We’ve been sweeping alcohol's dirty secret under the rug for too long in New Zealand.
Alcohol is as normal as a your weekly grocery shop. It backs our favourite sports. It’s the backbone of our hospitality industry. And when you’re 21, we show our friends and family how much of a mature Kiwi we are by drinking it to such excess that we become violently ill.
We’ve all seen or heard about the dark side alcohol; domestic violence, vandalism, abuse and addiction. Alcohol was responsible for 1 in 3 family violence incidents reported in 2018, yet it continues to be such a normal part of our culture.
We can’t get enough of alcohol, but we’re punishing people for using an alternative without the alcohol's violent side effects.
My why for changing our drug laws is because legal recreational pot, education and normalisation can reduce domestic violence, minimise underage harm and could be the alternative that finally changes New Zealand’s binge drinking culture.
