“Binge” Drinking Culture in New Zealand
Every country has its own drinking culture. It helps them to interact with co-workers, seniors, juniors and friends. It allows them to forget their stress for a while and to have fun. In some countries, drinking culture is one of the way to increase business connection, even work promotions. Basically, drinking culture is one of the most important culture a country has.
New Zealand (especially New Zealand youngsters) has a strong tradition of alcohol use. In fact, Alcohol is one of the most consumed drugs in New Zealand (other common drugs used in New Zealand: Cannabis. You can read the post regarding Cannabis written by litschi95 here). And while the minimum legal age for drinking alcohol is 18, youngsters below the legal age can drink while monitored by legal guardian. Statistic stated that 56% of teenagers between 15–17 years old had drunk alcohol in the past years (Ministry of Health 2012–2013 survey).
Most of New Zealanders enjoy alcohol in moderation, but it´s a common knowledge that New Zealand tend to binge drinking. This alcohol over-consumption resulted in negative health and social consequences. New Zealand Police estimated that approximately one-third of all police apprehension involve alcohol. Half of serious violent crime are related to alcohol, with over 300 alcohol-related offences are committed every day. Between 600 and 800 people in New Zealand have been estimated to die each year from alcohol-related causes. Approximately 23,000 people are treated in the publicly-funded health system for alcohol or other drugs addictions, while 382 clients are treated in Auckland´s Community Alcohol and Drug Services aged under 16. 70% of all admissions into New Zealand Hospital Accident & Emergency Departments after 10:00pm are the result of alcohol abuse. One in 20 deaths among people aged under 80 years old in New Zealand can be blamed on alcohol. The New Zealand Medical Journal estimated that 5.4% of all deaths among people under 80 years old were attributable to alcohol in 2007. Alcohol wasted about 13,769 years of life in 2007, and wasted about 28,403 years of healthy life were lost among Kiwis aged less than 80 years old, most of the damage caused by addiction or alcohol-attributed cancer. Yes, drinking culture can be that deadly.
The statistic numbers about the alcohol over-consumption, especially for youngsters, are alarming. The risks are too high, even higher for teenagers. I mean, why make a law that allows teenagers to drink alcohol??? Drinking culture should be taken by responsibility and moderation. I´m not saying that teenagers can´t be responsible or moderate, but drinking alcohol in such young age can only do you harm. And also teenagers´ body and brain aren´t developed enough to take the high dose of alcohol.
Who is to blame regarding the youngsters alcoholism in New Zealand? I think peer pressure can be blamed on this phenomenon. Because youngsters, especially students enrolled in universities, think, that drinking means “positive result in peer interactions and an important part of growing up”. Reminds me of smoking culture in Indonesia — underage students smoke because it´s cool and everyone else does that. Refusal to do the same thing means being left out, called names, or even bullying. Shocking, i know.
While drinking can be fun, binge drinking is not. Binge-drinking can only cause you harm. Not only is binge-drinking culture responsible for problems as stated above, this harmful culture is also responsible for sex abuse, sexually transmitted disease, and family violence (i remember a post written by Charlotte Klebsch about family violence in New Zealand. You can read the post here). I really hope that the government will take this problem seriously. Instead of wasting few millions at changing the flag, the government can use the money to prevent alcoholism and binge-drinking culture, by changing the law for example.
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Additional note: You can have fun without harming your body or anyone around you. YOU control the alcohol, never let the alcohol controls you.Please drink responsibly and stay healthy :).
