OZschwitz: Push to lift drink age to 21

Subject: OZschwitz: Push to lift drink age to 21 Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:45 pm

RAISING the legal drinking age to 21 should be considered if attempts to curb dangerous levels of teenage drinking fail, according to the Government's top alcohol adviser.

Professor Jon Currie, chairman of the Victorian Drug and Alcohol Prevention Council, which will make recommendations soon on how the Brumby Government can deal with youth alcohol abuse, also indicated a controversial proposal to ban parents from serving alcohol to children other than their own could work in Victoria.

In NSW, where secondary supply laws governing parents already apply, offenders face fines of up to $5500. Police and alcohol experts are backing a proposal to bring in similar laws in Victoria.

Professor Currie, the director of addiction medicine and mental health at St Vincent's Hospital, said if social, educational and parental strategies failed to alter dangerous drinking trends, "governments will inevitably … look at legal ramifications or legal restrictions".

While lifting the legal drinking age to 21 would be a "last resort", it should definitely be on the table, he said.

"There might be a two-year discussion period … that would give a very strong message to people that either we change the environment ourselves or the government will do it," he said. The experience of other countries such as the US, where the legal age is 21, showed it could be done. "The government didn't fall, the country didn't fall into ruin."

Deakin University professor of health psychology John Toumbourou, who also works for the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, said he was a "very strong supporter" of lifting the drinking age as it had a proven track record of reducing alcohol-related harm to the brain, which is still forming into the early 20s.

"In countries or states where it has been introduced there has been around a 15% reduction in deaths and harm related to alcohol," he said. Where the reverse occurred — such as in Australia where some states dropped the drinking age from 21 to 18 in the 1970s — there had been an equivalent rise in deaths and harm, he said.

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OZschwitz: Push to lift drink age to 21

OZschwitz: Push to lift drink age to 21

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