outlaw the consumption of alcoholic beverages by those under 21 years of age, seven states and Washington D.C. extended its provisions into an outright ban. These states are: Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. The minimum drinking age is a state law. However, most states still permit "underage" consumption of alcohol in some circumstances. In some states, no restriction on private consumption is made, while in others, consumption is only allowed in specific locations, in the presence of consenting and supervising family members as in the states of California, Colorado, Montana, New York, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The act also does not seek to criminalize alcohol consumption during religious occasions; (e.g. communion wines, Kiddush).
Read more about National Minimum Drinking Age Act: History, Opposition, Relevant Statistics, Application On College Campuses
Famous quotes containing the words national, minimum, drinking, age and/or act:
“There is no national science just as there is no national multiplication table; anything that is national is not scientific.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“After decades of unappreciated drudgery, American women just don’t do housework any more—that is, beyond the minimum that is required in order to clear a path from the bedroom to the front door so they can get off to work in the mourning.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (20th century)
“And meanwhile we have gone on living,
Living and partly living,
Picking together the pieces,
Gathering faggots at nightfall,
Building a partial shelter,
For sleeping and eating and drinking and laughter.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“To speak or do anything that shall concern mankind, one must speak and act as if well, or from that grain of health which he has left.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)