Raising the drinking age will be worse for young people!

Let’s be very clear about two things regarding the raising of the drinking age to 20:

1: Raising the legal drinking age to 20, will not stop under 20 year olds drinking

2: Raising the legal drinking age to 20, will make things more dangerous for those drinking under the age of 20.

Raising the legal drinking age to 20, will not stop under 20 year olds drinking

Every time we see a rise in those under 18 drinking, we blame the lowering of the drinking age. I disagree, the real reason why I think those under 18 have more access to booze is because of the inane liberalization of our liquor laws where now everyone can retail booze. Supermarkets and even the corner dairy can now sell alcohol, and many of these venders sell to underage drinkers as proved every year by community groups testing them. We have dramatically increased the access and now want to blame lowering the drinking age as the problem. If we are real about wanting to make an impact on youth drinking, get it out of the dairy’s and the supermarkets, restrict it and police it. But that would require effort, lateral thinking and a real determination to change things, where as Labour are only interested in looking tough on a knee jerk reaction at a time of daily youth violence. Instead of turning real public pressure into the political muscle necessary to restrict alcohol access across the board, we get a piece of legislation that will not only do nothing to solve the problem, but will actually harm those it says it is trying to protect….

Raising the legal drinking age to 20, will make things more dangerous for those drinking under the age of 20.

Remember the reason why we lowered the age in the first place? 18 and 19 year olds would sit around outside pubs in car parks getting slaughtered on booze and getting into fights. Much better they are taken into the pub environment and learn to drink sociably than the no rules land of the pub car park was the thinking. Does anyone think 18 or 19 year olds will stop drinking if the law changes? Of course not, they will simply go back to the drinking in car parks, with no protections or socializing restraints. If this law change goes through, the next media feeding frenzy for next year will be ‘teenage pub car park fights!’