Calls to Raise Legal Drinking Age to 21
April 17th, 2007 by Stephen
This weekend carried the news of calls to raise the legal age in the UK for drinking to 21 (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6551887.stm). This amid the realisation that the drinking culture in the UK is spiralling out of control.
Thanks, Tony Blair, for “dealing” with the problem by allowing pubs to open 24 hours a day! Now we are seeing more and more incidents in the early hours of the morning – right up to 5.00AM and beyond.
This week the local news is full of details about a student who suffered spinal injuries jumping or falling from Aberystwyth’s pier to the beach below. This event happening well into the early hours of the morning after a night of drinking. Worse, the event comes only a year or so after a similar incident when a student died at almost the exact same place.
A couple of years ago, a student died after falling from his bedroom window, having been drinking all night.
One must feel huge sympathy for the family of these victims of our pub culture, but there remains a great deal of denial about the extent of the problem. The father of the student who fell from his window decided to campaign to ensure no such tragedy occurred again. But instead of campaigning for a reduction of the drinking hours, or for increasing the legal age for drinking, or for introduction of smart cards that limit consumption, or for prosecution of publicans who serve people when they are drunk… instead of even considering that the drinking culture is at fault, he instead launched a campaign to get sash windows banned!
Perhaps we should also have crash matting on the pavements!
Or perhaps we should get a clue and take the hard choice to begin to limit the overconsumption of the most dangerous mind altering drug in our society.
Very sad sign of the times. Young people looking at the permissive legislature and behaving accordingly. Young people having no other alternatives, being depressed by the surroundin society, indoctrinated by the “survival of the fittest”, seeing not much hope or reward in staying sober and good.
And parents, probably promoting the same way of life, choosin the easy way of spending their free time, explaining it away by “everybody does so”…
What is there, really, to stop people from drinking? From taking drugs? If the only answer to the nagging questions about the sense of life is naturalism, evolution and “live once and die”, what else can they do but try to forget it just for a while?
My general opinion is that more laws don’t usually solve a problem. If someone has the honor and integrity to obey a law in the first place, they will. If someone is going to drink, take drugs, have sex, etc. they will do it no matter what. Raising the drinking age won’t solve the problem because the problem exists because of what ann in grace said above. These are people with ‘no hope’. And people with ‘no hope’ usually say to do something like get sash windows banned!
I think you are right that people will still find a way to drink, even if you tighten up the law. What people really need is Christ to fill the hole in their lives that they try to fill with alcohol.
But it is not pointless to try and restrict access to alcohol. We restrict access to other mind altering drugs, and with good reason – but alcohol is as dangerous as just about any of these.
One problem we have in the UK is that by the age of 12, about half of children have started drinking! One of the ways they manage this is to get older friends to buy the alcohol in off-licenses. By raising the legal age for drinking, it would be harder to find people who will buy the alcohol for them.
Thanks both for your comments. I agree with what you say about the need for hope.