The young and the reckless
The death of any young person is always heart-breaking, whatever the circumstances, and far too many are dying on our roads. That 19-year-old George Holland had no-one to blame but himself for his death in Marlborough last year makes it no easier on those left behind. Holland had drunk about 12 cans of beer, and had taken ecstasy and cannabis, before driving home in the early hours and colliding head-on with a heavy truck. It might be considered fortunate that he was the only one who died in the crash.
Holland’s death has led to calls from coroner David Robinson to return the minimum alcohol purchasing age to 20, with no exceptions. The age was reduced to 18 in 1999. Robinson cited studies showing significant increases in alcohol-related road crashes involving drivers between the ages of 15 and 19 in the years since. There appeared to be ‘‘incontrovertible evidence’’ of a direct link between the two, he said.
Robinson’s call for stricter laws around the sale of alcohol echoes others in recent years from police and public health officials. The public debate around alcohol abuse seems to be shifting from one of education and personal responsibility to one of official intervention by what some might characterise as the ‘‘nanny state’’.
New Zealand, like many Western countries, has a problem with alcohol, and it is one that is not restricted to teenagers. Though young people – and young men in particular – are renowned for making poor judgments after drinking, they are by no means alone in that.
Drink-driving laws have been tightened in recent years to protect the foolish from themselves, and Holland was already breaking at least one law when he made the bad decision – against the advice of his friends – to get behind the wheel. Regardless of whether he was legally entitled to buy alcohol, he was not entitled to drive after drinking it. For any driver under 20, the legal limit is zero.
That limit has arguably had a beneficial effect. Many a parent who has been through the teenage years might well observe that today’s youngsters are considerably more responsible around drinking and driving than their parents were.
But no amount of legislation will prevent individuals from making poor decisions, as recent publicity over recidivist drink-driver Gavin Hawthorn has shown. Would forbidding Holland from buying alcohol in the first place have made any difference to his decision to drive? He had been on a ‘‘boys’ weekend’’ to Murchison at which booze would have featured strongly, whether legally or not.
If New Zealand were to raise its minimum age for buying alcohol, it would become something of an international outlier. Excluding those mainly Muslim countries where buying alcohol is illegal, there are only 17 that have minimum purchase ages of 20 or 21. They include the United States, where teenage drinking would appear to be no less of a problem than it is here.
That is no excuse for doing nothing. New Zealand has been a pioneer of legal reform before, and could take pride in doing so again. The extent of personal responsibility, and the intrusion of the state into our personal lives, are valid topics of discussion, but they should not stop us doing all we can to protect the young from their own mistakes.
The public debate around alcohol abuse seems to be shifting from one of education and personal responsibility to one of official intervention by what some might characterise as the ‘‘nanny state’’.