For those who didn't know.....beer and wine can be sold (legally) to teens down to the age of 16 in Germany. Well....at least presently.
It's been this way for decades.
Hard booze? NO. Just beer and wine.
Somewhere in the 1990s, if you drove around unified 'new' Germany.....you'd tend to notice that there various teens you'd encounter as 'drunk'. Most Germans would say they didn't notice this problem in the 1960s/1970s. I can't really vouch for that detail.
It's come within the SPD Party discussions......that there's interest in halting beer and wine sales to anyone under the age of 18.
ARD (public TV) discussed the matter over the weekend.
The German Federal Commissioner for Addition/Drug Issues (Burkhard Blienert, SPD Party) has taken the position that the law must change.
Getting something like this passed? Well, you'd have to get the coalition to push this into draft form. Back three months ago in coalition talks....the only thing they (SPD-Greens-FDP) could agree upon.....was more information had to be pushed to the general public.
If you tried to prioritize this as a fixable problem in front of working-class Germans.....most would say it's NOT in the top one-hundred issues, and probably not in the top five-hundred problems.
Among teens who drink too much? I'd say that among teens turning 16....probably 50-percent will go and have a beer or two each weekend.
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