In many continental European countries they have much less of a substance abuse problem - why? Because they have ensured that the benefits of their prosperity are shared around society to a much greater degree.

The way to solve substance abuse problems is to create a better overall society, not take people’s freedom away. It’s not a quick fix, but it’s the only real one.

I really think the Green’s should run with this. Maybe leaflet schools & colleges in areas where the MP is wavering or pro-reduction. Target 16-19 year olds - who will all be voters at the next election - with a postcard they can send to their MP saying - you vote against my right to drink at 18 and I won’t vote for you in ‘08!

1. No person in any ad under the apparent age of 30.

2. No car in any ad capable of more than 180KPH.

3. No “supermodels”

I am not sure if any others would be useful, but limiting the reach of the advertisers in this regard coupled with a couple of effective ads that show the downside of a young kid becoming “paralytic”

It has to shock to be effective. It has to offend them. It has to bludgeon them with the imagery and the message that serious consequences follow on from making yourself stupid.

Teen waking up in a strange bed with an even stranger guy…. or gal… Stumbling drunk trying to rescue a little kid from the back of a wreck, only to find that the child is dead. Graphic brutality to smack their egos back into line.. and then we get to the Maori culture. They need a different approach, but are susceptible to social pressure from their peers even so.

But banning adult children from drinking is not the answer. This is under their control. They have to be persuaded to exercise that control.

respectfully
BJ

They think it is funny to see people p*55ed. They think it is entertaining to be paralyzed.

To change this requires social changes that no law will deliver, and that I think is the strongest argument against this particular effort. Using advertising to reduce the “entertainment value” accorded to this particular form of self-abuse is, as far as I know, of limited effectiveness… but almost certainly better than passing a law.

Right now those adds are aimed at 50 year old dads… so I can be sure they aren’t getting to the kids at all. I suspect that nobody wants to run ads that would offend the youth market or would really touch that sense of immortal invulnerability that they possess.

But that’s what it’ll take.

A community wide full-court press… and you can’t get to the hard-core druggies until you get the cheerleaders and the jocks to turn away from them. Whittle around the edges and push them into a corner where they feel the disapproval of their peers.

Whether this society (or any) is capable of organizing to do this I am not sure. I heard that they managed to turn things around in Norway by doing something like this. We are not so homogeneous a country.

respectfully
BJ

The major difference between us is that while you concentrate upon individual “rights”, Greens have a more cooperative approach and think about individual and collective “responsibilities”.

However, I say this, remembering political discussions in my own family:
I have cousins (out of the same “stable” … my mother and her sister) and it is interesting that on my side of the family we thought “Left” and on theirs they thought “Right” but when it came to any particular situation (except possibly, money in the theoretical sense) our responses were very very similar!

Your interpretation of what others think about alcohol and drugs is your own.

We also have different understanding of a “schoolteacher’s” role.

My family has had (generations of) successful teachers who were esteemed by their students. A good teacher knows his/her students abilities, leads by example and motivates students to take responsibility for their own learning …

Also I have a brother who worked as a Specialist in Emergency Medicine trying to keep alive the victims of your “individual responsibility” on the roads. (”Punishing” the creators of that carnage somehow doesn’t undo the damage done to the lives of others! )

It IS simple. What right does the state have to dictate to adults what they can and cannot ingest into their own bodies? The “big picture” is saying that some adults have the right to tell others what they can do - I personally find it offensive that a bureaucrat, politician, cop or you think you know what I should put into my body. It is not your business unless I assault, threaten to assault or damage anyone else or their property - funnily enough many drunk people don’t harm anyone.

This is also matched by ensuring that you DO punish those that infringe on the same right in others and that private property owners can also apply those rules. Pubs should be able to set their own rules about what ages they allow in above 18, but the damned Human Rights Act would say it is “discrimination”. On the one hand the left wants to oppose discrimination, but jumps in boots and all when it fits into its “schoolteacher’s” approach of not just telling everyone but forcing everyone as to what is best for them. This is one example, another is on illegal drugs, another is on gambling.

The fundamental notion is that those supporting this bill do not think 18 and 19yos should be considered adults. It deems them ALL to be too incompetent to handle drinking alcohol, so they need parenting. This is a conservative point of view and demonstrates how many on the left are quite illiberal and as authoritarian as those on the right.

The “schoolteacher’s approach” looks at all possible outcomes of a situation, and how these outcomes might affect/impact upon the person concerned and any others.

Unfortunately “pressing charges” or “suing the person concerned” doesn’t really fill the bill when someone is killed or maimed by an impaired “adult” behind the wheel (who you say “shouldn’t be told what to do with their own bodies”).

The issue is not simple. However, we do need to “look at the big picture” before deciding on idealistic solutions from any particular point of view.

One good place to see a part of the big picture is to hang around “Accident and Emergency” on a Saturday night!

but back to the original topic, i think Russell Brown’s idea for 20yrs off-license and 18yrs on-license is excellent and workable. anyone else care to comment?

If advertising does increase consumption then, frankly, why is it anyone else’s business unless you are being hurt, in which case you should press charges or sue the person concerned. Jim Anderton’s “sherry tax” is hugely successful by what measure? In reducing the ability of spirit drinkers to spend their own money on anything else they may wish?

I understand you want people to stop getting drunk. You have no more right to tell adults what to do with their own bodies than I have to tell you. It is one thing to warn young adults of the dangers of drinking to excess, it is another to say - regardless of those who behave well, we’ll stop you all. Sledgehammer to crack a nut and it is totally unfair to treat adults this way.

Remember the Keith Allen affair - the Minister of Transport who was found passed out while attempting to walk home, and claimed he had been attacked. It was jocularly reported (I think by Tom Scott) that his attackers had been identified as Jack Daniels, Johnnie Walker and Jim Beam. He was later filmed by TVNZ drunkenly staggering around the grounds of Parliament after another late night session.

Okay, so Mark Peck and Ruth Dyson blotted their copybooks in more recent years, but you’ll see a lot less pissed MPs today than was the case 25 years ago.