Society: The latest government plan to cut under-aged drinking is yet another police-led campaign.

Max Cruickshank

The latest government plan to cut under-aged drinking is yet another police-led campaign. This time, after the "success" of a six-week trial in Armadale, the Scottish Government is considering restricting access to alcohol, by barring anyone under 21 from purchasing it in an off license or supermarket.

This is nothing more than another public relations exercise, with the zany title of Challenge 21 - or Challenge 25 in Spar stores, where staff have been trained to demand ID from anyone who looks below that age.

These initiatives are doomed to failure. Was the pilot scheme in Armadale, West Lothian such a massive success? It targeted under 21's, two nights a week for a month. Police claim calls about antisocial behaviour, youth drinking and vandalism fell on Friday and Saturday evenings from an average of 11 to five.

But to replicate such saturation policing across the country would drain police and social justice budgets.

The same naive approach to youth disorder was tried 10 years ago with youth curfews in Hamilton, aimed at curbing youth violence and under-aged drinking. It was not sustainable. An expensive flop, not repeated anywhere in Britain - at least until last month, when it was resurrected in Cornwall.

Social problems such as obesity, drug addiction, smoking and alcohol misuse take decades to develop. The causes are extremely complex, so they will take decades of dedicated community work to solve. There are no cheap, quick or easy solutions.

Pulling together interested parties in "partnerships" is the method currently favoured to tackle complex social problems.

The "partnership" in this case includes: Alcohol Focus from the voluntary sector; the police; the licensing authorities; the licensed trade; academia and a variety of health professionals.

The bringing together of such a diverse group of people, with such powerful vested interests, always ends up with the powerful groups fighting for their own corner. The result is that the most powerful of the interest groups, dominate the debate.

The police, who have had decades to use their powers and resources to curb anti-social drinking, have failed miserably to enforce the drinking laws, perhaps because it would gain them no public or political support.

Now they seem happy to collaborate with the drinks industry, politicians or anyone else, to deny anyone under the age of 21 a drink, if that satisfies their vested interests.

The police, our guardians of the law, have got into bed with people who are now denying law abiding citizens their right in law, to purchase alcohol at the age of 18. What kind of message are we giving to young people when authority figures like the police and politicians seem to be flouting the laws when it suits their ends?

While they are bending the rules on one hand, the same powers are hypocritically coming down hard on young people for minor deviations from the law, such as the utterly confusing laws on cannabis.

The response to all this from young people is that the initiative will be easily got round. As one young man said to me last week: "It's not fair, but I suppose I will just have to buy my drink earlier on a Friday."

Politicians should have a serious public consultation on this and agree to work with young people, youth workers, the Youth Parliament and others to find solutions to the drinks problem.

The weaker parties in the "partnership", Alcohol Focus and Healthier Scotland, who should be delivering sensible drinking guidelines have been side-lined. When they should be educating the public on alcohol, this dubious "partnership" has been producing health education publications, with watered down health messages, in order to suit all the "partners".

The information is both confusing and just plain wrong. They contain only part of the legal facts, their message about units of alcohol is so badly written that it only causes confusion - as the Social Attitude's survey reported in yesterday's Herald confirmed. They cannot even agree between them what binge drinking is, so they just leave that message out.

If politicians had the real interests of the public in their minds then they would stand back from this and realise that the vested interests of such powerful "partners" as the drinks industry and the police, have no real interest in the healthy outcomes, only healthy bank balances and increased staffing budgets.

There are at least seven times more people dying from alcohol related illnesses than illegal drugs. So why do we spend many times more on the drugs problem than on the alcohol problem?

And surely politicians would not think it appropriate to invite the drugs barons to the table to solve the drugs problem. So why are they happy to get into bed with the drinks industry to solve the alcohol problem?

Drink should cost around twice as much as it currently does. The medical profession has supported realistic pricing but is not a powerful enough vested interest group to win the argument.

Investing in anti-poverty policies, providing kids and young people with healthy alternatives and social activities is far cheaper than the failed policies we keep repeating.

If our politicians are serious about dealing with the alcohol problem, we can't rely any longer on gesture politics and PR cons.

Max Cruickshank is a youth work consultant and health issues trainer based in Hamilton