Last April, the Ministry of Health began the consultation period prior to the drafting of a law to prevent alcohol consumption by young people, a framework until now covered by different regional legislations, which in general veto sale and consumption to those under 18 years of age, and regulations on partial aspects, such as limitations on advertising, consumption in public spaces or the zero rate of alcohol for underage moped drivers. The truth is that between that normative framework and reality, which shows that the average age of initiation of alcohol consumption is slightly above 13 years and that one in four adolescents and young people have suffered alcohol poisoning, there is an abyss on which to act.
The initiative piloted by the Government Delegation for the National Plan on Drugs has so far begun to stir the waters, with demanding positions taken by scientific and medical organizations and warnings that serious discrepancies will have to be faced by the sectors producers and political groups that on previous occasions had stood up to other previous attempts, stopped after having faced such resistance. Despite the fact that the first images that come to mind are the defiant gestures to past restrictive measures by PP leaders such as José María Aznar, Mariano Rajoy or not long ago Isabel Díaz Ayuso, it would not be entirely appropriate to limit yourself to them: also a conservative minister like Ana Pastor put on the table the need for a regulation of this type (and had to keep it in a drawer, as the socialist minister Elena Salgado did) and also socialist politicians, especially from wine production areas, stood up in the face of these frustrated attempts.
The traditional normalization of alcohol consumption (limited and delimited in recent decades, if we take a closer look at what were the usual practices in other times) and its imbrication in the Spanish diet and the productive fabric of many regions have been an obstacle in each of these cases. But the evidence of the effects of alcohol, especially in the growth phase, compel administrations to put in the foreground a basic right and obligation, that of protecting the health of children and youth.
During the period of the pandemic, the latest available data on the consumption of alcohol and narcotic drugs registered a certain decrease: having this, and even more so among the youngest, characteristics of group leisure, it was logical that this should happen. What the rebound effect has been and to what extent the elimination of restrictions on interaction in public spaces and nightlife has increased consumption, is so far a matter of perception. It is also important to define what is the balance between two existing and contradictory tendencies, the rebound in episodes of abusive consumption as part of the socialization habits of broad sectors of the younger population –to simplify, the phenomenon of bottle– and the implementation of healthy lifestyles increasingly installed in other groups of the same generation. It is in this second plate of the balance that public policies and the future law have more to go:_in ensuring that awareness of the risk is generalized and advancing in what the delegate of the national plan on drugs has described as a change in “social norms » about alcohol. Without forgetting evidence that what happened during the pandemic showed: the decrease in the availability of alcoholic beverages or other substances does not necessarily lead to seeking other ways to acquire them, but rather has a real effect on the effective reduction of consumption.