Teens face ban on takeaway alcohol

The legal age for buying alcohol to take away could be raised to 20 while the drinking age remains at 18, in a bid to reduce the impact of alcohol on young people.

The option of having different purchase and drinking ages emerged yesterday when MPs considered a law change to reverse the 1999 move that lowered the drinking age from 20 to 18.

The bill's sponsor, Hamilton West MP Martin Gallagher, agreed that raising the purchase age was an option he expected the law and order select committee to explore. Any change could only come after a conscience vote.

University researcher Dr Kypros Kypri urged the MPs to lift the drinking age as well, on the basis of evidence showing a direct relationship between the minimum purchase and drinking age and crash injuries to young people.

The bill was introduced by former MP Matt Robson because of widespread concern that the reduction in the drinking age has led to alcohol abuse by minors as young as 14 and 15.

Last May, the Herald reported doctors' views that allowing 18-year-olds to buy alcohol was a failed experiment that had harmed teenagers.

They linked the lowered age to rising rates of sexually transmitted infections, teen pregnancy, young alcohol overdose cases at hospitals, youth binge drinking, violence and under-18s illegally drinking in public.

A submission yesterday by the chairman of the Liquor Licensing Authority, Judge Edward Unwin, suggested that the problem of alcohol abuse by minors did not lie with licensed premises such as pubs and clubs, but with purchases from off-licence outlets.

"I suggest that any concerns about the issue of abuse might relate more to the purchase of liquor and its subsequent consumption in homes, cars and public places rather than the presence of minors on licensed premises."

Australia had differential purchasing and drinking ages, the judge said.

Waitakere MP Lynn Pillay said most young people who went to clubs could not afford alcoholic drinks and went there to socialise and dance.

Judge Unwin was highly complimentary about the management of licensed premises in New Zealand after nearly five years in the job.

"My overall impression is that the great majority of commercial premises are responsibly and professionally managed," he said.

"Very few licensees willingly sell liquor to minors."

The committee asked Dr Kypri to give evidence after an article he wrote appeared in the American Journal of Public Health.

A senior lecturer at Newcastle University in Australia, he also works at Otago University's Injury Prevention Research Unit.

Research on alcohol-related crashes before and after the age was lowered indicated that there was an increased risk of a crash injury in the 15-to-17-year-old and 18-to-19-year-old age groups since the law change, relative to other age groups.

He said it might be that setting the drinking age at 20 "disenfranchises young people", but this was a better option than being dead or disabled.

Dr Kypri urged MPs not to be "duped" by rhetoric such as New Zealand needing to change the "drinking culture", as if that was not determined by the availability, cost and promotion of alcohol.

He was critical of liquor education: "Overwhelming evidence shows no beneficial effect of education and persuasion programmes in terms of risk behaviour or injury outcome."


Teens and drink

* 299 15-to-19-year-old drivers have had fatal or injury crashes on average in each of the past three years
* 27% of teenagers say they have ridden in a car with a potentially drunk driver at least once in the past month.