Higher drinking age not Tonga's solution

Transcript

A Tonga youth worker says raising the drinking age will have little effect on the country's drinking problem. 

The Tongan parliament introduced a bill this week to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21 with unanimous support from the House.

But the chairperson of the Tonga National Youth Congress, Drew Havea, told Daniela Maoate-Cox that young people will always find alcohol and the focus should be on educating youth.

DREW HAVEA: We don't have enough programme how to prepare young people to drink responsibly. We have not accepted the fact that young people will drink. There's a denial on our part our society that young people won't drink and if they do drink then there's something wrong with them and we haven't put the education programme in place to help them grow up and make the right decisions and if they drink they drink responsibly.

DANIELA MAOATE-COX: What do you think needs to happen?

DH: I think we need to have a wider discussion on this particular issue of alcohol. I think it's something that all of us enjoy but how to use it responsibly. I think we need to have a wider discussion on our approach to alcohol. Don't drink, don't touch, you're an outcast if you use alcohol, you're not one of the good youth, and I think once we have that discussion and understanding that certain programmes can be geared to help young people through this particular process so they are not reacting to the do's and don'ts and then drink, which doesn't help them and doesn't help society and doesn't help decision makers looking to make Tonga safe.

DM-C: There must be some positives to raising this drinking age.

DH: I think that the issue of responsible drinking is not only with young people we're looking at quite a lot of adults who don't drink responsibly and I think that maybe we are reacting. That we don't like what we see with adults not drinking responsibly so we put the foot down and think that if we dont' allow young people then definitely this problem will be dealt with which I think we know needs a lot more work than just legislation. A legislation will not help, it will help a little, but it doesn't cure the problem, we have to have a process and education programme and process to have young people learn 'what does this mean?' and make the right decision.

DREW HAVEA: We don't have enough programme how to prepare young people to drink responsibly. We have not accepted the fact that young people will drink. There's a denial on our part our society that young people won't drink and if they do drink then there's something wrong with them and we haven't put the education programme in place to help them grow up and make the right decisions and if they drink they drink responsibly.

DANIELA MAOATE-COX: What do you think needs to happen?

DH: I think we need to have a wider discussion on this particular issue of alcohol. I think it's something that all of us enjoy but how to use it responsibly. I think we need to have a wider discussion on our approach to alcohol. Don't drink, don't touch, you're an outcast if you use alcohol, you're not one of the good youth, and I think once we have that discussion and understanding that certain programmes can be geared to help young people through this particular process so they are not reacting to the do's and don'ts and then drink, which doesn't help them and doesn't help society and doesn't help decision makers looking to make Tonga safe.

DM-C: There must be some positives to raising this drinking age.

DH: I think that the issue of responsible drinking is not only with young people we're looking at quite a lot of adults who don't drink responsibly and I think that maybe we are reacting. That we don't like what we see with adults not drinking responsibly so we put the foot down and think that if we dont' allow young people then definitely this problem will be dealt with which I think we know needs a lot more work than just legislation. A legislation will not help, it will help a little, but it doesn't cure the problem, we have to have a process and education programme and process to have young people learn 'what does this mean?' and make the right decision.