“…every day we see the devastating results in emergency departments” AMA Queensland President Dr Chris Zappala said.
Trading Hour Push Ahead of Summer Drinks Toll, Australian Medical Association Queensland Media Release 2015.
In 2009, Australian Medical Association Queensland president Dr Mason Stevenson said the surge in teenage binge drinking has worrying implications for Australia, as that generation carries their bad drinking habits into adulthood.
“We are going to expect a substantially increased rate of alcoholism,” he said.
Prompted by such concerns, one Queensland school – St Edmund’s College in Ipswich – is proposing to randomly breath-test students arriving at the school dance.
Mason suggests an even more radical intervention. “There is a cogent argument for increasing the legal age of drinking in Australia from 18 to 21,” he said. “You also as a result of that policy would save 100 Australian lives every year and an extra 1000 from severe maiming and permanent injury.
“On medical grounds, it’s a no-brainer.”
Melanie Christiansen, “Queensland’s serious alcohol problem revealed”, The Courier-Mail, October 17, 2009