A law change is not culture change
August 16th, 2010 at 7:00 pm by David FarrarThe Herald reports:
Amy-Rose Allen was a beauty show contestant with a not-so-hidden – and ultimately fatal – secret.
The 22-year-old alcoholic fell victim to what her parents described yesterday as New Zealand’s “widely accepted” binge-drinking culture.
Three months ago, her life support was switched off after she was partially flung from the car she was driving drunk in a crash south of Morrinsville. …
Ms Allen’s grieving mother and stepfather, Catherine and John Peary, yesterday drove to Auckland from their Hamilton home to add their voices to the hundreds who gathered in three anti-alcohol marches that merged at Manukau Square.
Mrs Peary said her daughter had been convicted for drink-driving three times and was before the courts for a fourth offence when she died.
The family will never know if any law changes might have saved her life, but do not want any other families to be left asking such questions.
Mr Peary said one of the main problems he could see was that alcohol was so accessible now.
The Pearys have my sympathy at the loss of their daughter, and in those circumstances, one would want to support any efforts to try and prevent other parents losing their kids so tragically.
But I have real doubts that a law change would have prevented what happened. Amy-Rose had already shown a total disregard for the law – she was on her fourth drink driving charge – which indicates she had probably driven drunk several hundred times – despite it being against the law.
August 16th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
What ever happened personal responsibility?
Instead we need the heavy hand of the law to save ourselves from ourselves.
Or the nannies think we do
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Someone must be responsible andrei. And it’s never us. In another age they would have blamed God: God had let this happen!!
In our age is the gummit: they let it happen. If only they…
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
title says it all really.
NZ needs a culture change. Got enough (too many) laws as it is.
But we’re fighting the left – masters of manipulating society and social values/norms.
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Rufus, are you suggesting all the people in companies marketing alcohol are lefties?
Are all the alcohol abusers that exert peer pressure lefties?
Are all the parents who set bad examples lefties?
I really don’t see how you can try to scores some vague political point over such a deep seated and widespread problem.
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
“Rufus, are you suggesting all the people in companies marketing alcohol are lefties?”
Moron. Plenty of people buy alcohol from those companies and don’t drive drunk. He’s talking about people who will not accept responsibility for their own actions.
“I really don’t see how you can try to scores some vague political point over such a deep seated and widespread problem.”
and then try to blame outcomes that are their fault on someone else or some mythical evil force like “companies”.
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Alcohol never killed their daughter.
The person who kept putting it into her mouth? Now you’re on the right track.
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
You’re the moron RB, he was trying to frame it as a fight against the left. You can’t honestly claim personal responsibility should rule and at the same time blame the left for manipulating them.
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Yes unfortunately young people generally are not responsible when they’re 14-17. That IS what dropping the age did. You think back. When did this start – it IS a recent problem, isn’t it.
I know the issue extends to much older people also. Perhaps they’re also the ones that didn’t do themselves any favours when they were younger.
So the left blame the supply and the right blame the lack of responsibility.
Personally, I don’t think there is a problem. I think it’s mass hysteria. It’s like the 80′s Queen St riot that never would have happened if the police hadn’t stopped the band. Duh.
I think the media have grabbed this issue the same way they wrongly and fuckheadedly grab other issues. For example, I heard One News the other week tell me about the death of a skier who’d died after falling 300m and BTW, he wasn’t wearing a helmet. I thought hello.
Then the next week or so there was another story. The idiots run campaigns and usually I mind because they always choose the wrong targets. It’s like listening to a thousand Mary Wilsons all on full-hammer but sadly rather off target, mode.
It is not a beneficial thing for us to have and we shouldn’t have it. But its overblown, to me.
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
It sounds to me like this was an issue they were wrestling with as a family before her death. I’m not surprised they choose to look for external influences – and I think it is petty to fault them for wanting to find exculpating factors. That doesn’t bear on the larger issue of whether tighter controls might have saved her, though, and I agree with DPF that the pattern appears to be one that would have continued regardless of changes to the law. That doesn’t make it less of a personal tragedy within the family.
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Petey,
It’s more of a lack of personal responsibility I was going for. Rather than suggesting they’re all communist brewers at DB.
Years of government meddling and people happily letting nanny take care of things means they’ll blame anything, anyone but themselves and their own attitude to alcohol.
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Like you, DPF, I have nothing but sympathy for Amy-Rose Allen’s family — but if they want to talk about “the culture of binge-drinking” I can’t help but ask what kind of family environment she was living in. I don’t blame my parents for my alcoholism, but having an alcoholic mother didn’t exactly present much in the way of positive images of moderate drinking. And when I sobered up, it was a no-brainer to cut out people and places that did nothing to help maintain my sobriety.
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
But I have real doubts that a law change would have prevented what happened. Amy-Rose had already shown a total disregard for the law – she was on her fourth drink driving charge – which indicates she had probably driven drunk several hundred times – despite it being against the law.
Exactly. I struggle to understand the mentality that says it makes sense to make criminals out of more people and inconvenience and take more from law abiding drinkers as a response to the breaking of existing laws by other people.
Surely the more sensible response is to ask for enforcement of existing laws.
I have sympathy for Amy-Rose’s family – but it is sympathy due to their daughter so badly letting herself and her family down. Nobody but the perpetrator of the crime can be blamed for choosing to repeatedly drive drunk. It was not society’s decision to drive drunk – it was her own, and responsibility is appropriately directed at her and her decision. Raising taxes on all the law abiding people is sadly, uselessly, irresponsibly, and pathetically passing the buck.
Vote:August 16th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
F*ck’s sake. Alcohol does not leap out at you and tip itself down your innocent throat.
In my yoof I and all of my mates frequently drank, and once in a while we drank hard. We are all still here.
The only thing this girl is a “victim” of is her own folly and sh!t choices. I only hope she did not collect anyone else on her way off the road.
But WTF are all these “the left” comments on this thread? It is religious conservatism that is beating the drum hardest for this message.
Vote:August 17th, 2010 at 6:50 am
It may or may not have mattered. Many young people drink a lot of alcohol, no matter what their family background is. Most survive, albeit often with a bit of luck along the way.
In the luck of the genetic draw, some brains learn that too much alcohol isn’t good for it, and naturally limit alcohol intake to avoid the not so nice side effects. And brains that have drawn the short alcohol straw become addicted. At a basic level is no one to blame for that, it’s just a quirk of biology/neurology.
Is someone with a predisposition to alcoholism doomed if they drink any alcohol? Or do the claws only get a grip once they have drunk enough quantity or over enough time for it to kick in?
I consider my own experience lucky, I drank heavily and frequently for a few years when I was young, but gradually my body/brain began to resist, to send me signals that it didn’t like it. I found out how much was too much and learned when to back off. I still enjoy a few drinks, but don’t enjoy too many so avoid it.
I don’t know how quickly alcoholism kicks in for someone who is vulnerable to it. If they are doomed from the start they are unlucky more than irresponsible. If it is after time and exposure then habits learned off family while growing up, peer pressure, commercial pressure, social pressure and availability of alcohol all may play a part.
Saying it is just their own fault is unfair to them, and possibly unfair to their family.
Vote:August 17th, 2010 at 7:18 am
@Pete George: Fair points well made. And I most certainly wasn’t saying “it is just they own fault” but alcoholism existed in the days of the six o’clock swill (remember that?) and anyone who acts like “culture” is some mysterious force in the aether is just being dishonest.
Vote:August 17th, 2010 at 8:58 am
I’ll be dishonest for you then:
Yes girl in question could have been under the influence of a mental predispostion.
or she could have been reacting to her culture and environment in the only way her mind could understand at 17.
Culture, to the workings of certain minds, is a “mysterious force in the aether.” We don’t know why this happened. So don’t go changing any laws just yet.
Vote:August 17th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Ease of access to alcohol and lack of punitive penalties when first she offended probably contributed to a tragic yet foreseeable outcome.
Vote:August 18th, 2010 at 1:47 am
I quickly went through what has been said and i think a lot of you misunderstand the meaning of the protest and why there should be a government change, As the brother of Amy-rose yes that’s right the brother i know for a fact that the government is not blamed for amy’s death so lets make that be clear that her death was at her own fault but the reason for the protest was not to blame but for the help of the government to change what can help.
Vote:She was on her 4th DIC and let it be known that if she had done this in Australia by the 2nd time her license would have been taken off her and car would have been crushed. A month or so before her crash she was DIC and was just 2 days out of the 4 years since her last DIC meaning that the cops couldn’t take her license or car off her and she could continue driving until her next court date which never happend.
Promoting alcohol on tv and adds does not help having the adult limit so high that you can drink 8 beers and still be under the limit does not help, having it so alcohol is easy to access does not help YES OUR CULTURE IS TOO BLAME AND LET IT BE KNOWN WE ARE NOT BLAMING THE GOVERNMENT FOR THIS BEHAVIOR BUT IT DOES NOT HELP WHEN WE CAN BE HELPED!!!!
August 18th, 2010 at 8:34 am
It sounds like toughening up on recidivist DIC should be a priority – the government is talking about doing this.
Also, in general, being able to identify drinkers with a problem (alcoholics) may help but unless they are willing to be helped it is very difficult, except by enforcing laws when it comes to that (unfortunately sometimes can be too late).
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