NEW ZEALAND EDITORIAL

The legal drinking age

So the drinking age is to come under the scrutiny of a select committee, with the question being whether or not to raise it back to 20. It was predictable that Matt Robson’s bill proposing that, along with restrictions on alcohol advertising, would get this far. After all, it’s a contentious issue and most MPs would have been of the opinion that the proposals merited a thorough examination. That’s usually the easy part of getting a bill through, however, and whether it clears its remaining parliamentary hurdles is another story entirely.

Much debate in the months ahead is likely to centre on whether the age at which people are legally able to enter a pub and order a drink is as big as factor in drinking-related problems in New Zealand as the attitude to drinking. Most of us have heard recently various versions of the old refrain that New Zealand’s binge-drinking culture is at the heart of those problems, ranging from vandalism to health concerns. It has been suggested that one of the results of Prohibition in the USA early last century was a rise in binge drinking. Because those who wanted alcohol were unable to obtain it freely, when they did source it, through illegal means, they really got stuck in.

John Campbell devoted his entire show on Tuesday to the drinking age issue, ahead of yesterday’s first reading of Robson’s bill. A couple of 17-year-olds who appeared on the programme were adamant they had no problems getting their hands on booze and one freely declared that he’d been drunk to the point of vomiting “many times”. An alteration in the age limit will have no effect on such youngsters, while the 18-year-olds on the show indicated a change would simply mean a return to the use of fake IDs. The suggestion that we glorify binge-drinking in New Zealand – and revere the ability of individuals to really “put it away” — is hard to dispute and the Alcohol Advisory Council has clearly picked up on that with their advertising slogan of: “It’s not the drinking, it’s the way we’re drinking”.

Surely the major responsibility lies with us, as parents and caregivers, to introduce our kids gradually and sensibly to alcohol, showing them it’s something that doesn’t have to be abused to be enjoyed, before they start experimenting and believing, even sub-consciously, that the only way to drink is hard.

Grant Shimmin
10 June 2005

http://www.ashburtonguardian.co.nz/index.asp?articleid=5289

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