Should the alcohol age remain at 18?

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Should the alcohol age remain at 18?

3News NZ

Was keeping the drinking age at 18 the right decision?

Was keeping the drinking age at 18 the right decision?

The age at which you can legally purchase alcohol is to remain at 18.

It was first lowered from 20 to 18 in 1999, 13 years ago.

The success, or otherwise, of that lowered age has been much debated since, and today, it was put to the vote in Parliament.

In the end, it wasn't even very close, 68 votes for retaining the age at 18, 53 for putting it back to 20.

Was that the right vote?

Watch the video.

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Comments

31/08/2012 6:13:53 p.m.

Brian wrote:

At 18 you are responsible enough for, Getting Married Having Children Driving a car Going to war and dying for your country Working and paying taxes Voting But the community says you are not responsible enough to buy a drink!! Ridiculous. Nanny state gone mad. There are other ways, like what they have done for smoking.

31/08/2012 5:40:53 p.m.

katrina wrote:

I agree with David (for once) having the minimum age set at 18 means that 15 year olds can get their hands on booze more easily. When the limit was older you really had to be 18 to be able to look old enough to get into pubs or buy alcohol but lowering just lowers the age of accessability even more.

31/08/2012 9:56:10 a.m.

SARAH wrote:

If the politicians think that our binge drinking culture is so bad, why don't they take it away from supermarkets, reduce the liquor stores in the country and have some sort of limit on how much you can buy at a time. Take away advertisements on television and in magazines. It is only a minority group that make the rest of the youth look bad. How are the youth meant to learn how to drink if no one is taking the time to teach them? Why should they be punished if they weren't tought in the first place? The age should stay at 18 and maybe caregivers, teachers, politician or anyone for that matter should actually educate them, not judge them for what one idiot did.

31/08/2012 8:01:19 a.m.

James J. Read wrote:

Having lived for a year in a country where the drinking age was 15, I am unimpressed by those who wanted to raise it to 20.During my year in Belgium, I saw far less drunkenness than I see here.Let's make it illegal to be drunk in a public place and that would have an impact.

31/08/2012 5:35:24 a.m.

David wrote:

I am disappointed at the age not going back up to 20, are the politicians not listening to the people or are they just been bought by the liquor company's. At 18 these young kids are not responsible enough to know how much to drink, I work with a lot of young people and most of there wages goes on booze.

30/08/2012 10:52:15 p.m.

Julia Wilson-Orr wrote:

There's no point putting this age up because it will only be disadvantaging trustworthy youth. Kids who want alcohol will always be able to get it somewhere, no matter what some law says.

30/08/2012 9:22:50 p.m.

katrina wrote:

So I guess no politicians wanted to risk losing a chunk of voters support

30/08/2012 9:16:26 p.m.

Laurie wrote:

I think alcohol is too available these day's. I don't know why we need it in supermarkets, there's enough alcohol outlet's out there already. I was a fan of the age going up to 20 but i think the real problem is the binge drinking culture and the availability of the alcohol.

30/08/2012 8:22:49 p.m.

shane wrote:

The voting system is not working.