By Maura Bowman

THE LEGAL AGE for buying alcohol in Scotland could be raised from 18 to 21 in a bid to tackle the country’s drink problem—but the head of a Tayside alcohol dependency support group has already poured cold water on the proposal.

Frankie Claridge, director of Tayside Council on Alcohol, called for “Joe Public” to be more involved in Government discussions on combating Scotland’s drink culture.

She was speaking after public health minister Shona Robison revealed that raising the age limit is one of the strategies being considered.

Ms Robison said, “We all know that Scotland as a nation has a drink problem and the implications of this are very serious—not least for our health.

“The Scottish Government is developing a long-term alcohol strategy and as part of this we have been looking at a range of issues including availability, accessibility and age of purchase.

“At this stage nothing has been ruled in and nothing has been ruled out and we will present our proposals later this year.”

However the idea of raising the age found little favour with Ms Claridge.

“How are they going to uphold that when they can’t even uphold the age limit at 18? How will they police it and how will that work?”

She said the problem could not be tackled with one-off ideas.

“I think that if you are actually wanting to change the culture and drinking behaviour you have to look at a whole range of things.”

Ms Claridge added, “The debate has to go wider and we need to talk to Joe Public and set up a meaningful dialogue to find out what communities are facing and what communities want.”

It was revealed police in Dundee last year confiscated alcohol from 136 under-age drinkers—the youngest just 11.

Pointing out the need for a change in the drinking culture, she added, “The difficulty is that young people are choosing to drink.

“Even if you set up all sorts of social clubs for young people they would probably go from Monday to Thursday but may well choose to drink instead at the weekend.”

In most countries the legal age for buying alcohol is 18, but there are some nations, notably the US, where those buying drink must be 21 or over.

Confirmation Scottish ministers are considering the age for purchasing drink comes the day after the government announced health boards are to get £25 million to help combat alcohol abuse.

The money for NHS boards is more than twice the level of funding they received last year for this.

It forms part of an extra £85m earmarked for tackling alcohol abuse over the next three years.