Ten years ago, the age limit for purchasing alcohol went from sixteen to eighteen years. Yet many underage young people manage to find the bottle of liquor, often through various detours. Experts are not surprised: “If you see the total problem, you should not be surprised. Drinking is very normal in our society, advertising has increased and supermarkets have become more aggressive in terms of marketing.”
Omroep Brabant approached Brabant young people on social media and asked about their alcohol consumption. More than 1,300 young people from Brabant responded. Eight in ten minors say they sometimes drink alcohol.
Nico van der Lely is a pediatrician and founder of the Alcohol Poli. In 2008, such an outpatient clinic also opened in Eindhoven. Underage young people who end up in the hospital after drinking too much alcohol end up there. They receive information and have to get started with their alcohol consumption.
When Van der Lely hears that about eighty percent of underage young people say they drink alcohol at some point, he is not immediately surprised. “There are in the Netherlands hotspots, such as East Brabant, where this trend is still observable. But it has improved over time.”
“We even had a ten-year-old boy with alcohol poisoning.”
The average age at which young people end up in hospital after drinking too much has risen (figures show). “You used to have an average age of thirteen, now it is sixteen. When we just started the outpatient clinic, we even had a ten-year-old boy with alcohol poisoning. We no longer see that.”
He points out that nationally, a minority of parents also think it is okay for people under the age of eighteen to drink. “That used to be a majority. In some areas you still see that that culture continues to exist. But I didn’t expect it to change in ten years. We need more time for that.”
According to him, such a cultural change could take about thirty years. “In Italy it is the culture to only drink a glass of wine, diluted with water, on grandma’s birthday. That is very different from, for example, among students in Eindhoven. There people drink on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and then it has to be done. weekend still to start.”
“The alcohol lobby wakes up and says that ‘the glass is being taken away from the Dutch’.”
According to Van der Lely, the number of patients admitted to the outpatient clinic has been nine hundred children per year for years. “It’s not increasing but it’s not decreasing either. The average age has increased but we’re not there yet. Now it’s up to others.”
Wim van Dalen, director of STAP (knowledge institute for alcohol policy), also sees that figures are stagnating and believes that it is the government’s turn. “When you see the total problem, you should not be surprised. Drinking is very normal in our society, advertising has increased, supermarkets are more aggressive in marketing.” Van der Lely agrees: “What is happening to young people these days is bizarre.”
The price has also been too low for years if you look at the damage it causes, Van Dalen believes. According to the RIVM, these costs run into billions per year. “We know that there are more than eight thousand alcohol-related deaths every year, alcohol is carcinogenic. But if you say: ‘government, do something’, the alcohol lobby wakes up and says that it is patronizing, that ‘the glass of the hard-working Dutchman is taken away’. It remains difficult to get anything done politically.”
The experts advocate, among other things, honest information, such as labels on the packaging that indicate what alcohol does to you. Van Dalen: “You want people to know what they are drinking, that they can think about it carefully, then you can accept risks. Honest information and do not encourage people to drink alcohol. But we live in a world of marketing.”
Van der Lely also sees little knowledge among young people about the damage caused by alcohol. “More than 90 percent of the children at the Alcohol Policies say after an admission: ‘Why didn’t I know this?!’ The percentage that visits the clinic again after such a first visit is two percent. These are mainly children from families where there is a lot of drinking. Imagine getting that from an area like East Brabant.”
In the new video of HOE..? we investigate the alcohol use of young people in Brabant:
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