Garth George: Latest death further reason to lift drinking age

It is surely ironic that, within days of the Prime Minister receiving a report urging the Government to raise the legal drinking age to 21, another child dies, apparently of an alcohol overdose.
The death of 17-year-old David Gaynor after he was put in a "withdrawal room" at the King's College annual ball at the weekend, and the death in May last year of 16-year-old James Webster after he drank a bottle of vodka are simply the tip of a very large iceberg.
I wonder how many other children, who did not attend a prestigious school such as King's College, have died of excessive alcohol consumption in lower socio-economic areas and were quietly buried by the parents or caregivers without any blaze of publicity?
The worst feature of this tragic affair, however, is that scores of children were plied with booze at private pre-ball parties held by parents of King's College kids. It seems to me that these people have absolutely no idea of the effect of alcohol on young bodies and minds.
Do they not know that alcohol is a powerful tranquiliser, a mind-altering chemical, a brain poison and a highly addictive drug and that its effect is more dangerous the younger the person drinking it is?
Heaven knows there has been enough evidence of that published widely in the country in the past year or so. Last year we read the report of the Law Commission, "Alcohol in Our Lives: Curbing the Harm", the main of 150 recommendations of which was raising the legal drinking age to 20.
Just a couple of weeks ago the report prepared by the Prime Minister's chief science adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman, and others, recommended that the drinking age should rise to 21.
In a chapter of the report on teenage drinking, Christchurch Health and Development Study academics Professors David Fergusson and Joseph Boden said the most effective reforms would be a "substantial rise" in the drinking age to 21, higher alcohol prices and more limited availability.
A chapter on youth suicide advocated limiting access to alcohol and making it less affordable. "If the opportunity to reduce drinking by implementing recommendations [of the Law Commission report] is missed, many young lives may be lost that could otherwise have been saved."
It is patently obvious from these well-researched documents that the drinking age has to go up, and I firmly believe it should go to 21. United States experiences reinforce this view: every state in the union has been instructed by the federal Government to return the drinking age to 21 and those that have report almost immediate social and economic benefits.
But it should not stop there. The law should prescribe substantial penalties for any person who supplies liquor to anyone under the age of 21 in public or under 18 in private since it is obvious many parents cannot be trusted to keep their children safe from the depredations of alcohol.
Other recommendations the Government should act on urgently are a regular and significant increase in the tax on alcohol products; all alcohol advertising should be banned, as it is for tobacco; and liquor outlets should not be allowed to advertise anything outside their premises.
Excessive drinking is not simply a problem affecting young people. It is one of the main reasons 20 per cent of our population lives in poverty and too many go hungry; it is a reason so many are on the DPB and other benefits; it accounts for much of our marital violence, murderous child abuse, violent crime, road deaths, drownings, suicides, unplanned pregnancies and venereal diseases, general health problems and homelessness.
Half measures will avail nothing.
Garth George is a veteran newspaperman living semi-retired in Rotorua.