Kerre Woodham: Only themselves to blame

An intoxicated youth. Photo / NZ Herald

When changes are made to the Liquor Licensing Act - and changes are inevitable - drinkers and their suppliers will only have themselves to blame when it becomes tougher and more expensive to get a drink.

Drink is my recreational drug of choice so, before anyone starts bellowing, I'm definitely not in the wowsers' camp.

I'm also well aware there are plenty of people who are more than capable of enjoying a bottle wine over a nice meal or a couple of glasses of beer after a hard day's work and who can leave it at that.

Most of us don't go out and get into fights or end up having the cops round after an alcohol-fuelled domestic.

I don't end up in A and E getting my stomach pumped out, and I haven't buried a friend who drank and drove and died. Although, to be fair, I did get a DIC back in the 90s so I'm not squeaky clean.

When the decision was made to lower the booze buying age to 18, I was all for it - for all the reasons we've heard before. You can marry, go to war, bear children and vote at the age of 18 - why on earth could you not have a drink?

I thought the naysayers were being alarmist, but it turned out the police, the health professionals and the youth agencies were right.

The lowering of the booze-buying age has in effect become a lowering of the drinking age and it has been a disaster.

I know that reports can be skewed and that statistics are open to interpretation, but if there's been one single study that shows the lowering of the drinking age has been a good move, I'd love to read it.

In 2004, Christchurch ER doctors said the number of young adults between 18 and 20 presenting with potentially fatal alcohol poisoning had doubled since the age was lowered in 1999.

An Auckland study, also from 2004, showed the number of young people admitted with alcohol related injuries was 40 per cent higher than in 1999. I'd hate to see the figures now.

I love drinking wine with my family and friends. There is something about the sharing of food and wine that is integral to my sense of wellbeing.

But the cost of alcohol abuse - human and economic - is appalling, and if we all have to pay for the sins of the few, so be it.

The only proviso I would make would be that any extra tax on alcohol should be ear-marked for rehab programmes for those who want and need help - especially for young people.

It's one thing to want a drink - quite another to need one.