Jesus Fucking Christ

[andrewducker]

Sir Liam's guidance follows a youth alcohol action plan drawn up by the    Government which warns that young people who drink too much are    significantly more likely to take drugs of all kinds and be absent from    school. Of those children excluded from school, 45 per cent had had a drink    in the past week compared with only 21 per cent of those who had never been    excluded.

Repeat after me "Correlation is not causation".  It seems vastly more likely to me that the kind of kids who are excluded, and have nothing better to do with their time, will be drinking, than that kids will have a drink at home and then become malcontents, instantly getting into drugs and kicked out of school.

Thankfully, someone also says:

"The dilemma is that – unless you introduce them slowly to drinking –    when they do start at 15 or 16 they go absolutely ballistic – so maybe there    is something to be said for what happens in France where you can get diluted    wine for youngsters."

thus showing some sense and understanding.

From

Comments

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly! It seemed a very ridiculous thing for the Government's chief medical adviser to say.

[zz]

yes, but the govt seem to be puritanical all round, so not surprising.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

There was an even "better" argument I half heard on the Today programme - they claimed in support of these guidelines that people were presenting with alcohol-induced liver disease in their twenties and thirties, instead of their fifties and sixties like they used to, and that this was because the age at which children were starting to drink was falling. Being exceptionally charitable and spotting them the dubious correlation/causation issue for the sake of argument, they were still implicitly claiming that kids were somehow putting in what used to be thirty years of drinking before they reached 18. Which is quite an achievement.

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

I was never _encouraged_ to drink as a child but, at my Dutch grandmother's dining table for Sunday dinners, it was always normal for me to have a little watered wine with the meal while we ate and put the world to rights (the conversation always turned to politics eventually...). From as early as I can remember, at least as far back as 7yo, maybe earlier.

I think an outright ban on alcohol for youngsters is absolutely the wrong way to go. At least we can _see_ the problem without driving it 'underground'. It is the responsibility of _parents_ to set an example.

[andrewducker]

Totally agree.