Halfway Decent Study, Wrong Conclusion

Much has been made of a recent Australia and New Zealand study finding that teens who drink regularly (at least once a week) before the age of 17, and especially by age 13, are statistically more likely to go on to drink heavily, become alcohol-dependent, drive drunk, use/abuse other substances, and smoke cigarettes during adulthood.  And while correlation itself does not prove causation, there may very well still be at least somewhat of a causal link all the same that cannot be readily explained away, particularly for those who begin any significant drinking before age 15.  That said, the specious conclusion that New Zealand and Australia somehow should raise their drinking ages any higher than 18 is unwarranted and not actually supported by the data in this study.

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.

And there you have it.  There are far better alternatives than raising the legal drinking age.  And raising the drinking age can actually work at cross-purposes with the alternatives discussed above.  True, delaying the onset of youth drinking--especially regular drinking--can evidently be beneficial to a point.  But when you make the perfect the enemy of the good, you ultimately end up with neither.