The Department of Trade and Industry has published national norms and standards relating to the national liquor requirements.  They deal with, amongst other things, a minimum drinking age for South Africa and on 20 May 2015 the Department issued a general notice outlining the national liquor policy and inviting public comment.  In this document the legal age for drinking is raised from 18 to 21 and apparently this is causing a lot of consternation.  I could only imagine it would put half the nightclubs in town out of business, because in South Africa there seem to be very few people past the age of 21 who go to clubs even infrequently, although it is more common overseas for people to continue to go to nightclubs occasionally.  I am not sure if it is because everyone grows up too quickly in South Africa or what the reason is, but there are many countries that have a drinking age limit of 21 – the United States for example, where people only start going to clubs after 21.  

I wonder what your opinion on that is, because my personal opinion is that although it is a good idea, it is unworkable.  We need to recognise that alcohol is a drug and it is just as dangerous as many drugs that are “illegal”.  There is a reason that they try to prohibit it in the United States in the 1920s, but they could never succeed with something like that.  I don’t think you will be able to stop an 18 or 19 year old drinking, but you will certainly be able to make it harder for them to buy the alcohol and you will certainly be able to make it harder for them, for example, to get served drinks in a nightclub.  It will no doubt reduce many deaths on our roads and so there certainly would be some benefits.  The negatives to me are just the fact that it is really unlikely to be controlled and it is going to be yet another example in South Africa of the most amazing legislation where we tackle every problem under the sun and spend half of our lives looking at attorneys’ fees and other issues, but where we are not actually tackling the real problems of the country.  In addition, it will be impossible to enforce like many of our wonderful laws.  I took my niece out to a nightclub in the heart of Sandton last year and left after about 20 minutes, because I think she was the only person above 18 in the club, apart from the bartenders, the bouncers and management.  So I don’t think we are doing a very good job right now of enforcing a no drinking under age 18, because from what I saw in the heart of the most powerful economic city in South Africa, with no shortage of police, was not 19 years old drinking, but a whole bunch of 15 and 16 year olds drinking alcohol in a nightclub.