The leftward and other blatherings of Span (now with Snaps!)

Thursday, November 18, 2004

those yoof and their irresponsible drunking (again)

Yet again the drinking age is in the news. It really must be the most covered "youth" issue in the last five plus years, but that doesn't mean it is the biggest problem.

I'm going to put my cards on the table - I'm a teetotaller. Always have been, possibly always will be, much to the consternation of many friends through out the years. I just choose not to drink, pretty simple. I'm not going to go into my reasons here, but perhaps in a future post, as they are rather numerous and I am already straying too far from the point I wanted to make when I started to type.

My friends at the time started drinking when I was about 13. To start with there were quite a few of us who didn't drink, but over the years this was whittled down, and my group of friends changed. Now only one other person I socialise with doesn't drink, and that's due to a contraindication from medicine. I'm both a freak and a convenient sober driver at the same time.

So I've seen a lot of drunken teens over the years - I've patted a lot of backs while my peers have thrown up over balconies, on drive-ways, and, occassionally, into toilets. I've seen the stupid things they do, without my own beer goggles on, and sometimes I've even tried to stop them.

What have I learnt from these observations?

1. Alcohol is too easy to get
It was when the drinking age was 20 and it still is now that the drinking age is 18

2. Parents don't teach their children how to drink responsibly
There seemed to be two approaches in my neck of the woods:
Parent A "Dooooo notttt toooooch the deeeeemon drrrrink!"
or
Parent B "Here's some bevvies, off wi' ye now, I'm trying to watch rugger"

Not exactly the cosmopolitan society we aspire to be when it comes to drinking.

3. Alcohol advertising is misleading as all get out
When do you see a blitheringly drunk person throwing up, sleeping with someone they didn't really want to, or ruining their favourite shoes on the telly? Not in the alcohol ads, that's for sure. There you see sexy, attractive people on whom alcohol seems to have remarkably little effect (not very good value for money you might think).

But none of these lead me to conclude that the drinking age needs to be raised again.

If we just enforced the drinking laws we had, particularly around the sale of alcohol, and put some serious money into education, it would have a big impact on the problems created by teenage drinking. I'd like to see the advertising issue addressed too, but that might be asking too much in the current climate.

Ultimately though we need to consider why it is that our teens want to get wasted every weekend - don't even start me on that.

8 comments:

Matt said...

Quite simply, alcohol is perhaps the most institutionalised corrupting force in society today. Road toll from drunk drivers, rape, murder, assault, and manslaughter are the immediately recognisable products of alcohol.

Societal problems follow later: sub-standard alcohol education for yuf, turbulent and violent family lives, cycles of violence, teenage pregnancies, the corruption of the family unit and standard values.

I disagree however that we should not raise the drinking age. I think it was a mistake to bring it down in the first place. I benefited and I won't be punished should it rise again, but the reality is that a lot of 18 yr olds are unequipped to handle the jandal. While raising it won't solve the problem, societal education and a change in educational aims are also required for any hope of progress.

If we can't influence the parents who are bumming on their duty, we are, quite simply, screwed.

Span said...

Alcohol certainly isn't a positive influence on our community, as a group or as individuals.

But it's here and we need to deal with it.

18 and 19 year olds will continue to drink if the age is raised again - hell, younger kids have been drinking for years regardless of the legal age. From a biological point of view though, drinking before your body and brain are fully developed (which is roughly at age 18) does irreparable damage to your liver and brain. That, along with the issue around if you can vote and die for your country you should be able to drink, is why I support 18 as the most appropriate age limit. I never used to, before it was lowered, but now that it has been it seems most appropriate to me.

Some people can't handle alcohol regardless of age. We are never taught how to cope with it, except by our own trial and error, so perhaps if we addressed that we might find a change in approach, from parents as well as their kids.

Asher said...

Wider NZ society will not support sensible education, which is the only effective sollution, for the same reason it does not support sensible sex education - there are too many people of the opinion that teaching anything means kids will go over the top: The "Now I know what a condom is, I'm going to have sex with 20 different people a night!" factor, which anyone with a brain would realise doesn't exist.

Span said...

so effectively we need education (to adults) about the need for education (for kids and adults)?

Aaron Bhatnagar said...

We have education - bucket loads of education about the dangers of alcohol.

What we need is a society where the consequences of transgression causing damage to people or property is punishable so that people know that the consequences of their straying far outweighs that of taking risks.

And in particular, I would cite the fact that far too many middle/upper middle class people are able to hire lawyers to evade DIC charges. It happened to a female friend of mine - lawyers all over the place, challenging the police and every piece of evidence when clearly she was drunk and angry when she hopped into her car after an argument with her ex-boyfriend.

I would not want to deny someone their rights to a legal defence - if they have the money then they should be allowed to use it to protect themselves. But woe be unto them if the court still finds them guilty - the law should then make itself felt.

Hans Versluys said...

The drinking age needs to be lowered to 16 and the driving age increased to 18 (plus compulsory 3rd party insurance).
Prohibition hasn't worked in the 1920s and it still doesn't work today.
All drugs (e, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, tobacco, speed pills etc) need a regulatory and legal regime for sale, excise duty and quality control.
If you're going to have a referendum on the drinking age, only 18 and 19 year olds should be allowed to vote.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure we really do have that much education - I certainly never really got any except observation. There was stuff about drinking and driving, but not really about alcohol. It was very much of the "just say no" school of thought. Perhaps the two secondary schools I went to were a bit different, as they were both religious?

I also think that the consequences as they stand are already quite serious (for those who are caught, very few) - but people don't know what they are. Again, there is some understanding for drinking and driving, thanks to an extensive advertising and education campaign, including student groups like SADD.

I think there needs to be a focus on the point of sale. It is just too easy to get the stuff, it's like lolly water.

Span said...

sorry that was me, argh!