Police Association supports raising the alcohol purchasing age to 20
The Police Association and its members strongly support the Law Commission’s suggestion that 20 be the legal age for purchasing alcohol.
Last year the Law Commission issued a 500-page report (weighing in at a hefty 2.4 kilograms) entitled Alcohol In Our Lives: Curbing The Harm, which followed on from an earlier Issues Paper, released last July, entitled Alcohol in Our Lives.
Two thousand, nine hundred and thirty nine (2,939) submissions were received.
It is the first and most significant review of our drinking culture since Sir George Laking’s report of 1986.
Interestingly enough, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, the architect of the latest report, was then Minister of Justice – and therefore the man who received it from Sir George.
The Government has responded with proposed legislation, mainly in the form of the Alcohol Reform Bill, which passed its first reading in November.
Controversially, it has elected not to implement key recommendations such as raising the excise duty on alcohol and lowering the blood alcohol concentration level from 0.08 to 0.05g of alcohol per 100ml of blood, the latter in favour of a two year study.
Alcohol in Our Lives: Curbing the Harm lists 153 recommendations in a blueprint aimed at reducing what New Zealand’s binge-drinking culture. Law Commission President, Sir Geoffrey Palmer said that those who enjoy alcohol socially and drink in a low risk manner would see little effect from the proposed reforms.
Targeting
He said that the measures are “firmly targeted at reducing the harms associated with heavy drinking and drinking to intoxication.”
“To do this we need to ensure that alcohol is promoted, sold and supplied in a manner which better reflects the risks and responsibilities associated with its consumption,” he added.
Police Association Vice-President Chris Cahill said that the two top priorities for police officers would be raising the drinking age and the hours of trade, both of which impact heavily on Police resourcing.
“Many New Zealanders don’t appreciate just how chaotic it gets late at night in many of our cities, because they are at home in bed.
"Police have to actually deal with the violence, disorder, and crashes caused by drunks. We are spending an increasing amount of time and energy dealing with alcohol, when we’d far rather be able to use those resources to combat serious crime,” Mr Cahill said.
Easier alcohol access
“Lowering the drinking age in 1999 was not the cause of all our problems, but it certainly made things significantly worse.
More young people, who are both less mature and more vulnerable when intoxicated, have easier access to alcohol now than they did before,” he added.
A survey of Police Association members conducted in November last year by research company Nielsen showed 72% of police want the drinking age raised to 20 across the board, and a further 18% want the age raised to 20 for off-licence purchases.
Police statistics show ample evidence that young people between the ages of 17 and 19 comprise the highest proportion of offenders who have consumed alcohol prior to committing an offence.
Overwhelming support
Sir Geoffrey Palmer said there was “overwhelming support” from submitters for a return to 20 as the minimum purchase age.
“In the decade since the decision was made to lower the purchase age, the scientific understanding of the developing brain has advanced considerably.
“With this knowledge has come a greater understanding of the risks early onset of drinking poses to the adolescent, in terms of both acute harms and the longer term risks of dependency.
“We would be negligent if we disregard this evidence in respect of alcohol legislation,” he said.
Evidence from countries, which have changed the minimum purchase age, suggests it is one of the most effective measures to reduce alcohol-related harm.
The lowering of the legal drinking age in most states in the USA in the 1970s was linked to alcohol-related harm; particularly alcohol-related traffic crashes involving young people.
When the age was raised to 21 in 1984, the rates fell (Wagenaar 1981, O’Malley and Wagenaar 1991, Voas and Tippetts 1999).
Road crashes
The statistics in the USA are being mirrored here. A 2008 Massey University study confirmed that alcohol-related crashes involving drivers aged 18-19 have jumped since the legal drinking age was lowered to 18.
The study showed that alcohol-related crashes declined steadily from almost 300 per 100,000 drivers in that age bracket in1990 to below 100 by year 2000.
This was attributed to the success of the national campaign against drink driving.
The alcohol-related crash rate bounced back after the drinking age was lowered to 18 in December 1999 - from 93 in 2000 up to 144 by 2003, an increase of 54.8%.
Researcher Taisia Huckle, who led the study, concluded that it was “likely that the lowering of the purchase age for alcohol has contributed to increases in harmful outcomes for young people in New Zealand, including more serious outcomes such as traffic crashes”.
Conscience vote
Any vote on raising the purchase age would be subject to a conscience vote by Members of Parliament.
However, Sir Geoffrey is of the opinion that conscience voting by Parliament on alcohol issues needs to be stopped if progress is to be made on addressing alcohol harm.
It is a good point Sir Geoffrey makes. As a nation, we do tend to know what ails us. The Law Commission’s first report, tabled in Parliament in May 2009, recommended that future Bills dealing with alcohol legislation be voted on along party lines rather than as a conscience vote, as is now the case.
The National Government quickly ruled out the Commission’s proposal to increase the excise duty on alcohol by up to 50%. National have historically been in favour of lower taxes and a 50% increase in excise duty on alcohol would have been a lot riskier in terms of possible lost votes than say the minimal risks of increasing the tax on cigarettes and losing the votes of a dying breed of smokers.
The Government is effectively ignoring some strong evidence around the effect of prices on consumption of alcohol and consequent harm in electing not to increase the excise tax.
Researchers such as Osterburg (1995), Babor et al (2003), Chisholm et al (2004) and Loxley et al (2004) found overwhelming evidence that alcohol prices have an effect on reducing alcohol consumption. Even heavy drinkers appeared not to be an exception to this rule and young drinkers were especially sensitive to price increases (Chaloupka et al. 2002, Coate and Grossman 1988).
However, the Government will ignore the more weighty issues of the report at its peril. The sheer volume of submissions, which spoke of the need for change, should be enough to convince it of the need to address the many social, health and violence issues associated with excessive alcohol consumption.
The real trick for any Parliament on such weighty issues is striking the right balance.
The problem with alcohol
About seventy percent (70%) of incidents, which need police attendance, involve alcohol.
Frontline officers confirm that late-night liquor availability is a big problem. People whose judgement is already long gone, are able to keep topping up by purchasing more alcohol from late night off-licence liquor outlets, which give them ready access to cheap booze before they return to the central city ‘party zones’. The Law Commission report recommends returning the minimum age for alcohol consumption to 20 and introducing nationwide maximum closing hours for both on and off-licence; (4am and 10pm respectively) – these recommendations would undoubtedly find favour with most police officers. It also recommended an emphasis on more personal responsibility for unacceptable or harmful behaviours induced by alcohol, including a civil cost recovery regime for grossly intoxicated people picked up by police.
More community input
It also recommends more community input into how and where alcohol is sold. Community leaders and groups in South Auckland have been highly critical of the burgeoning number of liquor outlets.
Manukau City Council recently mooted a law change to curb the spread of liquor outlets within its jurisdiction.
Manukau city has the most off-licences in Auckland. In 1990, Manukau City had 148 active liquor licences.
That had grown to 494 by early 2008. There are 156 off-licence outlets in South Auckland alone. Many are located in poorer neighbourhoods.
In 2009, the Population Studies Centre (PSC) at Waikato University conducted a study, which found that for every new liquor outlet in Manukau, there was an increase in the number of police incidents.
The researchers found that adding one extra off-licence was associated with an extra 60 to 65 police events or incidents in the year to June 2009.
Each additional club or bar was associated with approximately 100 extra incidents while each additional restaurant or café accounted for approximately 26 additional incidents.
Unsurprisingly, the study also found that offlicence outlets (alcohol retailers, supermarkets and bottle stores) tended to locate in areas of high social deprivation and high population density.
Higher off-licence density was in turn associated with lower alcohol prices and longer opening hours.
It isn’t rocket science to see where this ends up taking communities. Like the proverbial loan sharks, who set up in poor neighbourhoods, the liquor outlets effectively prey upon those who can least afford their products.
The result is a stagnation of the lifeblood of communities through dependence and an increase in poverty and crime.
Taskforce
The University of Otago recently announced the formation of a taskforce aimed at limiting the number of liquor outlets around the campus as part of a plan to curb student binge drinking.
There are 50 liquor outlets within a one kilometre radius of the campus.
The taskforce is based (in part) on a 40-point action plan to reduce alcohol-related harm developed by Otago University Students’ Association events manager Vanessa Reddy.
The Police Association feels that Local Alcohol Plans, as proposed by the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill, have the potential to give a greater level of control over licensing back to the community.
This may result in reduced liquor outlet density, and help reduce alcohol-related harm.
However, reducing outlet density alone is not the answer. Having to travel a longer distance to buy more liquor to continue a binge may deter some consumers; equally it may encourage other (intoxicated) consumers to drive to the closest liquor outlet. So, density of outlets may have some bearing on the ability of a young person, or a drinker who is already intoxicated, to access the ‘last drink’ that leads to trouble – but the Police Association feels that hours of trade are the biggest single factor at work in terms of trouble for police from intoxicated persons.
Reducing hours
The Police Association submitted that simply reducing the hours in which alcohol is sold would effectively limit the overall availability of alcohol during a time of day when alcohol overconsumption and abuse is at its worst, without unreasonably affecting responsible drinkers.
Police officers are concerned that the current availability of off-licence alcohol is mostly directed at supply to underage drinkers, and others who should not be supplied (such as those who are already intoxicated).
The off-licences supply cheap alcohol. Often this will be, for young drinkers, the start of binge drinking during the early evening or a continuation of it, late at night.
Officers feel the on-licence environment allows more control in terms of possible policing issues.
Open slather attitude
The Law Commission appears to have taken these issues on board in recommending that patrons not be permitted to enter a licensed premise after 2.00 a.m. and that all bars etc close by 4.00 a.m.
Police say that the majority of domestic violence and street disorder incidents in the late evening are perpetuated by what is effectively an ‘open slather’ attitude, which exists between many licensed premises, liquor outlets and drinkers.
There are four types of liquor licence available in New Zealand.
• An on-licence;
• An off-licence;
• A club licence; and
• A special licence.
Relaxation
The pendulum of relaxation of New Zealand’s liquor laws has swung towards near 24-hour availability of alcohol.
The resultant cost in terms of harm is clearly seen by police officers in terms of violence on the street and in road crashes.
Anything that alters the imbalance that has resulted in New Zealand’s chronic binge drinking culture will not only save the grief associated with the harm caused but also engender cost savings of several hundred million dollars across many agencies, including Police, Justice, Corrections and Health.
Alcohol is our most destructive drug. According to a Ministry of Health survey, the social costs of alcohol misuse total between $1.5 billion and $2.4 billion a year.
Disorder issues
The study investigated prosecutions for drink-driving and disorder offences as well as alcohol-related crash rates.
Prosecutions of 18 and 19-year-olds for driving with excess alcohol were steady at around 2,000 for every 100,000 people in the age group in every year up to 1999.
They then jumped from 2000 onwards to about 2,300 in 2003. In its submissions, the Police Association recommended the Commission address issues around the purchase age, hours of trade, parental supply, licensing, and penalties, and a recommendation that the blood alcohol level for adult drivers be lowered to 0.05g per 100ml of blood.
Sir Geoffrey Palmer said that the overwhelming message from the public submissions suggested that the “pendulum had swung too far” from 1989 when there was liberalisation of New Zealand’s liquor laws.
Cheap alcohol
“A can of beer or an RTD (Ready to drink) for one or two dollars in many retail outlets. This is less than we pay for bottled water.
“One of the consequences of alcohol being promoted and sold at pocket-money prices is that we risk losing sight of its status as a legal drug, capable of causing serious harm to others,” Sir Geoffrey Palmer said in releasing the latest report.
Parental supply is also an issue, which the Police Association says was not addressed adequately in the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill.
While the Association acknowledges this is a contentious issue, it is not satisfied the present law appropriately balances the rights of parents with the responsibilities of adults who supply alcohol to under-age drinkers - thereby helping to minimise the harm that alcohol may cause.
The Commission recommends that New Zealand adopts the lead of several Australian states by introducing new legal provisions restricting who can supply minors with alcohol and under what conditions they may do so.
Considerable merit
The Association feels that the Law Commission’s proposal that any alcohol purchased by parents for their children (or for others’ children, with the consent of that person’s parent/guardian) should be consumed under the supervision of the person who supplies it, has considerable merit.
Significant disorder issues (and deaths) are associated with private social gatherings attended by dozens, or in some cases hundreds of under-age drinkers, the majority of whom are drinking alcohol supplied to them by parents, parents of friends, or other older people who have lawfully purchased the alcohol.
These gatherings can very easily turn into riotous incidents when police then try to bring order to out-of-control parties.
It is not uncommon for police to be pelted with bottles and other dangerous objects thrown by drunken youths.
The Police Association believes that the change suggested by the Law Commission would reinforce the adult responsibility factor for those who supply alcohol to under-age people. and 174 of the Sale of Liquor Act, when there are concerns about rioting or fighting.
However, the threshold for closure is high. The Police Association submitted to the Justice and Electoral Form committee which was reviewing the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill, that these powers need to be strengthened where there is a risk to the safety and well-being of some of the patrons or neighbours of the premise.
Under the present law, a licensee/manager could choose not to co-operate by voluntarily closing down his/her premise.
Police then either have to remain to monitor the situation or allow matters to run their course and take licensing action after the event.
Police in New South Wales have the power to close immediately a licensed premise where there is a significant threat or risk to the public interest.
The Law Commission has also suggested introducing a legal definition of ‘intoxication’; making it an infringement offence to present fake evidence of age documents; and empowering licensees to confiscate fake evidence of age documents and hand them to police.
The Police Association supports these measures.
