Keep it 18 reason #3
August 15th, 2012 at 2:00 pm by David FarrarReason 1- Youth drinking is dropping, not increasing
Reason 2 - Increasing the purchase age will dilute the message not to supply to minors
Reason 3 is a split 18/20 age will push young drinkers into town
The proposed split age of 18 for off-licenses and 20 for on-licenses (while preferred to a 20/20 age) will push 18 and 19 year olds who wish to have a drink to go into town, rather than have a drink at home. Far more violence and crime occurs in town, than at people’s homes. 18 and 19 year old women especially will be at risk of greater sexual assaults, if they are prevented from being able to legally purchase alcohol to drink at home.
Related posts:
- Keep it 18 reason #2
- Keep it 18 reason #1
- 10 reasons why making it illegal for 18 and 19 year olds to purchase alcohol is the wrong thing to do
- The split purchase age
August 15th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Keep it at 18, while at the same time increasing education on the risks of alcohol abuse. If it was more simple, I’d tax RTDs to the death.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 2:39 pm
“Far more violence and crime occurs in town, than at people’s homes.”
You’ve researched this then?
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Reason 1 – who cares if youth drinking is already dropping, it would most likely drop further if the legal age was raised to 20. While it is allegedly dropping (according to a small, biased survey) , we still have a horrendous problem, and saying that its already dropping, is akin to thinking the battle has been won.
Reason 2 – increasing the purchase age doesn’t dilute the message – people still know that it is illegal to buy youth’s liquor.
Reason 3 – “Far more violence and crime occurs in town” – I’d like to see your figures on that one, sounds like complete hot air.
[DPF: You have not actually read the posts have you? The so called small biased survey is the largest survey of youth in NZ done by Auckland Uni and also a survey done by ALAC - who argue for 20, so your allegation of bias shows you just lie and smear against facts that do not support you]
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 3:32 pm
While I agree with DPF’s arguments, why the fuck should they have to be made? By the same logic everyone else should be denied their drink as well because some people can’t handle themselves.
Target those who are causing trouble and leave everyone else alone. If people get violent while drunk then punish them. If people are drinking in public and causing a nuisance then punish them. If they don’t respond then punish them more.
The vast majority of drinkers of any age do not impose their drinking upon others and so there is no justification in treating them like children. There is also very little likelihood that regulation is a solution for that minority that just doesn’t give a fuck. The only thing that has a chance at working is targeted disincentives. They engage in unacceptable behaviour then they get punished accordingly.
Punishing everyone simply absolves individuals of responsibility for their behaviour. The message is “it’s not your fault, it’s the drink”. It also reflects lower expectations of those who are 18 and 19 and further increases the length of time it takes for children to mature into adulthood. There’s a reason people take until 25 to mature because we are increasingly taking away from them any chance to take responsibility for their own actions because we are treating them like children for longer and longer periods of time.
Just look at the father who broke his babies legs. He should be serving 3 years for brutal assaults on his daughter but instead he’s on home detention because he’s “young”. All part of the same attitude.
18 may not be the age where you have matured into adulthood but it’s the age where you should START being expected to take responsibility for yourself because if we keep delaying that then we just continually extend the length of time it takes for them to mature.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
“… will push 18 and 19 year olds who wish to have a drink to go into town, rather than have a drink at home..” ” ..if they are prevented from being able to legally purchase alcohol to drink at home.”
But isnt a major problem one of young people “preloading” and then going into town?
How many under 20′s buy alcohol just to sit around home and drink? – bugger all i’d venture
Put the age back up to 20 over 2 years I say.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
What a load of sexist garbage. What the fuck is wrong with 18 and 19 year olds going into town? They’re old enough to make their own decisions. They’re old enough to decide whether or not they want to go out and fuck. And the whole greater risk of sexual assaults just sounds like conservatives who don’t want women to wear short skirts because it results in rape. What a load of bullshit. Deal with it NZ society and don’t blame it on 18 and 19 year old babes going out into town to get picked up.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
I wonder if any of those who think that a drinking age of 18 is a great idea have actually been into town on a Friday night and seen the absolute fucking carnage? I am having dinner in the Viaduct on the weekend and we booked early so we can escape the godforsaken area before the thousands of drunk, violent and vomiting children descend on the place…
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Heh, now this [reason #3] is ironic. I recall in the 90s when the law was around to drop it to 18, that the argument in favour was that it would encourage 18 and 19 year old to go into the bars, as being in controlled, more mature environments was preferable to drinking in the suburban streets. Somehow reason #3 seems to think that they will be peacefully sipping a shandy at home with the folks.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 9:06 pm
Thousands of violent people? Sounds like a wee bit of an exaggeration. Certainly nothing I’ve experienced before though there are violent people but nothing like thousands and nothing like a majority of partygoers. Your claim is so absurd we should be expecting hundreds of cops out in riot gear every weekend.
This constant hyperbole is repeated so often it becomes gospel despite the facts which DPF has highlighted.
By all means crackdown on antisocial behavior but leave everyone else who want to have a good time alone. Indeed the small group of shitheads that ruin it for everyone else come in all ages and punishing all 18 and 19 year olds is not going to change them.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 9:09 pm
The problem I have is that there are some in National, who like voice their concerns about there being too many sickness and invalids beneficiaries. That perhaps we need more stringent criteria, stiffer work-tests. That perhaps the best cure for “depression” really is hard work. That they can’t all be sick, so they must be lazy or gaming the system, right?
Yet when it comes to harmful products like alcohol, or banning pies in tuckshops, they all bleat “Oh no… Save us from the Nanny state!” That the obvious answer to alcohol and junk-food is always self-responsibility.
Except that alcohol and junk-food are some of the things that make people really sick, and indirectly puts more people onto the invalids. And if someone lands on the invalids, then we all end up paying through our taxes. So it is a national problem, not just an individual problem. It really is the govts jobs to help keep our work-force healthy. And our supermarkets really are part of the problem, because they cynically push these harmful products. Just because someone can have sex or go to war at the age of 18 doesn’t mean they know to exercise self-responsibility over alcohol. So “self-responsibility” really is an inadequate response to a serious problem.
I have come to wonder if the alcohol barons have quietly paid our David Farrar to advocate “self-responsibility” as a cure for excessive binge-drinking. Swell
[DPF: Accusing me of being on the take says more about you than me. Do it again and you won't be here]
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 9:13 pm
The problem I have is that there are some in National, who like voice their concerns about there being too many sickness and invalids beneficiaries. That perhaps we need more stringent criteria, stiffer work-tests. That perhaps the best cure for “depression” really is hard work. That they can’t all be sick, so they must be lazy or gaming the system, right?
Yet when it comes to harmful products like alcohol, or banning pies in tuckshops, they all bleat “Oh no… Save us from the Nanny state!” That the obvious answer to alcohol and junk-food is always self-responsibility.
Except that alcohol and junk-food are some of the things that make people really sick, and indirectly puts more people onto the invalids. And if someone lands on the invalids, then we all end up paying through our taxes. So it is a national problem, not just an individual problem. It really is the govts jobs to help keep our work-force healthy. And our supermarkets really are part of the problem, because they cynically push these harmful products. Just because someone can have sex or go to war at the age of 18 doesn’t mean they know to exercise self-responsibility over alcohol. So “self-responsibility” really is a pathetic response to a very serious problem.
I have come to wonder if the alcohol barons have quietly paid our David Farrar to advocate “self-responsibility” as a cure for excessive binge-drinking. Swell
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Longknives (1,269) Says:
August 15th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
I wonder if any of those who think that a drinking age of 18 is a great idea have actually been into town on a Friday night and seen the absolute fucking carnage?
I work for and among these people and can assure you you’re talking absolute and utter crap.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 11:10 pm
seanmaitland (123) Says:
Reason 1 – who cares if youth drinking is already dropping, it would most likely drop further if the legal age was raised to 20. While it is allegedly dropping (according to a small, biased survey) , we still have a horrendous problem, and saying that its already dropping, is akin to thinking the battle has been won.
[DPF: You have not actually read the posts have you? The so called small biased survey is the largest survey of youth in NZ done by Auckland Uni and also a survey done by ALAC - who argue for 20, so your allegation of bias shows you just lie and smear against facts that do not support you]
The survey by Auckland Uni was biased because it only applied to secondary school students who were at school on the day of the survey. Ten percent of kids aren’t at school (who are enrolled for school) on any given day and then there are another lot who aren’t in school because they are have moved on (work, further training, dropped out). Guess who are more likely to be drinking.
The ALAC survey was weird – for 7 years (IIRC) it was pretty consistant at 50/51% of 12-17 are non-drinkers then it suddenly shot up to 61% in the course of one year. The surveys can’t be all true because they are meant to be representing the same cohort (12-17 year olds) minus 1/6 who moved on each year – it seems most likely that the inconsistant survey was the 61% – probably because they oversampled Pacific People in that survey and quota sampling for Pacific People oversamples non-drinkers.
Vote:August 16th, 2012 at 1:35 am
Town at night is a dangerous dangerous place. And its an even worse place for kids to “learn” how much they can handle.
For the older folk, town has changed since you were likely there last.
Vote:August 16th, 2012 at 8:21 am
Driving on the roads is more dangerous than town at night.
I disagree. Bars are required to adhere to their host responsibilities and this is something you will not find in a private residence where drinking goes unregulated.
Nah. You’ve just gotten old and crotchety. Drunkenness has been around for thousands of years.
Vote:August 16th, 2012 at 9:01 am
Still find it creepy that middle aged men are arguing so passionately for the rights of 18 year old girls to get smashed wherever they please…at home, in a bar, in the back of my van.
Darren Hughes is also a massive fan of “keep it 18″ I hear.
Vote:August 16th, 2012 at 10:04 am
La Grand,
If you’re sleeping with an 18 year old girl you don’t want her to be smashed. You will want to be smashed so you can tolerate the inane things she will say.
Vote: