Drinking Age?

[sAsLEX]

I side with the social attitude bunch here. If you take a look at those countries that almost encourage drinking as part of the their dining culture, like France, you tend not to see such bad examples of teenagers drinking stupid amounts and getting into the mess, fighting, causing damage and develop drinking problems that many other countries that frown upon teenage alcohol consumption experience.

Mate just got back from France, and while having a few beers after a parade ,the waiter looked at them weird when they kept ordering beer/wine for a total of about three glasses over a few hours, they are used to nursing one drink over an evening.

oh and a dozen Heiniken is like 6 bucks new zealand over there, and you can get bottles of wine for 40c

[MSTRS:Me]

don't really agree with that. Its dangerous to simply look at a reported 25% increase in underage drinking related deaths and say that lowering the drinking age has helped. I mean, can anyone here actually offer a sensible argument for why that would happen solely because the age was lowered? It may have had no affect at all and its quite possible it made it worse (more immature people can obviously buy it and supply it to others) but theres no logic whatsoever to suggest it made the driving problem better.

THUS.... it seems reasonable to assume that if the age were raised back, the young 'uns driving drunk problem would either:
a) stay the same or
b) reduce

As for the rest of it.. how about we ask some coppers on this site if they've found it easier to deal with drunk kids since the age was lowered since they'll be the ones who have to deal with them.

yes, one generation of horses have bolted, but there's still generations of horses to come that can be helped by the change.

I didn't agree with lowering the age back when, and I agree with those that say it should go back to 20. What I was saying was the abuse of alcohol is an attitude thing rather than age, but that the problems out there now won't go away with raising the age. As a 17/18yo in the '70s I had no problem buying at the bottle store, neither did my mates and yes, some of us did get written off. But we had a lot more respect for adults, police etc & there were never any scenes of out of control debauchery like is fairly common these days. I think the attitudes of Generation ME is more the problem than chronological age when drinking, so putting the age back up will help a little but won't be the fix that some would suggest.

[Hitcher]

Few things make something as sexy and appealing to younger folk as placing age restrictions on them. Cigarettes, party pills, alcohol, pornography, sexual intercourse...

[Lou Girardin]

I was raised with the Italian attitude to alcohol. Kids had diluted wine with meals from a young age, it was no big deal. Then when I was a teenager I experienced binge drinking, I couldn't touch vodka for the next 10 years. While I have had the occasional "big night", the older I get - the less getting pissed appeals.
So I can't really understand the attitude that says you have to get off your face several times a week. Why are they trying to obliterate reality, self-hatred?

[Waylander]

Why are they trying to obliterate reality, self-hatred?

It's becouse we have old folk constantly telling us that the real world sucks and we'd better be ready for it. That and the constant bombardment from TV news and comercials and shows means that we are never in silence even in our own minds. Drinking seems to help create that silence. Me? I just go for a blat on the bike.

[Sutage]

I was raised with the Italian attitude to alcohol. Kids had diluted wine with meals from a young age, it was no big deal. Then when I was a teenager I experienced binge drinking, I couldn't touch vodka for the next 10 years. While I have had the occasional "big night", the older I get - the less getting pissed appeals.
So I can't really understand the attitude that says you have to get off your face several times a week. Why are they trying to obliterate reality, self-hatred?

Some of us prefer smoking a quiet joint with our friends but The Man says thats illegal.. leaving the legal alternative alcohol. I personally hate seeing drunk people at parties, especially females.. no offense.. but peoples personalitys totally change when theyve had too much to drink. Why do young people drink? Social, fun. Why do people get shit faced? Too much alcohol and not knowing their limits. Hohum.

[Biff]

Some of us prefer smoking a quiet joint with our friends but The Man says thats illegal.

Yup - would much prefer to smoke a bit of pot, laugh, giggle like a big girl, not put on weight nor feel like shit in the mornings (not that I can find any!) than drink. The legal alternative, as seen on the streets of our major towns and cities, is people, predominantly youngsters, getting pissed, fighting and smashing the place up. Ok - so I'm generalising to labour a point.

Most weekends I used to frequent a well known dance club back in the UK. A club regarded as being bit of a 'druggies' place because a lot of people there took ecstasy, smoked pot etc. I recall having a discussion with a police officer outside of the club one night and commented that he must hate working the night shift as that's when all the piss heads cause trouble. He replied, something along the lines of, "If it was up to me I'd ban alcomahol and allow the stuff that lot take in there. At least there is never any trouble caused by them when they come out. They just laugh, hug one another and go home."

Hmmmmmmmmm

[Sutage]

Yup - would much prefer to smoke a bit of pot, laugh, giggle like a big girl, not put on weight nor feel like shit in the mornings (not that I can find any!) than drink. The legal alternative, as seen on the streets of our major towns and cities, is people, predominantly youngsters, getting pissed, fighting and smashing the place up. Ok - so I'm generalising to labour a point.

Most weekends I used to frequent a well known dance club back in the UK. A club regarded as being bit of a 'druggies' place because a lot of people there took ecstasy, smoked pot etc. I recall having a discussion with a police officer outside of the club one night and commented that he must hate working the night shift as that's when all the piss heads cause trouble. He replied, something along the lines of, "If it was up to me I'd ban alcomahol and allow the stuff that lot take in there. At least there is never any trouble caused by them when they come out. They just laugh, hug one another and go home."

Hmmmmmmmmm

Exactly, try telling that to the rest of the public though, mainly the govt. When people get real drunk me and friends go off smoke a bit come back, we never fight, get loud do stupid stuff. And yeh sometimes you get classed a 'druggie' by ignorant morons but at the end of the day i have fun and i dont wake up in the morning feeling like shit. Too many people get violent and stuff when they drink, and to be honest its usally one of us 'druggies' who say, woah man just calm down etc.

Vote greens !

[inlinefour]

There is enough shyte behaviours about NZ without promoting it by allowing teenagers to get shit faced with alcohol. Most people thought it was a bad idea at the start, Govt probably thought of the tax that could be made from extra sales. Now they have the re-think? But slow if you ask me. Yea, I kow that there probably are teenagers out there that are OK with alcohol, but plenty of em aint.

[Lou Girardin]

Governments! The morons that raised the tax on light spirits to curb teen drinking. Curbed the oldies sherry and port instead.

[Phurrball]

Seems to be a universal thing that everyone clobbers young folk over their attitude to this, attitude to that, bitches about them doing this or that. I've got to say that young people seem to have an attitude toward booze that's not much different to when I was their age. And probably for a couple of thousand years before that .

Maybe the politicians and the media should just leave the youff alone and stop using them as a convenient way to whip the Mrs Grundys into a fever.

Jim2 puts it nicely in his earlier post. (I'm very glad that there was a qualifying 'almost' WRT the reputation of Irish Whiskey distilleries though! Anyone for a Bushmills single malt? ) [BTW, where's the drooling Homer icon when you need it?]

Indeed I agree with you Ixion - it was not the yooff I was getting at: Youff will always be youff, and as such *some* need to make mistakes to learn on occasion. I was more aiming at NZ's attitude to the firewater in general. To give you the societal context that partly shapes my attitudes, I was 20 when the drinking age was dropped. I think it should stay at 18 personally, and it seems hypocrasy to have tobacco and alcohol legal and controlled, and not cannibis.

(Please note: I'm not saying that the green stuff is a good thing, I don't like inhaling any smoke personally - no cookie recipies please! )

Seriously tho, I think it is correct to say that the genie is out of the bottle so to speak. It is attitudes that are the problem not the age per se

Aye, the genie is out, and the de facto drinking age is now 'set', and shifting it would be an exercise in perversity. More worryingly, the attitudinal genie will take quite some shoving in again, as he's grown into quite a tubby bloater!

That said, these are more general arguments that ignore the more immediate 'cause and effect' scenarios that raising the drinking age would have - but I do think overall that raising the age would be a sticking-plaster solution at best.

[scumdog]

It's just all a bit inconsistent really. Able to vote at 18, marry at 16 (with parental consent, marry at 20 (without parental consent), enlist at 18 (?), get your license at 15.

I'm really not sure but, I assume (without actually researching it) that lowering it has resulted in younger kids getting pissed and having access to alcohol.

CSL, I often hear 'arguments' comparing drinking age to voting age to enlisting age, my point is at 18 NOBODY has got any real life experience and few have any common sense.
My job involves dealing with so many people who are under 18 who get themselves into so much strife by being drunk out on the street.

In the days of no drinking in public (or getting into night-clubs etc) until 20 years of age we had heaps less trouble.

I have seen so many 14 - 15 year olds comatose, in fights, not remembering who rooted them, crashing cars, being ripped off etc that I would be first in line to get the drinking age lifted. (idb's age of 40 sounds just about right)

[Skyryder]

http://www.20years.co.nz/ This just popped up in my email. If you feel strongly one way or another........................

Skyryder

[Clockwork]

Cause and effect SD. Is it only people under the age of 20 getting wasted? I suspect not. Do people below the legal drinking age still get wasted, yes. Will changing the law change these facts? Seems unlikely to me.

IMHO So long as getting "totally" pissed is socially acceptable, so long as parents "don't give a shit" what their teenagers are doing after 10pm at night, so long as bars target young drinkers with advertising and "atmosphere" and then hype them up with loud music etc.... so long as advertisers promote the "Export gold, party culture" then this shit is going to continue regardless of legal age limits.

Personally, I think it's time we stopped restricting the activities of responsible members of society because of the excesses of the minority and I don't see how society can vest the resposibilities of an adult in an 18 year old without allowing them the priveliges of adulthood.

[Hitcher]

Please don't turn this into a cannibis versus alcohol thread. This has been done before and is decidely unproductive. And I'm in no mood to rant. Maybe I need to ingest a mind-altering substance...