Not content with widening the definition of “passive drinking,” some neoprohibitionists have been taking their war against alcohol to the next level, by restricting access to some alcohol-free drinks.

Britain’s Labour government — which is, remarkably, even more authoritarian than its recent Conservative predecessors — is, the Daily Telegraph reports, considering making it illegal to sell certain alcohol-free (defined under British rules as containing less than 0.05 percent alcohol by volume) or low alcohol (under 1.2 per cent ABV) drinks to 16- and 17-year-olds, an age group, incidentally, to which Labour plans to extend the vote.

Ashley Dalton, a health minister, explained that her target was not soft drinks, but products such as alcohol-free beers and wines for the perfectly logical (sarc) reason that they could act as a gateway to demon drink:

This is a newly emerging area, but there is some evidence to suggest that exposure to alcohol-like products, even if low or zero alcohol, can normalize drinking, and become a gateway to alcohol consumption.

“Some evidence” is, apparently enough to justify intervention, although in the second quote provided by the Telegraph, she tried to go a little further:

Earlier alcohol use initiation is linked to a higher risk of harmful drinking patterns later in life.

The eagle-eyed will notice that this is a reference to earlier alcohol use. . . .

Unfortunately, Dalton may be less of an outlier than she should be.

Take a look at the U.S. Although under federal law, under-21s can buy non-alcoholic beer, that is not the case in a good number of states. Many of these rules have been in place for decades and some appear to be a by-product of laws governing “malt beverages,” which include non-alcoholic beer.

Non-alcoholic beers, wine, mocktails, and their kin are clearly beginning to attract the attention of the nanny state crowd well beyond Britain. The abstract of a 2024 article for JAMA Pediatrics (a journal published by the American Medical Association) by Molly Bowdring and Judith Prochaska reads as follows:

The availability and popularity of nonalcoholic beverages (NABs) that mimic alcohol are burgeoning, with US sales increasing 15% to 30% yearly since 2018. Popular NAB types include nonalcoholic beer, wine, liquor, and “mocktails.” The US Food and Drug Administration defines nonalcoholic beer and wine as having less than 0.5% alcohol by volume (ABV). Youth NAB use is a concern because it may socialize users to alcohol-drinking experiences by exposing them to the taste, look, and even brands of alcoholic beverages, as alcohol producers are increasingly developing nonalcoholic products.

In an NPR discussion on this topic, Bowdring warned that NABs “could be an entry product for alcohol use. There are so many cues in nonalcoholic beverages that mirror the alcoholic counterpart.”

NPR’s Pien Huang:

Cues like how they taste and smell, and the cultural experience of sipping from a coozied beer can or a fancy glass. The market for these beverages has grown steadily and got a big boost during the pandemic. There’s no evidence that it’s led kids in the U.S. to drink, but Bowdring argues there should be laws in place to get ahead of that. [Emphasis added.]

To be fair, there is some evidence from elsewhere that NABs might do this, but if this CNN report is any guidance, it’s less than definitive. For example:

In Australia, where the legal drinking age is 18, researchers conducted focus groups and surveyed teens ages 15 to 17 about the use of what they called zero-alcohol beverages. They found that more than a third had tried zero-alcohol drinks, and more than 1 in 5 were drinking them at least monthly. In the survey, teens who said they had tried zero-alcohol drinks were 2.5 times more likely to have also drunk alcohol compared with those who’d never had them.

Correlation does not equal causation.

No matter, here’s Bowdring on NPR:

If we leave the door open to there being a marketing push for nonalcoholic beverage use among kids, could that then lead to increased alcohol use among this generation? And we don’t want to wait to find out if that’s going to happen.