Bodoe: Govt cannot remain ‘passive observer’ on youth drinking

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe says high lev­els of binge drink­ing among young adults and ear­ly al­co­hol use among school­child­ren show why the Gov­ern­ment can­not re­main a “pas­sive ob­serv­er” and must in­ter­vene to pro­tect young peo­ple.

Speak­ing dur­ing de­bate on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill, 2026, in the Sen­ate, Bo­doe re­ject­ed ar­gu­ments that the pro­posed age re­stric­tions were an at­tack on young peo­ple.

“I want to say here to­day that this Bill is for young peo­ple,” Bo­doe said.

He de­scribed the leg­is­la­tion as pro­vid­ing “le­gal guardrails” to pro­tect young peo­ple from sub­stances and be­hav­iours that could cause “phys­i­cal, men­tal, and emo­tion­al harm” in both the short and long term.

The Bill seeks to raise the le­gal age for al­co­hol and to­bac­co from 18 to 21, while in­creas­ing the age for le­gal cannabis pos­ses­sion and use to 25.

Bo­doe said the da­ta he pre­sent­ed was drawn from sources in­clud­ing the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s 2024 Glob­al Sta­tus Re­port on Al­co­hol and Health and Treat­ment of Sub­stance Use Dis­or­ders, the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Drug Coun­cil, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the In­ter­na­tion­al Agency for Re­search on Can­cer.

Ac­cord­ing to Bo­doe, the da­ta showed young adults be­tween 18 and 24 had the high­est con­cen­tra­tion of heavy episod­ic, or binge, drink­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“So, it would ap­pear that this Gov­ern­ment is on the right path be­cause this is re­al­ly where the prob­lem is,” he said.

Bo­doe said Na­tion­al Drug Coun­cil uni­ver­si­ty sur­veys showed 31 per cent of ter­tiary stu­dents re­port­ed heavy episod­ic drink­ing, while young adult males were 2.5 times more like­ly to en­gage in heavy binge drink­ing.

He al­so cit­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go Sec­ondary School Sub­stance Use Sur­vey, which he said showed 80 per cent of sec­ondary school stu­dents re­port­ed life­time al­co­hol use, while 25 per cent of ado­les­cents be­tween 13 and 15 re­port­ed hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly been drunk.

“A star­tling, again, wor­ri­some sta­tis­tic,” Bo­doe said.

The Health Min­is­ter al­so sought to make the sci­en­tif­ic case for the pro­posed age lim­its, say­ing the hu­man brain con­tin­ues de­vel­op­ing in­to ear­ly adult­hood.

“The hu­man brain de­vel­op­ment con­tin­ues well in­to ear­ly adult­hood, typ­i­cal­ly com­plet­ing around age 25,” he said, not­ing that he was draw­ing not on­ly on his role as Health Min­is­ter but his “40 years in med­ical prac­tice.”

Bo­doe said the pre­frontal cor­tex, re­spon­si­ble for ex­ec­u­tive func­tion, long-term plan­ning, im­pulse con­trol and risk as­sess­ment, is the last re­gion of the brain to ful­ly ma­ture.

He ar­gued that rais­ing the pur­chas­ing age to 21 could al­so make it more dif­fi­cult for younger teenagers to ob­tain al­co­hol and to­bac­co through old­er friends.

“When the le­gal pur­chas­ing age is 18, school se­niors and re­cent grad­u­ates serve as le­gal buy­ers with­in the school cir­cles,” Bo­doe said.

“So we break that chain. Rais­ing the age thresh­old to 21 cre­ates a dis­tinct so­cial buffer.”

He said da­ta showed more than 80 per cent of un­der­age users ob­tained va­p­ing and to­bac­co prod­ucts from friends or ac­quain­tances be­tween 18 and 20.

“So we put a block there,” he said.

Bo­doe al­so point­ed to in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence, say­ing the Unit­ed States record­ed re­duc­tions in mo­tor ve­hi­cle crash­es and youth al­co­hol con­sump­tion af­ter es­tab­lish­ing 21 as the min­i­mum drink­ing age.

He con­trast­ed that with Aus­tralia and New Zealand, where he said low­er­ing drink­ing ages was fol­lowed by in­creas­es in youth traf­fic crash­es.

“What are the ben­e­fits of what we are propos­ing here to­day?” Bo­doe asked, say­ing rais­ing the drink­ing age to 21 had been as­so­ci­at­ed with a “10% to 16% re­duc­tion in youth fa­tal traf­fic col­li­sions.”

On cannabis, Bo­doe said the pro­posed age of 25 was al­so ground­ed in con­cerns about brain de­vel­op­ment.

He said heavy cannabis use be­fore 25 was linked to po­ten­tial im­pair­ment in work­ing mem­o­ry, pro­cess­ing speed and sus­tained at­ten­tion.

“So, I think this makes the case for rais­ing that age lim­it to 25,” Bo­doe said.

He stressed, how­ev­er, that leg­is­la­tion must be ac­com­pa­nied by pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion, point­ing to 37 school and stu­dent-fo­cused out­reach ac­tiv­i­ties con­duct­ed by the Health Min­istry’s Health Ed­u­ca­tion Di­vi­sion dur­ing fis­cal 2026.

“Pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion is a very im­por­tant part and com­ple­ment to the leg­isla­tive mea­sures we are propos­ing here,” he said. “We have to reach them ear­li­er.”

Bo­doe closed by de­scrib­ing the mea­sures as “mea­sured, pro­por­tion­ate, and proven pub­lic health in­ter­ven­tions.”

“We can­not re­main as pas­sive ob­servers. We have to do some­thing about the prob­lem,” he said.

The Bill was passed with 15 gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors vot­ing in favour, 12 sen­a­tors vot­ing against and three in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ab­stain­ing.