Tuesday, July 31, 2012

New Zealand's Alcohol Problem

I read a pleading letter to the editor in the ODT today while I had a lovely mushroom soup and toast at the Gardens' Cafe next to New World.   Pleading for John Key to do something like raising the age to 20, ban supermarkets from selling alchohol and so forth, the usual stuff.


Really the only solution is for the so called adults in out society to stop abusing the stuff themselves and set an example to their children which would largely solve the problem.  The only hurt people would be the shareholders of the beer palaces and a few workers.

We I raised my son with the help of my wife, and pre-occupied with work it was largely her efforts, we rarely had any alcohol in the house.  We are not teetotal and away on ski-trips I usually put myself toe sleep in our camper van after a hard days ski-ing with a single can of beer.  I am sure our son had the occasional booze up when he left home  and treats the stuff with respect and moderation.   I, in retirement, started drinking regularly, one glass of red wine or a single stubbie each day, for medicinal reasons ... supposed or not supposed to be good for cardiac patients depending on what you read.

Raising the drink purchasing age to 20 will not affect me but banning supermarkets will make me very annoyed as I normally buy whatever beer is the loss leader and with a monopoly I'm sure the liquor stores will not follow this practice, probably the other measure will be some dam fool minimum price regime.

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