New Drinking Age Won't Work

A bill is before the New Zealand Parliament to raise from 18 to 20 the age at which alcohol can be purchased from "off-licence" retailers (i.e. anywhere you can purchase and take out).  This is justified on the grounds that young people are abusing alcohol consumption, despite the fact that there is little empirical evidence that people in this age group are any more likely to drink to excess than, for example, 80 year-olds (and in my personal experience, 80 year-olds tend to drink more than 18 year-olds).  But even if there were, this reversal of previous liberalising laws is, in my opinion, a foolishly retrograde step.

Eighteen is the age of majority for almost everything in New Zealand.  At eighteen, you can get married, enter into contracts, buy a house, start a business and be held responsible for your choices in almost every aspect of the law.  In some cases the age of majority is lower, e.g. lawful sexual consent is at the age of 16, and, in the matter of criminal responsibility, children as young as 12 can be tried as an adult.  In view of the fact that young New Zealanders are considered responsible enough to do all of these things at a younger age, it is hypocritical nonsense to say that a 19 year old is not old enough to responsibly buy a bottle of wine to take home for dinner.

The other reason it is downright stupidity to lower the drinking age is that all historical evidence points to the fact that the prohibition of social mores does not work.  I am currently writing a book about Prohibition in America in the 1920s and my research has shown that the misguided attempt to ban all alcohol sales in America had exactly the opposite effect of that intended (in New York, for example, the number of liquor outlets more than doubled from around 15,000 to an estimated 34,000 during Prohibition).  History tells us that if prohibiting 18 and 19 year olds from purchasing liquor for off-licence consumption has any impact on youth alcohol abuse, it will be to make things worse.

This knee-jerk, Puritan, paternalistic change is offensive and dumb.  It is about time we started treating our young adults as adults.  Let them make their own choices and hold them responsible for those choices.

Who would want to be an MP anyway?

Aren't the media hypocrites having fun? These tossers for whom work consists of knocking out an article or two per day and who spend the rest of their time propping up the bar at their local watering hole, are pointing the finger at Ministers and MPs who use their entitlement to take partners on trips. And the blogosphere is just as bad with the lefties crowing about Rodney Hide and the righties crowing about Chris Carter.

To quote Rhett Butler, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

Let's get something straight here - Ministers and MPs are not well paid. Certainly I wouldn't do what they do for anything less than several times their salary and allowances. Most of them work seven days a week and, when Parliament is sitting, all hours of the night. They draw the odium and contempt of at least half the population even when they are doing a good job. Sure, there are some lazy fools amongst them who don't pull their weight and who would have trouble holding down a regular job at McDonald's, but most of them work damned hard for bugger all reward. And they are ENTITLED to take their wifes, partners and lovers with them on overseas trips. They are not stealing, they're simply claiming what their employment terms allow them to.

So I think it is time the media backed off and turned their tiny minds to the real issues facing this country - the economy, crime, government spending and bureaucracy.

Incidentally, I do think it is time to reform Parliament again - and we shouldn't have to wait to 2017 as John Key has proposed (god, will that guy ever commit to anything?). We should abolish MMP, return to first-past-the-post, and reduce the size of Parliament by a half. We would be left with a better standard of MP and the whole show would cost a lot less. Anyway, that's another blog...