Right: Queensland premier, Anna Bligh: "Eighteen-year-olds can vote ... get married ... enter into legally-binding contracts ... We're really asking the question about when a young person becomes an adult and the answer to that has a lot of repercussions way beyond the legal drinking age.'
.
Arguments against increasing the legal drinking age to 21
1. Increasing the legal drinking age would not be consistent with other rights allowed 18-year-olds
It has been suggested that it would be inappropriate to remove the right to purchase and consume alcohol from 18-year-olds. The argument put is that at 18 young people acquire a raft of rights associated with adulthood. These include: the right to vote; the sanction to drive legally (if licensed); to marry without parental permission; to be punished before the law as an adult for any crimes they commit; and to enter a legally binding contract. In this context it has been claimed it would be inconsistent to deny 18-year-olds legal access to alcohol.
The Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, has stated, 'Eighteen-year-olds can vote to change government, get married, have children, enter into legally-binding contracts and are treated as adults by the justice system...
We're really asking the question about when a young person becomes an adult and the answer to that has a lot of repercussions way beyond the legal drinking age.'
It has further been suggested that given that 18-year-olds have the vote, they would be likely to punish at the ballot box those who removed their legal access to alcohol. Any government or party would be reluctant to alienate such a significant block of voters - the 18- to 21-year-olds.
In a Crikey editorial published on February 10, 2010, it was noted, 'Raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 is fraught with political and ethical problems. Just imagine trying to defend this policy against concerns that a 20-year-old Australian is considered mature enough to vote and even die serving his or her country but not considered mature enough to enjoy a beer with the family at Christmas!'
2. Increasing the age at which alcohol can be consumed will not reduce youth drinking
It has been claimed that increasing the legal drinking age will make no significant difference to the amount of alcohol young people consume. According to this line of argument, many young people are already drinking alcohol before they reach 18 and if the legal age is increased all that will happen is that there will be more young people drinking illegally.
In December 2010, an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report funded by DrinkWise Australia stated that Australians aged over 14 drank a total of 28 million standard drinks on a typical day in 2007. Referring to under-age drinkers it noted that more than 70 per cent of young people sourced their alcohol from friends or parents, and nine out of 10 young drinkers reported that it was 'very easy' or 'fairly easy' to get their hands on alcohol.
It has further been claimed that the youth culture encouraging drinking is so strong that merely increasing the legal drinking age will have little impact. DrinkWise chairwoman, Trish Worth, has stated that research reveals a 'cultural contradiction' in the drinking habits of young Australians.
Dr Worth has claimed, 'Even when young people didn't feel like drinking, they thought they should or they wouldn't be part of the crowd; they wouldn't feel that they were belonging.'
3. It is parents' responsibility to prevent young people becoming problem drinkers
It has been claimed that the primary responsibility for preventing young people becoming problem drinkers rests with their parents. Those who hold this view claim that altering the law in an attempt to stop young people drinking will prove ineffective so long as parents continue to model an acceptance of alcohol consumption and actually supply their children with alcohol.
A study by Monash and Newcastle universities in 2010 has found that parents have the strongest influence on adolescents' drinking patterns and that their drinking habits rub off on their children's behaviour.
12- to 17-year-olds indicated that their parents gave them their first drink, while child reports of parental supply of alcohol were a strong predictor of increased alcohol use in later years. Researchers found that if parents did not supply alcohol, children did not increase their consumption of other alcoholic drinks.
The head of Drink Wise, Trish Worth, has stated, 'Parents often under-estimate the extent of their influence on the drinking behaviour of their children over the longer term, but it's a major factor in their drinking patterns.'
Professor Ian Hickie, of the Brain and Mind Research Institute at University of Sydney has stressed that early drinking damages young people's developing brains.
Professor Hickie has stated, 'People have a mistaken belief that if they give their kids alcohol at home they won't drink to excess outside of the home.
But what happens is young people drink at home first to get drunk because it is cheap as their parents have bought it and then they go out and drink more. Excessive alcohol use kills nerve cells and nerve cell connections in these critical areas that are still developing at that age.'
4. There are more effective means of reducing the youth alcohol problem
It has been claimed that Australia has available to it a variety of more effective measures to reduce the youth alcohol problem than increasing the legal age at which alcohol can be purchased and consumed.
Referring specifically to the drink-driving problem, a Crikey editorial published on February 10, 2010, stated, 'There are more effective ways for Australia to reduce road crash deaths due to alcohol, apart from raising the legal drinking age.
Australia's system for taxing alcohol is ripe for reform just on economic grounds, let alone public health and safety concerns. Alcohol taxes have a substantial impact on price. The higher the price of alcohol, the lower the consumption. Slightly increasing the price of alcohol is the single most effective prevention measure known. Price increases would be particularly effective in young people because they have lower incomes and therefore less money to spend on alcohol.'
The editorial also noted, 'Alcohol is too readily available in Australia. We have too many outlets, the conditions for these outlets are too liberal and the drinks industry is too powerful (and the community too weak) in the licensing process.'
Professor Ross Homel, of Griffith University, has made similar observations. Professor Homel has stated, 'If you increase the cost of a schooner in Kings Cross from $5 to $10 there will be a difference in terms of people drinking and a direct impact on all forms of alcohol-related harm.'
5. Increasing the legal drinking age will lead to increased use of other illegal drugs
It has been suggested that if the legal age for alcohol is increased this will encourage young people to turn to other drugs. It has been noted that when alcohol become less available, this increases the relative appeal of other substances.
By way of example, it has been claimed that increasing alcohol prices, particularly for young people's drinks such as alcopops, has increased the use of the 'party drug' ecstasy.
Professor Jake Najman, the director of the University of Queensland's Alcohol and Drug Research and Education Centre, has stated, 'It is cheaper and convenient to use pills. A lot of young people are making that choice to switch between alcohol and ecstasy. Pills can be cheaper, there is no question.'
It has also been claimed that increasing the legal drinking age would prompt greater use of marijuana among young people. Throughout the 1990s United States college campuses cracked down on underage and binge drinking. Though there is evidence showing stricter college alcohol policies have been effective at discouraging both drinking in general and frequent binge drinking on college campuses, recent evidence from the Harvard School Of Public Health College Alcohol Study shows that marijuana use among college students rose 22 percent between 1993 and 1999.