Right: Drinking culture? A recent Drinkwise report (see body of text below) found that the great majority of Australians over 14 were recent drinkers of alcohol.
Arguments in favour of increasing the legal drinking age to 21
1. Australia has problems with the over-consumption of alcohol by young people
In December 2010, an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report funded by DrinkWise Australia found that about 83 per cent of all Australians aged 14 and over were recent drinkers of alcohol - a situation which was constant over the six-year period of the survey.
The Western Australian Health and Education Standing Committee report, 'Alcohol: Reducing the Harm and Curbing the Culture of Excess', found the average West Australian drank 265 standard drinks a year more than the recommended amount.
The Committee chairwoman, Dr Janet Wollard, stated, 'We are drinking a lot more in Western Australia and because there's excess alcohol being consumed we are seeing [and] hearing about accidents on a weekly basis...
Particularly our youth are buying that alcohol, pre-loading before they go out, and then that in turn is leading to problems with areas where they go, with aggression and road accidents.'
There is a particular problem involving young people. A study conducted in 2004 found that among 14- to 17-year-olds alcohol accounts for 13 per cent of all deaths and that one Australian teenager dies and more than 60 are hospitalised each week from alcohol-related causes. A recent survey of 16- to 17-year-old Western Australian school students found that for 43.3% one of the main reasons they drank was 'to get drunk'.
2. Increasing the legal drinking age has reduced alcohol-related harm
The minimum legal drinking age in the United States was lowered to 18 in the early 1970s after 18 became the Federal voting age. Evaluations showed that road crash deaths increased in young adults in those states that lowered the drinking age. The minimum legal drinking age was subsequently changed back to 21 years in most American states and a national uniform minimum legal drinking age of 21 years was set in 1984.
A meta-analysis of the state-based studies showed that, on average, reducing the minimum legal drinking age to 18 was followed by a 10% increase in fatalities while increasing it to 21 was followed by an average 12% decrease in fatalities.
Increasing the minimum drinking age to 21 produced a 19% reduction in the odds of alcohol-related road death after controlling for all other variables and policy changes.
It has also been argued that when Australia reduced its minimum legal drinking age, this adversely affected young people, resulting in increased road fatalities and other negative consequences.
Dr Tanya Chikritzhs, an Associate Professor and Statistical Advisor at the National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University of Technology, has stated, 'There were ... a number of Australian studies which showed that dropping the minimum legal drinking age substantially increased road traffic fatalities and hospitalisations in this country... In Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania, increases in serious crash injuries among 17-20 year olds ranged from 10% to 23%.'
Professor John Toumbourou, chair of health psychology at Deakin University, has stated, 'There is clear evidence a higher drinking age reduces deaths and accidents by 12 per cent. It also reduces violence by at least the same percentage, and other alcohol-related harms. In addition those who start drinking early are more likely to become alcohol dependent.'
3. Young people are particularly susceptible to alcohol-induced brain damage
It has been found that the young brain is more sensitive to the effect of alcohol on brain structural and functional development and adaptation as the pre frontal cortex is still developing. The young brain is vulnerable to such effects through to the early twenties.
Clinical professor, Peter Silbert, the head of Adult Neurology Services, Western Australia, has stated that physiological studies have demonstrated that young people who abuse alcohol have smaller pre frontal cortices, smaller pre frontal white matter volumes and white matter structural irregularities. It has also been shown they have smaller hippocampal volumes and a hippocampus that is more sensitive to alcohol's neurotoxic effects.
Professor Silbert has also been found that young people are less sensitive to cues that serve to moderate alcohol intake. This is in part because alcohol harms the young person's brain in ways that effect memory, planning, the moderation of social behaviour, personality expression, decision-making, emotional regulation and organisation.
This is a particularly dangerous situation as it means that young people are both more likely to drink to excess and are more likely to suffer brain injury as a result of the consumption of alcohol.
Drug Free Australia executive officer, Jo Baxter, has said lifting the age limit to 21 was a 'no brainer'. Ms Baxter stated, 'The onset of alcohol needs to be delayed because very important parts of the brain are still developing during your mid-teens to early 20s. If binge and risky drinking is happening in the teenage years, this can do real damage.'
4. Increasing the legal drinking age would assist parents in regulating their children's alcohol consumption
Studies have indicated that abstinence is the most responsible way for young people to deal with alcohol. There are a number of reasons given for this. Alcohol damages the still-maturing brains of adolescents, while early onset drinking is associated with greater alcohol consumption through into adulthood.
John Toumbourou, professor of health psychology at Deakin University, has indicated that it can be difficult for parents to impose such restrictions and that a change in the law would strengthen their hand.
Professor Toumbourou has stated, 'Parents fear that by setting and enforcing an abstinence rule, their children will rebel and drink alcohol covertly. They find it easier to set limits on their children's alcohol use when the community reinforces that position. This has been demonstrated by experience overseas. When the legal drinking age has been increased towards 21 there have been substantial reductions in youth alcohol use and alcohol-related harm.'
5. There is no reliable evidence that discouraging adolescent use of alcohol increases the use of other drugs
It has been claimed that there is no reliable body of evidence to support the claim that decreased use of alcohol among young people leads to an increased use of other drugs.
In an opinion piece published in Crikey on February 15, 2010, Wayne Hall, Professor of Public Health Policy at the University of Queensland, stated, 'I am aware of only one study reporting such an association [between increased cannabis use and increased legal drinking age]. Its findings are at odds with consistent national survey data that rates of cannabis use fell among young adults in the USA from 1979 until the early 1990s.'
It has further been noted that those who express concern about a possible increase in illicit drug use if the legal drinking age is increased often understate the relative harm caused by adolescent alcohol consumption.
Paul Dillon of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre has stated, 'We have at least twice as many young people who were dying as a result of alcohol consumption, maybe even treble the number, than illicit drugs.'
David Crosbie has run Odyssey House treatment and rehabilitation centres in Victoria. Commenting in 2003, Mr Crosbie stated, 'Alcohol's our favourite drug, but these other drugs we don't use, so we have real concerns about them. Even though you know ecstasy's killed less than five people in Australia in the last year and alcohol's killed over 4000...'