Just before midnight on a Saturday, Wellington’s Courtenay Place is awash with inebriated people staggering along footpaths and stumbling into bars. If you take this cohort as representative of New Zealand’s wider alcohol scene, about a third of the 18- to 24-year-old bar patrons among them will binge drink. Typically, they will have also preloaded, drinking at their flats or at home to take advantage of cheaper prices at off-licences or online.
Adolescent, underage drinkers are more likely to be drinking at home or at private parties, where their intake can be more difficult to monitor than if they have slipped into a bar on a fake ID. More than half the underage drinkers surveyed by the Addressing Alcohol Harm in Adolescents project undertaken by health promotion group Alcohol Healthwatch said they got alcohol from their parents, a statistic that worries health watchdogs.
Alcohol has never been more affordable, more heavily marketed or more accessible, say researchers and Alcohol Healthwatch. It was labelled in a recent University of Otago, Wellington study as our most harmful drug – worse than methamphetamine or synthetic cannabis – but critics are concerned that getting drunk continues to be the normal drinking style for 18- to 24 year-olds.
The New Zealand Health Survey (2020) found young adults aged 18-24 are our most hazardous drinkers: more than one in three (34.9%) drink excessively, a rate that has not improved in the eight years since the indicator was first introduced.
Hazardous drinking is defined internationally by a World Health Organisation (WHO) scale based on 10 questions covering frequency of drinking, amount consumed and experience of negative outcomes. A score of 8 or more defines hazardous drinking, a pattern that places the drinker and others at risk of harm.
Young adults are more likely to binge drink here than they are in Australia and in the UK. Why? Critics point to a liberal drinking environment, cheap off-licence prices, unregulated marketing, and how easy it is to buy alcohol, even if someone is underage. Among secondary school students, almost half – 47% – admit to drinking alcohol. Of these, 28% drink 5-9 drinks in a sitting. Even more concerning, according to researchers like Dr Jude Ball, of the Adolescent Health Research Group, are the 1 in 10 of current drinkers in that age group who have 10-20 drinks at a time.
“Fewer adolescents are drinking compared with the late-1990s and early-2000s but for those who do drink, drinking to get drunk remains the dominant drinking style,” says Ball. “By young adulthood, the current generation appears to have largely ‘caught up’ with the drinking behaviour of earlier generations.’’
By law, parents and legal guardians are the only people allowed to supply alcohol to minors, but this must be done responsibly. Ball found that 58% of underage drinkers got alcohol off their parents.
Following the french
Since the 1990s, it’s been argued that introducing teens to alcohol before they reach the legal age will help to “normalise” drinking and avoid them going crazy when they turn 18. Advocates cite European nations such as France, where families have a glass of wine with lunch or dinner and where binge-drinking by young people is apparently less prevalent.
But Alcohol Healthwatch director Rebecca Williams says it’s a myth that giving adolescents a drink with dinner or buying them RTDs to take to a party will prevent them having alcohol issues down the track. But parents often believe it’s safer for them to supply and supervise than for their young ones to go off and drink somewhere else, she says.
“Alcohol is our most harmful drug. We need to be thinking about what messaging we’re giving young people as parents and communities and the messages they get from those making a profit out of them starting their consumption journey early and continuing that through their lifetime.’’
But it’s a touchy subject and parents spoken to were not prepared to go on the record. One parent, who did not wish to be named, has been buying her son alcohol for parties since he began in Year 12. She will also offer him a drink with dinner, though he usually rejects it. “I’ve always had the view that I’d rather not make a big deal out of it rather than it to be something forbidden which makes alcohol more exciting.”
Another mother was concerned that underage drinking is now expected at adolescent parties. “My daughters tell me that everyone is taking alcohol anyway, so I’d rather know what amount they are taking by buying it for them.”
Unregulated & unsupervised
About three-quarters of alcohol is now sold in off-licences such as liquor stores and supermarkets rather than on-licensed premises. “Price will be a big factor in where young people drink, particularly if they are drinking a lot,” says Williams. “Also, home and private environments are not monitored.’’
Research shows alcohol habits formed early often continue into adulthood, and that drinking while young can be linked to serious mental and physical health problems, some of which may show up only decades down the track.
Wellington Hospital emergency medical specialist Dr Paul Quigley says the number of underage drinkers coming to the emergency department with alcohol-related injuries has dropped by about half since 2020, which is positive. But they’re often getting intoxicated at private homes and parties, as is the case with legal drinkers aged 18-24. Quigley thinks this can be more dangerous.
Licensed premises now close at 4am rather than being open 24 hours, which he says has been a positive move. But alcohol remains “highly accessible to youth in the community”.
“And that’s non-supervised. So, no matter what rules you put in for bars and restaurants, that doesn’t affect this group because they’re just drinking at home. Unregulated, unsupervised consumption remains somewhat problematic and we have to worry about the amount of alcohol in our community.’’
Quigley says if parents host a party and an underage drinker ends up at A&E, there is rarely a follow-up. “Parents should be at least interviewed by the police and warned because that’s your responsibility to be a good, safe host,’’ he says. Under current law, adults can be fined $2000 for giving alcohol to a minor.
Awash in alcopops
At Liquorland in Wellington’s Miramar, cartons of RTDs are stacked in chillers. With flavours like watermelon and peach, the cans are attractively designed and cutely named – Pals, Cheeky – to appeal to young drinkers, particularly young adult females. And they’re much cheaper here than across the Tasman because Australia has a different liquor pricing regime.
At Liquorland, a 10-pack of Pals was $29. In Melbourne, a 10-pack of Pals retails for A$55-62, or A$20 for a pack of four. Here, pre-packaged RTD cans are sold only in dozen packs, whereas in Australia the same brands are sold in smaller quantities. Concerned about youth binge-drinking, in 2008 the Rudd government introduced a 70% tax increase on premixed spirit-based alcoholic beverages, or the “alcopop tax”.
The WHO argues that increasing the price of alcohol is one of the most effective ways of reducing alcohol harm and curbing heavy drinking. Countries do this either through excise tax or a minimum price per unit, such as in Scotland, where the stronger the alcohol, the more expensive it is. Here, according to a report by the Health Promotion Agency tracking prices and incomes, wine in 2018 was more than 50% more affordable than in 1989.
More than a decade ago, in 2010, a Law Commission report recommended a 50% hike in excise tax; if this was passed on by producers, it would push up the price of a bottle of wine by about 10%. More widely, critics want the same crackdown on alcohol sales as the government imposed on the tobacco industry from the 1990s to reduce smoking.
One of the criticisms is that alcohol companies here are allowed to self-regulate their advertising and marketing. Some of this is visible. In a study of children’s exposure to alcohol marketing, Dr Tim Chambers, senior research fellow at the University of Otago, Wellington, found children in the capital saw more than 12 alcohol advertisements every day across all media and settings – a statistic that was higher for Māori children and children in low-income communities.
This push is increasingly happening online, along with alcohol sales. “The problem with online marketing is that rules are hard to enforce,” says Ball. “Because of the algorithm, the ads that you and I see as adults are different from the ads our children are seeing. Those ads are essentially invisible to parents and regulators.’’
At an Alcohol Healthwatch industry forum in July, researchers talked about the growth of online alcohol deliveries since Covid. “Alcohol delivery is set up to be as seamless as possible,” says Williams. “There is a chain of motivation to purchase or to be involved with something around the alcohol product and brand, right through to being part of an event where this product is just everywhere in our society. ‘Get your alcohol right now.’ It’s marketing on steroids.’’
Sponsorship deals
In April, Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick’s bill to ban alcohol sponsorship and advertising in sports didn’t get past the first reading. While sports events are the most common way children are exposed to liquor, research by Alcohol Healthwatch released to the Listener found it is increasingly marketed at music festivals, where young people flock. January’s Rhythm and Vines festival attracted sponsorship from Pals, Steinlager and whiskey brand Jameson, which had named VIP tents and advertised their products on flyers, fencing, umbrellas and the stages. “Steinlager and Jameson also advertised free giveaways with product purchase,’’ the report said. Steinlager gave away a punnet of hot chips with every two cans of beer. “Sponsorship and advertising normalises and glamourises alcohol consumption, reinforcing the use of alcohol as part of our culture and desensitising the community to the harm caused by alcohol use,’’ the report noted.
Alcohol Healthwatch was most critical of the R16 music festival Jim Beam Homegrown in Wellington in March. Advertising for the liquor included signage wrapped around the entire boundary fence and across the stages. Staff wore branded clothing and banners were erected. Alcohol Healthwatch found tickets available for under-18s had sold out.
Asked why Jim Beam Homegrown has an alcohol company as its naming sponsor, festival managing director Andrew Tuck would not answer the question directly. But he said less than 5% of tickets are sold to 16- and 17-year-olds and the festival has zero tolerance of underage drinking. “Without the support of our stakeholders, the festival wouldn’t be possible. With the location we are in and the increases in all aspects of the supply chain, the stakeholders make the ticket price achievable for the patrons.”
Zero alcohol
Liquor companies say more adolescents are choosing not to drink alcohol and there is certainly more choice of zero-alcohol beers and adult-palate-appealing booze-free drinks available. Virginia Nicholls, executive director of the NZ Alcohol Beverages Council, says adolescent drinking has dropped over the past 15-20 years, here and in other OECD countries. She says in 2019, 45% of secondary students were non-drinkers – up from 26% in 2007; hazardous drinking was also down for this age group. Ball refutes that point. She says among drinking adolescents, hazardous rates haven’t changed.
Since he was in his mid-teens, 19-year-old Max (not his real name) has been the sober driver and the one caring for drunk friends. Max doesn’t drink because he plays sport and is a gym coach, and he’s also focused on his studies. The second-year university student observed more binge drinking at high school, when his friends often sunk a dozen drinks at a party. “I have had to put people to bed and hold their head back, and get them to eat pasta or bread to try to sober up. They’re unconscious or on the verge of consciousness.’’
But Max often feels like a social outcast when he’s at an event where everyone else is drinking or drunk. He has university friends who binge drink. “There’s this alpha male mindset where they’ll only drink to get drunk, otherwise it’s a waste of time. I know a guy who’s worried about his liver and he’s only 20.’’
Max has a part-time job at a supermarket, where parents come in wanting to buy alcohol for their teens. “They ask if we sell things like RTDs [they don’t]. We’re making binge drinking more accessible to kids by making RTDs and things like scrumpies taste like fizzy drinks. Which means kids who aren’t educated are getting into situations they shouldn’t be in at younger ages.’’
Nicholls rejects the suggestion that RTD producers are actively targeting and appealing to youth. Education about sensible drinking is one way the industry is reaching young people, she says. It is funding an alcohol education programme, Smashed, taught in schools by the Life Education Trust, which has so far reached 62,000 12- and 13-year-olds.
Nicholls says low-alcohol drinks are increasingly popular. “Most New Zealanders today are far more informed about the effects of harmful drinking and are choosing to reduce alcohol intake while still enjoying a beverage.” And she rejects the idea of a hike in excise tax. An extra $94 million in tax will be paid for by producers “and ultimately consumers’' this year. “In this time of rapid inflation and a cost-of-living crisis, extra taxes are extremely hard to absorb. This increase is challenging for producers, hospitality businesses and consumers of beer, wines and spirits.’’
Everything in moderation, says Nicholls, who points to a plethora of peer-reviewed research since the 1970s saying that “moderate drinking leads to greater longevity’'.
Reform in the wind
Both sides are split. But one thing the industry and watchdogs agree on is that we should be tackling hazardous drinking among legal and underage drinkers. One in five New Zealanders over 18 drink alcohol at levels deemed hazardous. “This is too high,’’ says Nicholls, speaking on behalf of the industry.
The Ministry of Justice is preparing to consider recommendations on changes to our alcohol laws by the middle of next year. “The government is committed to addressing alcohol-related harm, and has committed to considering further reform next year,” says acting deputy secretary, policy, Sam Kunowski. “Advice on further reform is likely to include looking at issues such as sponsorship and advertising, and considering a permanent solution for licensing around significant events.’’
Otago University’s Tim Chambers says reducing alcohol consumption is a global public health issue. A big challenge for New Zealand is to de-normalise drinking in our culture. But this, says Chambers, can only happen if three changes occur: the regulation of marketing should be taken off alcohol companies and overseen by the Broadcasting Standards Authority (this happened until the industry was deregulated in 1989); alcohol should be less available, and the price should be lifted.
The reality is that heavy drinkers do choose cheaper products, according to a Ministry of Justice pricing study, and that includes young people.
Chambers says: “Young people are more sensitive to price changes so an increase in tax is likely to mean they’ll reduce their consumption more so than older people. Pricing also sends signals that alcohol is no ordinary commodity, just like tobacco.’’
