Japanese binge kids

With all the recent talk of how to deal with youthful binge drinking, I thought it worth reminding people about cultural differences towards alcohol. Can you imagine the outcry, for example, if this ad ran in Australia?:



Yes, it's the Japanese fake beer for kids, and its been around for a while, as this 2005 post from Boing Boing shows. My son recently saw it on a DVD from Japan, and is very keen to try it when next there.

As the ad may suggest, Japanese society seems drenched in alcohol, yet per capita consumption is actually less than Australia. The legal drinking age is 20, and although it's not exactly a challenge for underage drinkers to get their hands on alcohol in a country where (at least in some places) vending machines sell beer and sake, there is not the concern about binge drinking and violence like there is in Australia, England and the States.

After-work drinking for adults is extremely common, but having the trains stop around midnight in large cities sets a de facto time limit for many to go home.

Lots of people make the same comment about European attitude to drinking - it's not just the quantities involved, it's the cultural attitude to alcohol that makes the difference.

In Australia, if binge drinking is causing problems on any inner city streets, I would have thought reducing opening hours for the bigger drinking establishments and clubs is an obvious response. (I have never quite understood the desire for large scale drinking after (say) 2 am at the latest.) However, widespread licencing of small establishments, especially if food is available, seems a very sensible idea if you want to encourage a culture of "paced" drinking amongst friends.

As to drinking as a undesireable aspect of sport club participation: well, having never belonged to a sporting club in my life, I am the last person to be able to judge how much of this is true. I have no idea how you would discourage excessive drinking in them, and doubt it is worth the effort of trying.

PS: one thing that clearly doesn't work in the "problem" countries is parents who allow their teenagers to drink at parties in the hope that they will exercise sensible self control and somehow get over the appeal of heavy drinking. It's a well intentioned but half-baked idea that doesn't bear scrutiny: if your culture already has too many binge drinking 18 year olds, how is allowing your 15 year old to also get drunk going to encourage responsible drinking 3 years later? In fact, is it possible that the increase in this practice over the last decade has led to the current binge drinking issue in young adults?