A funny portrayal of a "cool dad" in a television ad about under-18s drinking has won praise for challenging parents' thinking on how they should behave at young people's parties.

A new study has shown that a major contributor to alcohol-related harm among underage drinkers is their older mates supplying them with large amounts of booze.

Students at a top Auckland secondary school were breath tested for alcohol as they arrived for their final day at school last week.

Student bar Shadows, at the University of Auckland campus, is sparsely populated at 10pm on a Wednesday. Three groups of young people sit around tables, sipping glasses of beer poured from the bar's ubiquitous jugs - or from slim-line cans of RTDs.

A study has shown the effect that having more liquor outlets has on specific areas, suggesting a one-size-fits-all alcohol policy won't work.

While Auckland councillors struggle to come up with a polite way of moving beggars off downtown pavements, the much larger problem of drunken youths staggering about the bottom of town remains firmly parked in the too-hard basket.

When a Rotorua woman who drove into two pedestrians tried to explain to a judge she'd only had two glasses of wine, he asked 'What were they - buckets?'

Noisy night patrons of a student bar on Massey University's Albany campus are targets of new liquor controls for nearby suburban streets and reserves.

A new study on the burden drunken rugby fans place on emergency medical services has prompted a call for an anti-binge drinking ad campaign.

On Thursday night, while Jesse Ryder lay in intensive care in Christchurch Hospital after a savage and apparently random beating that has left him fighting for his life, I drove home from work just after midnight.

In a bid to cut down unnecessary hospital admissions, five Auckland organisations have set up a temporary 'safe house' for out-of-control revellers.

The father of a 15-year-old injured in a car accident in the early hours of last Sunday has lashed out at emergency services staff, accusing them of teenage accident fatigue.

Senior legal figures do not believe there is a problem with the number of drink-drivers before the courts who receive a discharge without conviction.

Judges let off around 50 people a year for drink-driving - with reasons ranging from models wanting to work overseas and wannabe police officers and nannies.

Alcohol advertising is so seamlessly blended into social media and smartphone technology that government will struggle to regulate it, a researcher says.

Zac Guildford's girlfriend hopes the experts are proved right and the rugby renegade can be okay after four weeks of treatment.

Hundreds of people were arrested and charged with alcohol-related offences during a poilce operation aimed at highlighting the implications associated with alcohol misuse in public.