Take it from us in the USA, who have had a legal drinking age of 21 since the 1980s (and much earlier than that in some states). It simply does NOT work, and merely forces drinking further underground and makes it far more dangerous than it has to be. It infantilizes young people and erodes respect for the law, and overall does more harm than good. So what should be done to reduce and/or delay youth drinking, assuming that is the goal?
- Raise the taxes on all alcoholic beverages across the board, ideally making such levies proportional to alcohol content. That is the single most effective and cost-effective way to reduce alcohol-related harms without actually violating anyone's rights. So raise them as high as you possibly can without triggering widespread moonshining and bootlegging.
- Set a minimum price floor for alcoholic beverages as well, for both on and off-premise sales. Both this as well as raising alcohol taxes would have a larger impact on young people since they are more price-sensitive on average.
- Reduce alcohol outlet density in places where such outlet density is very high.
- Restrict or ban alcohol advertising, especially ads aimed at young people.
- Crack down on drunk driving, drunk violence, drunk vandalism, and drunk and disorderly conduct--for ALL ages. Hold individuals accountable for their behavior, no matter how wasted they are. Period.
- Increase alcohol education and treatment programs. Yesterday. And include social norms marketing in this broadly-defined education program.
- And last but not least, before they even consider raising the drinking age, how about actually enforcing the 18 drinking age they have now? Seriously. And by that, we mean targeting vendors with complicance checks, rather than the young people themselves.
The only way that girls and boys aged 16-17 years old may drink alcoholic beverages is with parental supervision with their parents. A drinking age of 18 would not give permission for girls and boys aged 13-17 to drink alcoholic beverages. The study should recommend the policy of confiscating alcoholic beverages from girls and boys 17 and under. This is the right policy in reducing drinking by that age group. At the same time, charging them with a crime for that goes too far for a person under 18.
ReplyDelete