Voodoo Juice for all?

Another report on children and drinking, more horror stories for Halloween. Lock up your children now or they will succumb to the Voodoo Man's lethal juice.

Is underage drinking a result of availability? Not really, alcohol has always been available to children in some form or another. It was far worse of course in Victorian times which is one of the reasons that the abolitionist movement started to grow in the min 1800's. However simplification of the argument only leads us away from the real source of our problems, consumerism.

For those of you who remember go back to a teenagers bedroom in the early 1980s or late 1970s. What would you find there. Here's a list of possibles.

       Posters
       Old style mono record player with collection of 45s and 33s
       Mono tape recorder
       Games and Toys
       Books and magazines
       Clothes including possible hand me downs

Now forward to today

        Posters
        Flat screen TV
        Blue ray player
        iPod
        Laptop computer
        Mobile telephone
        Top quality designer clothing

Many of the items that were designed for business efficacy have somehow found their way onto a teenagers wish list.

So if the most advanced adult tools are available for every average teenager then it becomes blindingly obvious that children are becoming more adult sooner. This is a challenge because it means that children start to want adult things, particularly the big four taboos, drugs,sex, gambling and booze much earlier. Because children wish to prove they are grown up.

So it is not the availability of booze that has made the difference but the media's constant squashing of childhood.

Now add this to the fact that parents, who are responsible for the education of children have no real understanding of alcohol in their own right and it is all too obvious that we are in the scenario of monkey see. monkey do. So if a child sees their parents throwing caution to the wind they start to believe that this is part of being an adult.

And whilst I long for simpler days of long gone summers I am realistic to know that the only way we will see a change to drinking habits in children is if we educate the adults around them on how to be responsible with alcohol.

The fightback starts here.