Madam, - As a young adult I am dismayed by the continuous jockeying for position on the moral high-horse by our country's good and great with regard to drinking among our youth.
I was particularly shocked to read in this very paper the urgings of Liam Lawlor (December 28th) to raise the minimum age for drinking alcohol to 21.
This will not work. It has been tried in the US and all it has done is to further alienate and criminalise an even bigger section of that nation's youth.
Let us look to Berlin instead of Boston. In mainland Europe the minimum drinking age in most countries is 16. As a result young people there can drink in safe, regulated environments. Most 16- and 17-year-old Irish people drink, as several surveys have shown.
It would be better for all concerned if they were allowed to do so in licensed premises, in a supervised, regulated environment. It would certainly be safer than the unsupervised and unregulated alternatives. - Yours, etc.,
E.M. KELLY,
Portmarnock,
Co Dublin.