Wasted Life New Zealand's Alcohol Culture

12/10/09 5:48 PM
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Kim Thomas - The Press
Caught between two cultures
Last updated 09:04 31/08/2009
Why does New Zealand have such a bad youth binge-drinking culture? What can be done to fix it? KIM THOMAS
wraps up a week-long series on our teen-drinking problem.
Jason, 15, has a civilised glass of wine at dinner with his parents while they talk about the day. Later, he's dropped off
at his friend's birthday party where he and a few mates celebrate with music, snacks and alcohol-free drinks.
A typical Saturday night for a teen? Yeah right!
The odds of this really happening in everyday Kiwi Canterbury are about as low as . . . well the drinking age, some
might say.
It's what many parents, police and health experts would want for our young people, but instead they get severely
intoxicated 15-year-olds routinely raced to hospital for stomach pumping; vomiting young girls pulled by police from the
gutter; GPs prescribing morning-after pills to teens with hazy memories of unprotected sex while drunk.
Most people who deal with the fallout from teen drinking say the problem has worsened since 1999 when the
purchase age was lowered from 20 to 18 years, supermarkets started selling alcohol and Sunday trading was
extended.
In acknowledgement, the Law Commission recently released a lengthy report on possible changes to our liquor laws.
Suggestions include returning the legal alcohol purchase age to 20 and making it illegal for anyone other than parents
to supply teenagers with booze.
However, the report doesn't explain why we have developed such a bad binge- drinking culture.
Experts have tried - they point the finger at teens' natural tendencies to experiment, bad parenting, an already
entrenched Kiwi culture of binge drinking, and at those alcohol companies who aggressively target teenagers with
sugary alcoholic drinks.
It's a big, bad issue - is it too big to realistically fix?
Halswell mother Lorraine (not her real name) still has nightmares starring her 16-year-old son Alex's battered and
bruised face.
He was beaten up during a recent night out drinking.
She has never bought Alex alcohol and doesn't let him go to parties where there's booze.
But Alex still manages to get hold of it - lots of it - and ends up very drunk.
The beating happened a couple of weeks ago. Alex had climbed out his bedroom window late on a Thursday night to
meet friends for a drinking session in a local park.
He drank a bottle of wine then nine stubbies of beer, which he had stolen from home.
"One of his mates hit him numerous times in the face after accusing him of hitting on his girlfriend. I took him to our
local GP late Friday night, after three hours of throwing up the copious amounts of alcohol. Luckily, no broken bones or
teeth, and he will hopefully have no physical scars," Lorraine says.
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"I am left not sleeping at night because every time I close my eyes I can see his face covered in blood and swollen to
the state where he was almost unrecognisable."
Lorraine says that from about the age of 14, Alex and his friends were drinking alcohol supplied by older friends or
bought by strangers they approached on the street.
"My older son has always been responsible and will take the few beers we give him to a party and not drink anything
more. But my middle son wants to experiment and cause trouble and drink. It seems no matter what I do, or what the
law is, his tendency won't be stopped."
Lorraine says no matter the purchase age, teenagers determined to get their hands on alcohol will do so.
But Canterbury police youth services senior sergeant John Robinson believes parents can stop their children binge
drinking.
He blames parents for being too soft to say no when children demand alcohol and for giving them freedom to drink it
unsupervised.
"I have arguments with people even in this police station who believe it is OK to give their 15-year-old a six-pack of
beer to take out to party," Robinson says.
"These parents think they are being responsible by supplying their child a small amount to drink, but what they are
doing is saying that drinking at a young age is OK. It's not like we say, it's OK to have a few drugs when you are
young so you can handle it later, or that a little bit of sex underage is OK, but we seem to think it's OK to train our kids
to drink from an early age."
Robinson says parents need to be "more courageous" in facing up to the reality of teenage drinking.
"Fifteen and 16-year-olds are on the turps, condoned by their parents. We seem to be living in a society where
parents want to be their child's friends, want to be hip and are afraid to say no. Parents need to talk to other parents
about parties and take back some of the control."
Christchurch mum Angelina Ria has taken a tough stance on her teenage daughter's drinking and says she has
copped a fair amount of flak for it.
Ria has a 17-year-old daughter, Jessica, who she bans from drinking at their house or at parties with friends.
"My daughter has been shunned in some ways because we refuse to provide her with alcohol to take to parties," Ria
says.
"A lot of parents have told me that I am being irresponsible in not teaching my daughter how to drink. They say they
are preparing their children for the adult social world by teaching them to handle their liquor rather than being fall-
down drunk sluts. Most parents will give their kids alcohol to take to parties, which I think is condoning underage
drinking and should not be done."
Ria says she's not sure whether raising the purchase age would make a difference.
"We've got a pretty bad culture of binge drinking and raising the age isn't really going to change that. Education and
parents taking more responsibility is really the only thing that is going to achieve anything."
Canterbury youth health specialist Sue Bagshaw agrees that adults are really to blame for teen binge drinking.
The doctor, mother and grandmother says teenagers simply reflect society.
"We are drinking more as adults," Bagshaw says. "Excessive drinking doesn't seem to be limited to youth or one
culture or socioeconomic group. It's a widespread Kiwi problem."
Bagshaw says one cultural flaw is the lack of rites of passage into adulthood that don't revolve around drinking.
The traditional coming-of-age party is a 21st where the new adult drinks from a yard glass until he vomits, she says.
That's mirrored by general boozy parties where young people now see this as the entry into adulthood. Dropping the
alcohol purchase age has made it worse.
"We don't want to stop using alcohol as a celebration, but we desperately need to change the culture of using alcohol
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to get drunk rather than to have a good time," Bagshaw says.
"This needs to be done by education and social marketing campaigns such as the ones run by ALAC. Adults need to
debate our culture of drinking and turn the mirror on themselves to ask how much is their behaviour contributing to our
young people's excessive drinking problems."
Bagshaw says splitting the purchase age could be a positive step. That's where a young person would have to be 18
to visit a pub, but 20 to buy alcohol from an off- licence.
She says this recognises that young people need supervision with alcohol.
Canterbury addiction expert Dr Doug Sellman has seen too many young lives shattered by alcohol. He blames much
of it on the alcohol industry.
"They are grossly irresponsible. Over the past 10 years they have aggressively targeted young people and women
with the sole purpose of making money. It is not an accident or random event and they disassociate themselves with
the harm they cause."
Sellman is soon to embark on a lecture tour of the country pointing out the "insidious lengths" booze manufacturers
and retailers go to hook people into their products.
He represents Alcohol Action New Zealand. That's a group of doctors, police and other interested citizens trying to get
alcohol laws toughened.
Alcohol Action New Zealand wants greater controls on the booze industry's ability to market to the young.
Sellman points to France which is in the process of banning all alcohol advertising on television, in newspapers,
cinemas, on the internet as well as sports sponsorship.
Similar action is wanted here, but he doubts the New Zealand Government will be as brave.
The Law Commission report suggests the alcohol industry regulate itself, hinting that strong moves to curb it may not
be on the cards, Sellman says.
Lion Nathan corporate affairs director Liz Read hotly disputes that the alcohol industry targets teenagers.
"Alcohol producers and retailers are not legally allowed to promote to young people because they cannot legally buy it
. . . the RTD market evolved out of adult consumer demand for convenient, ready- to-drink products. Although the
flavour profile does admittedly appeal to new drinkers, more than beer and wine used to," Read says.
"The youth binge-drinking culture is an incredibly complex issue and it is oversimplistic for Professor Sellman to say it
is something the alcohol sector should largely take the blame for . . . it has developed over time and generations and
is due to a number of things including a huge liberalism of parental control."
Read says exerting greater control over the industry would not "miraculously" solve the problem, although the sector is
always trying to work with Government to minimise harm.
"I heard a 45-year-old the other day telling war stories about a night he went out with his mates and got really pissed.
Minutes later he was talking about how concerned he was about his teenage son's binge drinking. That just sends a
hypocritical message," says ALAC chief executive Gerard Vaughan.
Vaughan says New Zealand needs to change its binge-drinking culture and that it's possible.
It's already changed a great deal over the past century - from abstinence and the six o'clock swill to now - and that just
shows change is possible if society wants it.
And he's seeing a strong desire for change from communities tired of waking to broken glass and vomit in their
neighbourhoods.
Any adult can make a difference by modelling responsible drinking behaviour, he says.
Otago University research, reflecting contemporary international studies, shows the earlier a person starts drinking, the
more likely they are to suffer a number of negative outcomes, such as having run-ins with police, being unemployed
and having mental health problems, Vaughan says.
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For this reason, he says parents should delay their children's drinking as long as possible.
Returning the drinking age to 20 and introducing a minimum price per alcoholic unit would help too, Vaughan says.
A minimum unit price would put harder liquor, such as spirits, out of the reach of younger drinkers and make it too
expensive for binge drinking. This approach has not been tried anywhere in the world, although Scotland is seriously
considering the idea, Vaughan says.
Another law change ALAC supports is decreasing the hours alcohol can be sold from off-licences and supermarkets,
although it is still considering what ideal closing hours would be.
Whatever Government decides to do with alcohol laws, it will most certainly improve the situation, Vaughan says.
"It is time for a change. We need to change. The societal will is there. We won't ever get an ideal situation but I'm
sure we can make some difference so our young people end up less harmed by alcohol than they are today."
And that seems to be the key to answering how to save more teens from binge drinking. It is for adult society to
genuinely want change and to be prepared to lead the change.

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