This bulletin describes some of the impacts of existing alcohol availability policies on young Australian risky drinkers, and gauges their support for proposed measures.
This study found that age based restrictions on alcohol are commonly circumvented by the young risky drinkers. Of the 16-17 year olds who had previously attempted to enter a licensed venue, the majority (51%) reported they did not have their ID checked the last time they attempted entry. The last time they tried, almost half (49%) of participants aged under 18 rated it as easy or very easy for them to purchase alcohol from the bottle shop.
A large body of past research indicates that price consistently has an impact on consumption. This survey found support for an increase in price even among one of the populations at greatest risk of alcohol related harm. Two-thirds (65%) of the risky drinking young people supported increasing the price of a standard drink by 20¢ if the extra 20¢ was used to support prevention and treatment of alcohol problems. Similarly modest taxes have previously been found to reduce alcohol related mortality. Young Australians appear to support price-based alcohol taxation measures so long as the extra funds were earmarked for prevention and treatment of alcohol-related problems.