2024-07-14 07:17:01
Young people between the ages of 14 and 16 are allowed to drink alcohol in restaurants if their parents are present. The Federal Minister of Health is not the only one who wants to change this.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and the health ministers of several federal states are in favor of a ban on so-called supervised drinking for 14- to 16-year-olds. “From a health policy perspective, there can be no two opinions on this issue,” Lauterbach told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) on Thursday. “The presence of adults does not change the harmfulness of alcohol for children. That is why so-called supervised drinking should be prohibited.”
According to the Youth Protection Act, young people in Germany are allowed to buy and drink beer, wine and sparkling wine from their 16th birthday. If accompanied by a legal guardian, this is even permitted from the age of 14 – even in restaurants or in public.
Lauterbach is not alone in his criticism of this regulation: the Bavarian Health Minister Judith Gerlach (CSU) and the Berlin Health Senator Ina Czyborra (SPD) are also in favor of abolishing supervised drinking. The permit makes no sense in view of the prevention goals, Gerlach told the RND. Czyborra said that alcohol consumption poses a great risk to the physical and mental development of young people.
Lower Saxony’s Health Minister Andreas Philippi (SPD) recently called the approach “a completely wrong social signal”. “Supervised drinking trivializes alcohol consumption and should be abolished,” he told the “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung”. The earlier a person starts drinking, the more problematic their behavior as an adult.
The Conference of Health Ministers of the German States discussed the issue in June and decided that experts should take a closer look at the rules in the Youth Protection Act by November. The health insurance company DAK welcomes the debate: supervised drinking should be examined, said the head of the health insurance company Andreas Storm to the German Press Agency (dpa): “When parents provide access to alcohol, the inhibition threshold to start drinking is lowered.”
Too many children and young people are still hospitalized every year because of alcohol consumption. The DAK referred to its own surveys, according to which an estimated 6,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 17 will have to be hospitalized in Germany by 2023 because of alcohol abuse.
According to the Federal Drug Commissioner, Burkhard Blienert (SPD), statistically every German drinks ten liters of pure alcohol per year. In European comparison, the Federal Republic is therefore a high-consumption country. Eight million people drink at risky levels and 1.6 to 1.8 million people are alcohol dependent in the narrower sense.
However, the idea of banning supervised drinking for teenagers is also viewed with skepticism. Every step to prevent young people from drinking alcohol is a good one for their health, said the health policy spokesman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Tino Sorge, to the dpa.
However, new rules must be measured against real life: “The family plays a central role when it comes to the responsible use of alcohol. Whether a categorical ban can be established even in the private sphere must be discussed pragmatically.” No teenager who tries a sip of his father’s beer for the first time will become an alcoholic.
The CDU politician Sorge stressed that educational programs in schools and clubs and a careful look at the social environment of young people are more important. The vast majority of alcohol excesses take place where parents are not present.