Deborah Coddington: Brits' boozing antidote goes straight to source

When Parliament lowered the drinking age to 18 in 1999, we hoped New Zealand would turn into France, with teenagers sipping wine outside cafes, pondering a certain "je ne sais quoi".

But instead we threw fuel on the fire of a long-raging culture of binge-drinking and spawned a new generation of addicts.

It's a brave politician who admits he/she was wrong to vote for lowering the drinking age, but a knee-jerk reaction in taking it back to 20 is not the solution. That horse has well and truly bolted.

Last month, Law Commission President Sir Geoffrey Palmer announced it was time to "curb the harm" caused by alcohol.

The commission's report makes grim reading. According to Youth Court judges, young people are drinking more and sooner; children as young as 8 are consuming alcohol and suffering developmental problems.

Every year police take around 20,000 people home or to cells, and District Court judges estimate up to 80 per cent of offenders suffer drug and alcohol addictions.

Should we care? You and I are funding the nursemaids for the drunks.

But New Zealand shouldn't beat up on itself. I'm briefly in "boozed Britain" as they call it, where 18 is also the legal age, and youth drinking is shocking.

An evening stroll down the main street of any of the drinking hot spots can mean taking your life into your hands.

Fake-tanned chavs stuffed into cheap dresses stumble along on platform heels clutching cans of cider, screaming and swearing at each other, while boys with their bums hanging out of the backs of their jeans roll out on to the street throwing drunken punches, which often escalate into knife fights.

Last month, 22-year-old Gary Reinbach literally drank himself to death. After having his first drink at 13, he became a teenage alcoholic and developed cirrhosis of the liver. He died in hospital waiting for a liver transplant.

Last week, binge-drinking was the focus of the BBC's respected current affairs show Panorama. Reporter Richard Bilton rightly opened with: "this is not just another binge-drinking film".

Downtown Oldham was in crisis, Panorama showed. Yorkshire St, the main drinking area, had a 200 per cent increase in serious violent incidents in the first four months of this year - on average, a stabbing, or assault with intention to kill, each Friday and Saturday night.

Over the past three years, 12 women were raped after a night out drinking.

Promotions such as "two-for-ones", "drink as much as you can for £5.99 [$14.68]", and "free shots" had fuelled the violence.

So Oldham Council took radical action, pushing for a minimum price for alcohol in bars. It conducted a review of those selling cut-price drinks and told them continuing to sell alcohol for less than 75 pence a unit would mean they would have to change the way they operated. Under the new rules they would have to increase door staff and limit the number of drinks each customer could buy, forcing them to wait in Post Office-style queues. Bars that refused risked losing their licences.

Panorama persuaded local magistrate John Howson on to booze street for an interview and his comments were interesting. He noted football clubs must pay for policing an unruly crowd, but so far the retail trade had managed to avoid this.

Likewise for the retail trade in New Zealand, but no doubt Bruce Robertson and the hospitality industry will have some excuse for taxpayers to continue picking up the tab.

In Britain it is estimated police salaries required to patrol Oldham's streets total £3000 every weekend night.

So is it working? The council says its plan to work within the law and with the licensees to achieve a unit price is reducing binge-drinking.

But there is a catch which is outside the council's jurisdiction: Oldham's bars are undercut by supermarkets and liquor shops. Panorama surveyed 30 closest to Yorkshire St and the results were alarming, with whisky at 27 pence a unit, vodka at 19 pence, and the cheapest booze in town at a Tesco supermarket - cider at 14 pence a unit. Only Britain's Parliament can control this.

Oldham doesn't have all the answers, but at least the town has made a start. Maybe New Zealand MPs should visit and see for themselves.