Underage drinking

Kiera D

Don't wanna get all serious now or anything but just out of curiousity.......how do ya think the drink culture here could be better addressed? I mean could all the new laws etc in the world stop people binge drinking and drinking before the legal age?

Beruthiel

Kiera D wrote:

I mean could all the new laws etc in the world stop people binge drinking and drinking before the legal age?

no
I don't believe it can

h0stn0tf0und

Well from my experience I think its got to do with several factors.
Kids have more money.
People's maturity / social acceptance.
Amenities.

These are only three off the top of my head. Kids do have more money and its easy to see with 18 year olds drinking 'Fat-Frogs' and the like. More money allows more alcohol and stronger alcohol. But it's hard and if not impossible to stop this as kids now almost all have jobs and are earning their own money.

While most of the people who stress the problems, few are young, if any at all. Being 24 myself I see lots of teenages (18-21) going nuts on the weekends. People seem to have no decorum when it comes to alcohol. Being in bits due to drink is not seen as a problem among those who are drinking. If one thing that can be easily done is raise the drinking age to 23, it may help a bit. I'm not saying its all people aged between 18/21 but in my experience this group make up a lot of the 'binge-drinkers'. Sense with age I guess. I was the same myself.

In the town where I am from there wasnt and still isnt anything for people to do than drink. Its not an excuse but still today I have to drive out of my home town to find something other than a pub. I'm lucky I can do it.
Over the last few years the drug culture has changed a lot. Its now a buyers market. This was not the case 8 years ago. 'Yokes' were expensive. Irish youth are now more open than ever imho and good for them but like everything there is usually a side effect. People can now afford their booze and coke, Yokes are now passe, this wasnt the case many years ago. A lot of the people concerned about the 'binge-drinking-culture' never seem to mention this, its too easy just to blame drink. Society is slowly breaking down in some areas and this also contributes. Its a bigger picture than just underage drinking.

The solution?!? Ask ourselves whats the cause?

Anyhoo you might all think I'm off my rocker or even drunk but its just my two cents.

tadgher

h0stn0tf0und wrote:

Being 24 myself.... one thing that can be easily done is raise the drinking age to 23

Funny the way immaturity so often equals speaker's age - 1 year.

h0stn0tf0und

"Funny the way immaturity so often equals speaker's age - 1 year."

Raise it to 24! I said 23 (edit 21, sorry I was wrong) as its common around the world. in the US for example. As I said I was the same myself and I still drink but now its usually not on binges. I didnt mean it as you read it, I'm far from mature!

Mr. CooL ICE

The only solution I can think of off the top of my head is something extremely radical: Ban alcohol for about five years.My reasoning is:

The current culture is based on heavy drinking. People like getting extremely drunk, and people can find extremely drunk people funny when they are out drinking themselves. That's a problem that is there now.
The current range of 12-17 year olds who are the ones that shouldn't be drinking see an older figure, be it a brother, sister, cousin, parent, workmate, or even a friends brother etc... And they see them drunk, or hear them talking about drunken nights out or drink itself, and they really want to try it. Theres the whole peer pressure that starts underagers drinking too.

Don't get me wrong, I know the solution mightn't necessarily bring an end to binging and underage drunkenness and that it's side-effects (gangsters with drinking houses, look to prohibition era usa for perfect example) will make it wholly impractical. This might seem like a pointless post when i say this, but i cant see an effective solution, except age: Lets hope it dies out, somehow.

leeroybrown

I think a lot of the reason for irresponsible drinking here in Ireland (and in the UK) is that most young people start drinking in an irresponsible environment. By this I mean in pubs, clubs, even fields trying to drink as much as all their friends. The idea of having a drink as part of socialising (as opposed to going out to get drunk) never seems to come into the equation.

In my view raising the legal age to drink again (and rigerously enforcing the limit) is not a solution to the problem, but a capitulation and admission that we are unable to foster a culture where moderate social drinking is the norm. It certainly wouldn't stop people drinking and would probably drive more people away from a social atmosphere. I used to have a few pints with my father when I was 17 and it certainly didn't do me any harm.

Kiera D

So basically the only real solution (in an ideal world) would be education and a huge serving of cop on to people?? And give younger people something to do other then drink and do drugs?

Rredwell

h0stn0tf0und wrote:

Raise it to 24! I said 23 (edit 21, sorry I was wrong) as its common around the world. in the US for example.

That's the wrong approach. It's worse in the US cos 18-20 yr olds are mad for illegal drink.

Parents need to change the way they introduce alcohol to their children. If teenagers drink responsibly with their parents, and their parents set a good example, then a degree of maturity is involved. Look at the French. Compare with our "keep it under lock and key and let the kids drink in alley" approach.

In my experience, most bingeing is done by 14-17 year olds anyway. That's why the new 9-o'clock ban is wrong. I'm 17; which scenario is better:
a - I sit with my parents on holiday in a pub, sipping a glass of Coke, listening to traditional music?
or
b - I get kicked out of the pub at 9 pm, wander around, find a few other teens and binge under a bush?

"That Government is best which governs least" - Thomas Paine

fjon

Kiera D wrote:

So basically the only real solution (in an ideal world) would be education and a huge serving of cop on to people?? And give younger people something to do other then drink and do drugs?

Saying that young people drink becuase there is nothing else to do is a cop out I think. That argument has been used for joy-rding, drug-abuse...

Education ain't gonna cut it either. As someone pointed out - if you go to a pub and see drunk people around, if your parents and relations get legless at any family get together, and if you watch those Sky ...Uncovered shows you are going to think that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being completely ****faced.

If you live in California and you are reprimanded or looked down upon if you have more than one drink then this is going to have much more effect on you.

Unfortunately I think that as long as binge drinking is acceptable (and sometimes even encouraged) among our adults then our "kids" are not going to see anything wrong with doing it as well.

boo4842

fwk wrote:

Unfortunately I think that as long as binge drinking is acceptable (and sometimes even encouraged) among our adults then our "kids" are not going to see anything wrong with doing it as well.

Thats bang on.

Ireland has the highest pub to person ratio in the world. I've been to towns with a population of 1000 and 20 pubs. Or tiny places with noi playgrounds but 3 pubs.

Raising the drinking age isn't going to help anything. Someone quoted that 21 was a common age in many other countries? The only country that has 21 as the drinking age is the US I believe, and that has a huge drinking problem. Not to mention the unbelievable fact that at 18 you are considered an adult, can mary, vote, and more shockingly can join the army and kill or be executed, yet can't have a pint??

Education and responsibility, as well as a focus away from pub culture as being the centre of family life.

Kent Brockman commenting on Bart getting drunk on paddy's day, "Drunken behaviour and fighting. Are these the things we think about, when we think of the Irish....?"

Chucky the tree

LordChessington wrote:

The only solution I can think of off the top of my head is something extremely radical: Ban alcohol for about five years.My reasoning is:

.

that would make it worse to be honest, people would just buy it/import it illegaly, same as drugs now a days.

there easy to get, and so would drink be.


also there would be riots if the goverment tried to ban drinking

Bri

Banning alcohol or uping the age is totally off the mark I say.

But I disagree that lack of amenities has little to do with it. I've travelled enough to see that Ireland has plenty of negative features - crap dark weather most of the year, lack of facilities, etc. Of course there's alot more to it than that too.
France is a great example. Be given alchohol early under supervision - won't stop you from drinking later but beats a huge amount of the peer pressure, etc. experienced here. I've just come back from staying for a long break in Paris and the students in the university used all meet up in the giant green areas and have long meals and drink combined. It was so cringful to see a Celtic jersey amonst all of them drinking a 6-pack and making stupid noises. I regularly cringe at being associated with this sorta thing.

Also - the law here may seem strict but it's not enforced at all compared to other places where it's scary to get caught.

I've more to say but I can't be bothered getting into a rant. In short - The drink culture in this place makes me sick (sorry about the pun).

Chris P Duck

This whole binge drinking problem is not a new thing. Our parents took part in it. Ask many adults and they will tell you that most young people are alot more sensible about their drinking than when they were at their age. Binge drinking only came into light recently when the government were trying to cover up for there lack of funding in the health department and other area's. It took the light off the real problem. In fairness to them they (i.e. the wasters in dail eireann) did make a good call with the smoking ban, but not allowing kids into pubs after 9 o clock will eventually kill the tourism scene in ireland.

But getting back to a solution for the binge drinking problem, i disagree with the solutions put forward so far regarding banning alchol completely and raising the age of drinking to 23. In countries such as portugal, france, italy ...etc where kids regulary enjoy a glass of wine with there dinner, they do not seem to have a binge drinking problem. That is why i agree education is really important. Also I think if any kind of alchol was to be banned it should be alcopops. These are far too easy to drink and have a higher percentage of alchol than a normal pint. They are leading to very strong cocktails such as fat frogs to be drank which are so easy to drink it could be downed in a few mouthfuls

Blisterman

They couldn't ban one type of drink. It would be unconstitutional.

GuanYin

Kiera D wrote:

So basically the only real solution (in an ideal world) would be education and a huge serving of cop on to people?? And give younger people something to do other then drink and do drugs?

Firstly I think this should be in humanities, but hey, you play the hand you have.

Anyways, I think you have it close to right there. The way I see it, the largest contributing factor to the drink problem among young people here is the lack of infrastructure and amenities is the country as a whole.

We have terrible non-alcohol related recreational facilities, few cinemas, poor sports facilities (and those that exist are over-priced), over-priced leisure-plexes, poor nightlife facilities for under-age (Only two regular places in Dublin as far as I know) and to cap it off an atrotious public transport system to visit the few amenities that do exist.

So if you took away alcohol in the morning, what would the underage population of Ireland revolve their social life around?

One thing I've come to believe in the past 5 years is that this country doesn't give a damn about young people. We have in place the worst government that I have ever seen and for all their gesture and pissing in the wing all they have managed is alienate large sections of the population while totally missing the area they were trying to solve to begin with.

I think, we could stop widespread binge-drinking. It would take a country wide collaborative effort from many organisations, but it could be done. Look at continental Europe, they don't have half the problem we have, and those that drink often do so for the relaxation of the drink, not to get drunk.

Firstly we would need mass investment in infrastructure and facilities.

Sports and swimming facilities for every area/town with a population of 20K (thats only 200 nationwide). Commitment of existing sports clubs (the GAA for example) to stamp out alcohol from their club (my experience with the GAA was that young players would be over looked in pubs if they were with the team, this is changing however). Cinema and Leisure (ice-skating, quasar, bowling etc) for every 50K population. Proper security and supervision of these facilities so no risk to chidren patrons. Upgrade of all bus and rail facilities to include 24 hour (or near 24 hour) transport to social "hotspots" ie. where the above facilities are located. Extention of pub hours to 24 hours or publicans discretion. Extensive police force in club areas after 10pm. Stronger drunk and disorderly penalties for offenders. Extention of age limit to Over 21's for at least a five year period. Incorporation of wrist-band policy into night clubs, allowing U-18's entry (maybe even U-16) without the access to alcohol.

With these initial steps in place and possibly more, I think we could significantly reduce binge drinking within 10 years.

Bri

Aze wrote:

But getting back to a solution for the binge drinking problem, i disagree with the solutions put forward so far regarding banning alchol completely and raising the age of drinking to 23. In countries such as portugal, france, italy ...etc where kids regulary enjoy a glass of wine with there dinner, they do not seem to have a binge drinking problem. That is why i agree education is really important.

That's what I was getting at:

Bri wrote:

France is a great example. Be given alchohol early under supervision - won't stop you from drinking later but beats a huge amount of the peer pressure, etc. experienced here. I've just come back from staying for a long break in Paris and the students in the university used all meet up in the giant green areas and have long meals and drink combined.

jongore

Simply enforce the current laws, close a few of the pubs which sell drink to underage and the rest will quickly get the message.

The underage laws are easy for pubs to enforce, simply card every person, when I was in the U.S I was carded for every pub and club (I was 32 at the time). No ID, no entry very simple.

Imposter

syke wrote:

Sports and swimming facilities for every area/town with a population of 20K (thats only 200 nationwide). Commitment of existing sports clubs (the GAA for example) to stamp out alcohol from their club (my experience with the GAA was that young players would be over looked in pubs if they were with the team, this is changing however). Cinema and Leisure (ice-skating, quasar, bowling etc) for every 50K population. Proper security and supervision of these facilities so no risk to chidren patrons. Upgrade of all bus and rail facilities to include 24 hour (or near 24 hour) transport to social "hotspots" ie. where the above facilities are located. Extention of pub hours to 24 hours or publicans discretion. Extensive police force in club areas after 10pm. Stronger drunk and disorderly penalties for offenders. Extention of age limit to Over 21's for at least a five year period. Incorporation of wrist-band policy into night clubs, allowing U-18's entry (maybe even U-16) without the access to alcohol.

I agree with all of this except the age thing. I would suggest lowering the age to 16 for beer, wine and cider and either keeping it at 18 or raising it for spirits. I don't know where i'd put alcopops in there but perhaps the 18 bracketet. This would mean that a responsible adult (see below about publicans being responsible) would be overseeing a young person drinking as opposed to noone.

I'd also make publicans responsible for serving drunk people (I think they might be already but actually enforce it). Take away or suspend their licences after a handful of problems in a fixed time period.

Deregulate the industry. Give cafes, restaurants, bowling alleys etc. (but not large stadia say bigger than 5000 people) full licences to serve drink. This will possibly get people to enjoy a drink rather than just drink to get pished.

Most of this is in action here in Austria and there is nowhere near the same problems. Ok there are some kids (15-18) that do be a little pissed on the street but not very many people older than this.

Tusky

Underage drinking is great in my opinion ! ( p.s im not underage )

Superman

dare I say it !
Where are the parents!