Call to lift legal drinking age to 20
Gareth Morgan wants to raise the alcohol age to 20 and increase the price of booze.
Morgan released his The Opportunities Party (Top) policy on alcohol yesterday morning.
It calls for a 10 per cent increase on the price of alcohol through a larger excise tax and a bump in the purchasing age back to 20 from 18.
The purchasing age was lowered to 18 from 20 in 1999.
‘‘It was lowered in 1999 to appease the alcohol lobby, and we were promised at the time that if evidence showed harm went up after the change they would reverse it,’’ Morgan said.
‘‘All of the evidence, all of the reports, have pointed unambiguously to harm going up.’’
Research showed the lowering of the age had resulted in the ‘‘de facto’’ drinking age falling to between 14 and 17, Morgan said.
‘‘The data is showing us that in secondary schools six out of ten students are drinking. Nearly half of them consume more than five drinks in each session. And one in five are saying the aim is to get drunk. That’s where the problem is.’’
Raising the official drinking age to 20 would bring up the de facto age to around 18, Morgan said.
The price hike would not apply to all alcoholic drinks equally. It would tax the amount of alcohol in each drink, meaning cheap but strong RTDs would be the hardest hit.
‘‘The ones that the youth and alcoholics binge on would feel it the most. It’s on a pure alcohol basis,’’ Morgan said.
He cited government research that showed alcohol was responsible for 4 per cent of all avoidable deaths – between 600 and 800 a year.
‘‘The combined harm for alcohol is three times greater than the combined harm from all other drugs,’’ he said.
He said any age rise would be phased in so those already of drinking age would not lose out.
Prime Minister Bill English said Parliament had debated the issue many times and he could not see New Zealand’s politicians being keen to debate it again.
‘‘I don’t think there’s been a strong case made for raising the drinking age,’’ English said.
Labour’s health spokesman, David Clark, said the drinking age was not a priority for his party.
‘‘We want to make sure the services of support are properly funded. We know that works,’’ Clark said.
Alcohol and drug issues went to a conscience vote for Labour and National.
Last time the issue came up, Clark had voted for a ‘‘split age’’ – with bars and pubs still being able to sell booze to 18-year-olds but not liquor stores or supermarkets.
‘‘My experience is that the pubs in town look after people pretty well, they exercise a duty of care,’’ Clark said.
‘‘The reality is young people are going to get a hold of booze one way or another, and I would prefer they did it in a controlled environment.’’
ACT leader David Seymour said he would ‘‘absolutely’’ keep the age at 18.
‘‘If you want to be evidencebased, binge drinking is lower amongst today’s youth than it was 20 years ago, rates of consumption of alcohol have gone down over the last 20 years, this is just another beat-up on young New Zealanders.’’
Seymour said he ‘‘probably’’ drank more than today’s youth in his prime.
‘‘Some of these kids today are a little bit lightweight.’’