Science backs raising of drinking age

Sue Dunlevy
June 18, 2013
News Limited Network

A RADICAL push to raise the drinking age to 21 has the support of half the population and senior academics and medicos will today urge politicians to tie federal road funding to the change.

A national forum on teen binge drinking will be told Australian teenagers are twice as likely to abuse alcohol as adolescents in the United States, where the legal drinking age is 21.

And a ten-year study of 3000 Victorian teenagers has found 45 per cent had problems with alcohol by the time they reached the age of 23.

Deakin University researcher in youth development Professor John Toumbourou, who conducted the research, wants the federal government to encourage the states to raise the drinking age to 21 by tying federal road funding to the change, as happened in the United States.

If politicians can’t sanction raising the drinking age, they should look at introducing probationary restrictions on drinking at age 18, he says.

This would place restrictions on the type and amount of alcohol 18 year olds could purchase and remove the right to drink from those who were involved in alcohol related violence or road accidents.

The National Drug Strategy Household Survey, conducted by the federal government, has found public support for raising the drinking age has risen from 40 per cent to 50 per cent over the past decade.

Growing support for the idea is being fuelled by concerns over rising alcohol linked violence and concern that young people may be damaging their future prospects by drinking heavily, Professor Toumbourou said.

“When you drink at a young age, the brain becomes habituated to alcohol and they can drink large doses until the body needs alcohol to function,” he said.

One in five Australians in their twenties now has an alcohol dependence that sees them experience shakes and seizures if they don’t drink, he says.

And young women are now drinking the same amount of alcohol as men, raising concerns that if they become pregnant their babies may suffer brain damage caused by foetal alcohol syndrome disorder.

Trauma doctor Dr Anthony Lynham, who repairs smashed skulls from alcohol related injuries at Royal Brisbane Hospital, says the teen brain is still developing at 18.

“As well as rising levels of alcohol-induced violence, probably the strongest case (for raising the drinking age) is the latest scientific research which shows the brain is not fully developed at 18,” Dr Lynham said.

A review of 17 studies in the United Sattes found raising the drinking ag to 21 in that country was linked to a 16 per cent reduction in underage car accidents.

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