| Abstrakt: |
The age at which an individual should be legally able to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages remains a controversial social topic in the United States, although the legal drinking age stands at twenty-one years of age in all fifty states. The National Minimum Drinking Age (NMDA) Act, which was passed in the summer of 1984, effectively established this age. It did not actually impose a federal age limit on the purchase or consumption of alcoholic beverages, as each state retains the right to establish its own drinking age. However, the NMDA threatened to withhold federal highway funds from any state that did not establish twenty-one as the minimum drinking age. |
