minimum age for buying/using alcohol?

[desprateseagull]

under what age should it be illegal to buy / drink alcohol?

in view of proposed change in Scotland from 18 to 21, before you could (legally) get bladdered. not that it would stop people, but i guess the politico's need to be seen to do something to curb the alarming rise in alcoholism.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

In the scotland at the moment there is a widespread voluntary practice that suppermarkets/off licences won't sell alcohol to under 21's whilst retaining the 18 age limit in pubs. Think that is a good idea.

 

[Walkers Cajun Squirrel]

Look at Italy. Their teenage drunkness is very low and you can start drinking from 3 (at home). We need to look more at countries like Italy. This generation is lost. Nothing we do will stop them from getting pissed every other night. We need to install some of the values they have in other countries where teenage drunkness is far far lower.

 

[strings]

In the scotland at the moment there is a widespread voluntary practice that suppermarkets/off licences won't sell alcohol to under 21's whilst retaining the 18 age limit in pubs. Think that is a good idea.

I am against the age for purchasing alcohol being raise to 21. However, I think this idea is actually quite good.

Look at Italy. Their teenage drunkness is very low and you can start drinking from 3 (at home). We need to look more at countries like Italy. This generation is lost. Nothing we do will stop them from getting pissed every other night. We need to install some of the values they have in other countries where teenage drunkness is far far lower.

I absolutely agree with this too.

As far as I see young people will always drink... I have been purchasing alcohol since I was 16. If I was asked for my ID, I would simply hand over my real passport/drivers licence and I would get served because the assistant would never be bothered to look at the date. All increasing the age for purchasing alcohol will do is worsen the 'park bench' culture.

If somebody can be punished as an adult when they are 18 years old, they should be treated as an adult. Let them get pissed

 

[Spider]

I am against the age for purchasing alcohol being raise to 21. However, I think this idea is actually quite good.



I absolutely agree with this too.

As far as I see young people will always drink... I have been purchasing alcohol since I was 16. If I was asked for my ID, I would simply hand over my real passport/drivers licence and I would get served because the assistant would never be bothered to look at the date. All increasing the age for purchasing alcohol will do is worsen the 'park bench' culture.
If somebody can be punished as an adult when they are 18 years old, they should be treated as an adult. Let them get pissed

Exactly. The men up there need to realise that they can't stop young people drinking, it's more a case of promoting safer drinking. Not being allowed to buy in a pub until 21 would be disastrous - there's no way that all those 18-20 year olds are going to stop drinking, it just pushes them out onto the street or to uncontrolled house parties, rather than being able to drink in a pub where there are more responsible people around.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

The whole British culture needs to change in order to tackle the rise in binge drinking and alcohol related crime.

 

[Rusthall Seagull]

under what age should it be illegal to buy / drink alcohol?

in view of proposed change in Scotland from 18 to 21, before you could (legally) get bladdered. not that it would stop people, but i guess the politico's need to be seen to do something to curb the alarming rise in alcoholism.

raising the age limit for buying alcohol will in no major way change peoples ability to aquire it. The real problem lies in the lack of proper policing of young people drinking in public.

Not so long ago I was walking on Tunbridge Wells high street in the early part of the evening when I saw four obviously drunk teenagers (two girls, two boys prob 15 years old max) drinking from a couple of bottles of wine. A policeman walked straight past them and did not even stop to ask them how old they were or why they were drinking (illegally) on the street. I then caught up with him to ask him why he had not bothered to stop and check and his response was 'too much paperwork' etc

until kids start to be pulled into line and made understand that being drunk and drinking in public is unacceptable, we will continue to have the problem.

 

[Spiros]

The main part of British culture that needs to change is one of responsibility. In Spain, for example, (and some other mediterranean countries I think?) you are still considered a minor for whom your parents are responsible until you are 18. That means if a 17-year old goes out and causes trouble then the police bring them home and get heavy with their parents. Consequently the parents have a vested interest in knowing where their kids are and what they're up to.

In England whole towns are taken over at night by 12-16 year olds who are out of control and know that no-one can touch them, because their parenst don't care ('won't affect me') and the police won't dare.

Having grown up out of control they continue when they drink as they get older. That's why most of the drink-related trouble you see on the continent always seems to come back to the Brits. Drink is not the cause of the problem, it just magnifies a problem that's already there. What makes it worse is that the politicos think that stopping anyone under 21 will magically make the problem of antisocial behaviour go away. It won't

 

[jonny.rainbow]

Look at Italy. Their teenage drunkness is very low and you can start drinking from 3 (at home). We need to look more at countries like Italy. This generation is lost. Nothing we do will stop them from getting pissed every other night. We need to install some of the values they have in other countries where teenage drunkness is far far lower.

Italian teens drinking | Society Travel to Italy - Italian People & Places - Italy Style, Food and Wine

Italian teens drinking 'to excess'
Published on Sat, 04/19/2008 - 07:04

Young teenagers - and especially girls - in Italy are drinking too much alcohol, a report by the Higher Institute of Health (ISS) revealed on Thursday.

Around 67% of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15 are drinking to excess, consuming between two and four alcoholic drinks in an evening, the ISS said.

The problem is especially acute among girls, with 31% drinking more than two units in an evening compared with 25% of boys.

''These very young kids are drinking on Saturdays especially, but also in a more limited fashion on other days of the week,'' said Emanuele Scafato from the ISS.

Among teenagers over 16 - the legal age for buying alcohol - around 47% of boys and 31% of girls are consuming more than two drinks in an evening, Scafato said.

Binge drinking is even more extreme for young people between the ages of 19 and 24, but it drops off among both sexes from the age of 25, he added.

A survey of teenagers who regularly drank at discos revealed that police controls and publicity campaigns had little effect in persuading them to opt for soft drinks.

Around 74% of adolescents said that they would be most likely to stay off the alcohol for an entire evening if there was ''an important prize for remaining sober'' on offer, with 70% saying the opportunity to participate in a reality show or other television programmes would also keep them teetotal for the night.

''As researchers, we were expecting rather unusual reasons, but the teenagers astounded us in the replies they gave,'' said Scafato.

''The evaluation of prevention programmes in Italy is rather rare and few have been effective,'' he admitted.

Just 58% cited the responsibility of getting friends home safely at the end of the evening as a good motivation to stay sober.

Pressure from friends or partners (44%), banning the sale of alcohol in nightclubs (31%), police controls (23%) and publicity campaigns (14%) came toward the bottom of the list.

Around 18% said ''nothing'' would persuade them not to drink.

As well as sounding the alarm for juvenile drinking, the ISS said that alcohol abuse was an increasing problem among the over-65s.

A survey of 12 Italian regions showed that around three million elderly people are consuming more than the recommended one alcoholic drink a day.

Men over the age of 65 are drinking to excess at more than twice the rate of women, at 52.8% and 17.5% respectively, according to the survey.

Elderly men were more likely to be overstepping the guidelines if they smoked, were obese, had previously done manual work, lived in the north of the country or believed themselves to be in good health, the ISS said.

Among women over the age of 65, the biggest risk factor was living with a partner whose habits they adopted.

Women in the north were more at risk than those in the centre and south, while those living with children consume less alcohol.

There is no legal age from when it is acceptable to drink in Italy, and Italians start drinking at a much earlier age than other Europeans - at 11 and 12 compared to a European average of 14.

Last year the recent centre-left government failed to pass a bill to raise the legal age for purchasing alcohol from 16 to 18 after retailers' associations blasted the measure, saying it was unfair to make managers of bars and eateries responsible for implementing the clampdown.

According to official statistics, alcohol is a factor in 30-40% of all road accidents in Italy, which has one of the worst road safety records in Europe.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/27/foodanddrink.france


Bonjour binge drinking

The French are famous for their sophisticated cafe culture and sensible approach to drinking. So why have their teenagers suddenly developed a taste for British-style boozing? Jon Henley reports

* Jon Henley
*
o Jon Henley
o The Guardian, Wednesday 27 August 2008
o Article history

Cafe on Rue Vieille du Temple, Paris

Cafe on Rue Vieille du Temple, Paris. Photograph: Corbis

In the northern French town of Abbéville it was two 16-year-old girls, found unconscious in their school toilets after feting a birthday with the help of four cherry-flavoured alcopops each and a bottle of vodka. In the Ain département of central France, it was an 18-year-old student, found dead in his bed by his father following a Friday night spent celebrating the end of his baccalauréat.

And last week, in Paimpol on the Atlantic coast, it was a 16-year-old girl on a family camping holiday, hospitalised with an alcohol-induced coma after drinking three litres of spirits with a couple of friends. Her father is suing the supermarket that sold them the alcohol.

For years, the French have dismissed out-of-control teenage drinking, like hooliganism, as "a British disease". France, it was said (by the French but by us, too), had the right approach to alcohol and kids: start them off young, in early adolescence, with a glass of watered-down wine at family meals. That way they grow up understanding that a drop of Burgundy or Bordeaux over dinner is, generally speaking, preferable to 15 pints down the pub. France, we thought, had mastered the art of moderate drinking: being falling-down drunk was neither cool nor sexy; alcohol was just one of the many components of the great Gallic social experience; and leglessness was not synonymous with fun.

That did not, of course, mean that France did not (and does not) have problems with alcohol: while the influence of the wine lobby has left much of the nation in clear denial, a 2005 government study unambiguously classified
5 million French people as "excessive drinkers", and 2 million as chronically alcohol-dependent, estimating that booze was behind a third of all custodial sentences in France and more than half of all domestic violence. One way or another, the report said, alcohol is directly responsible for 23,000 deaths a year across the Channel, and indirectly for a further 22,000.

But this was long-term, adult drinking; a pattern of abuse and dependence in a minority - albeit a significant one - established, in most cases, over years of vinous overconsumption. Until very recently, beyond a few drunken British and German holidaymakers, the French had simply not been exposed to the phenomenon of young people setting out deliberately to drink themselves drunk. As recently as 2006, the psychologist Marie Choquet could tell a national conference on alcohol and drug abuse that alcohol was "culturally integrated" in France, and that such practices could never take root there.

Now, however, newspaper articles and TV documentaries are full of anguished reports on la biture express and la défonce minute, Gallic neologisms that appear to be fighting a losing battle against that very Anglo-Saxon import, le binge drinking.

"It is becoming an issue," says Dr Philippe Batel, an alcohol specialist at the Beaujon hospital in Clichy. "Statistics are never completely clear, of course, but it's clear there is a significant change in behaviour under way - there's now a real trend among French youths to drink more regularly, usually at weekends; to drink more; to drink outside, in the streets; and to drink in order to get smashed. All that is really quite new in France, and it corresponds quite closely to the British definition of binge drinking."

It has not yet, experts agree, attained the proportions seen in Britain or other, mainly northern European countries. But if you believe the statistics, it does indeed seem to be climbing at an alarming rate: according to a recent government survey of 30,000 French 17-year-olds, of the 12% who qualify as regular drinkers, 26% confess to getting regularly drunk, compared with 19% five years ago. Worse, while alcohol consumption among the population in general is falling steadily, fully half of all French teenagers now report having been drunk at least once in the previous month.

The figures have prompted the health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, to announce a string of measures aimed at curbing binge drinking among the young. A package of bills to be presented to parliament at the end of the summer recess and scheduled to come into force next year will, the minister told the Journal du Dimanche recently, include the "total prohibition of alcohol sales to minors", and a ban on alcohol consumption in the immediate proximity of schools. She also plans to end "open-bar" events, common at student parties, at which guests pay a flat fee in advance to drink as much as they want. (At present, French teenagers can buy beer and wine in cafes, bars and supermarkets from the age of 16; spirits are reserved for the over-18s.)

The ministry has also launched a hard-hitting advertising campaign, Boire trop (or Drinking too much) featuring a video of an apparently innocent beach party that, way too many drinks later, ends up in a drowning, a rape, a violent fight and someone collapsing in a coma. (Though the main response from France's youth to the clip on YouTube, unfortunately, has been a chorus of enthusiastic praise for the catchy Brazilian soundtrack by Silvano Michelino, and of regret that there seems to be nowhere that allows one to download the song for free.)

Some towns, especially those with high student populations, have clearly decided not to wait. To the outrage of bar and nightclub owners already hard hit by France's January 1 ban on smoking in public places, the university town of Nantes has banned happy hours, after two students stumbled out of a cafe and fell straight into the river Loire. The local council in Rennes, which is home to two major universities, has taken the even more radical step of buying up a number of bars on the cobbled Rue Saint Michel, better known to locals as the Rue de la Soif (Thirst Street) and turning them - among other things - into a DVD outlet and an upmarket restaurant.

So what's gone wrong? What has prompted France's youth to turn from sensible tipplers to full-on booze abusers? Experts, predictably, are as divided about what lies behind the problem as they are about how best to tackle it. Etienne Apaire, who heads up an inter-ministerial body aimed at combating both drug and alcohol addiction, has told French media that he believes the phenomenon is simply part of a "globalisation of behaviour" evident in all 27 EU member states, in which teenagers increasingly seek "instant intoxication" as an end in itself.

A leading social economist, Jean-Michel Reynaud, says the drinks industry is largely to blame. "It bears a major and absolute responsibility," he told Libération. The re-emergence in France of mainly British-made pre-mixed alcopops, which first appeared in the mid-1990s but were so heavily taxed by the then Socialist government that they were largely withdrawn from the market, "has made drunkenness among young people commonplace. The ever-mounting pressure to consume is meticulously organised."

Batel says a combination of both the above is probably the cause, plus "an ever-increasing pressure to perform" that encourages "weekend excess". But some influential figures, including government health advisers, are even beginning to question the wisdom of allowing children as young as nine or 10 to develop a taste for wine, arguing that this "authorises drinking" and noting that recent studies have thrown up convincing evidence that those who start drinking before they reach 18 are far more likely to consume to excess as adults.

Suggestions about how best to combat the latest Anglo-Saxon scourge are equally varied. One educationalist, Frédérique Gardien, says French parents have to get tough again; they no longer give the kind of strict guidelines they used to and that teenagers need, he says. But if many teenage drinkers seem to be cynical about the government's very un-French proposals, arguing that they can always find an adult to buy booze for them, most experts seem to approve - although some fear outright bans on teenagers are often counter-productive.

"The signal sent by a total ban on the sale of alcohol to minors is very important in a country like France, which has always tended to deny that alcohol can be harmful," says Batel. "But there needs to be a strong preventive strategy to accompany it. We need to be able to discuss openly with young people, without taboos, the dangers and the attractions of alcohol." Otherwise the Saturday-night city-centre streets of sensible, wine-sipping France could soon be looking the same way as those in Britain, parts of Scandinavia and eastern Europe and, most recently, Spain. Bonne chance, mes amis.

I think it's about time people let go of this myth that problem drinking and teenage drinking is only a British problem

 

[Skint Gull]

The main part of British culture that needs to change is one of responsibility. In Spain, for example...

In Spain EVERYONE drink drives! I agree with what you're saying but Spain are really not a good example

 

[BLOCK F]

under what age should it be illegal to buy / drink alcohol?

in view of proposed change in Scotland from 18 to 21, before you could (legally) get bladdered. not that it would stop people, but i guess the politico's need to be seen to do something to curb the alarming rise in alcoholism.

Keep the age at 18,but properly enforce existing laws to deal with the persistent trouble makers.As has been previously stated,raising the age to 21 would be unfair on the majority of young people who cause no problems whatsoever.
P.S.I am now an old git,but we were luckier when I started drinking in pubs at 16/17....provided you kept your head down and caused no trouble,nobody minded!!

 

[Walkers Cajun Squirrel]

jonny.rainbow thats bollocks. 2-4 units isnt that much. Thats 2 cans of beer.

 

[Robbie G]

I can't see raising the age doing much, as kids get pissed under 18 now anyway. Shops are, to an extent, responsible for this. But to keep targeting shops is not just the way. I work in a shop and countless time I see parents buying alcohol for their kids. You could challenge them that they're buying it for their kids, but the parents will just say it's for them.

I agree that there needs to be a change in culture to stop the problem. For example, at university, a lot of socialising revolves around drinking.

I suppose the politicians are hoping a change in culture will come about by being even more stringent with alcohol sales. Like with smoking.

 

[The Large One]

jonny.rainbow thats bollocks. 2-4 units isnt that much. Thats 2 cans of beer.

2x 500ml can of 5% beer is 5 units.

 

[desprateseagull]

some ideas to consider..

BAN sale of high alcohol (‘super stength’) beer & cider etc, to ANYONE- just no need for it.

CLOSE DOWN shops/bars that get caught selling to underage drinkers- kids should be at home/school, not out getting pished. possibility of losing licence / livelihood will make store owners more vigilant..?

JAIL parents of under age kids, for not guiding / supervising them properly (as for schook truants).

Cut/remove VAT on ative lifestyle / sport products and activities- sch as bikes, swimming sessions, or even offer as prizes for good attendance at school (and away from the boozer?).

 

[Skint Gull]

2x 500ml can of 5% beer is 5 units.

Was that an attempt to prove or disprove that point then?

 

[beorhthelm]

Look at Italy. Their teenage drunkness is very low and you can start drinking from 3 (at home).

you can actually drink in the home from about the age of 5. and in public, in a resturant or otherwise with a meal from the age of 14 or somthing. so why dont we drink more as children in this country, when apparently its supposed to be the saving grace of the continentals?

The whole British culture needs to change in order to tackle the rise in binge drinking and alcohol related crime.

thing is its not new. The brits have always been a heavy drinking culture. there was a thing on telly about it a while ago, drinking and fisticuffs have been a noted trait of ours for centruries. its just seems to have become a more prominant thing, though they've been banging on about for 15 year that i remember so i wonder if thats even true.

I think it's about time people let go of this myth that problem drinking and teenage drinking is only a British problem

and what a surprise, its not an exclusive british thing after all. its seems as if the standards by which we expect our nation to behave became distorted from the reality.