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The Drug Commissioner of the German government, Burkhard Blienert (SPD), demands an increase of the minimum age for buying beer and wine to 18. Blienert said in an interview with the daily newspaper "Welt": "Science tells us that it is not reasonable to sell beer and wine to minors. For me, there are many medical arguments in favour of raising the age of purchase for beer, wine and sparkling wine to 18. Other countries have had good experiences with this."
In addition, Blienert calls for a more strictly regulated approach to alcohol and tobacco in society: "It is ahistorical to stylise alcohol and tobacco as cultural common property. That trivialises the problems." It is not clear to many people how great the social damage caused by tobacco and alcohol is, he said. "We have to gradually move from a free wild growth to a regulated, controlled approach to tobacco and alcohol." The availability is too low-threshold: "What doesn't work at all is so-called accompanied drinking. Today, a 14-year-old can order a beer in a pub in the presence of his parents," emphasised Burkhard Blienert.
For this purpose, the drug commissioner considers it "necessary to clearly limit the advertising possibilities for alcohol and tobacco". However, the responsibility for this lies with the German federal states. He clarified: "Personally, however, I would say: this advertising should be stopped."
(uka / Photo: 123rf)