Quote:
Originally Posted by erikvv
This month the Dutch governement decided that local governements can now determine the drinking age. Multiple have indicated they will raise it from 16y to 18y on january 1st.
Also the possesion of drinks by people below the drinking age is now illegal, while before only the selling of drinks to minors was illegal.
In this year 2007 the amount of children below 16 which were hospitalized in coma after binge drinking has reached 240, which is 6 times as high as a in 2000. This is the reason for the stricter measures.
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A government decision based on trend? Any associated societal changes that might have contributed to the increase which won't be solved by a somewhat simple legislative action with questionable enforceability on all but the serving piece? To me it sounds more like the under 18 crowd could just become clever about indulging their desire for alcohol. Just curious as I have yet to see moral legislation work in the US if patterns are already developed, our war on drugs being an unfortunate example.