Alcohol abuse by young people is one of biggest social problems for local councils in the Netherlands. Use of alcohol in some cases begins at the age of 11 years and many youngsters under 16 have already been drunk on one or more occasions.
Therefore, on April 2nd a Conference on the prevention of alcohol abuse by young people was held in the Alkmaar region Kennemerland. Invited for this conference in Heerhugowaard are municipality mayors and aldermen, policy employees, council members and communication consultants of the municipalities in North Kennemerland, as well as schools, yourth workers and organisations wich work on care and treatment of alcohol and drug addicts and national advisors on alcohol prevention (STAP).  
At the request of the municipalities in the region the GGD (public health authority) under the guidance of the Alkmaar alderman Van Veen has drawn up a broad programme plan.  The programme plan consits of three parts: communication to the general public and parents, educational interventions targetten on youth, and regulations and law-enforcement.
In the Neterlands the minimum age wich allowes the purchase of alcohol is 16 years. During the conference the results of the compliance research `Buying Alcohol by Young people under 16’ was presented by Joris van Hoof of the university Twente. This research was done with so-called `mystery shoppers’, who visited selling points of alcohol (shops, bars and restaurants). The results of investigation on our region must be labelled alarming. In more than 85% of the attempt the mystery shoppers succeeded in buying alcohol.  Afterwards Joost Mulder of STAP gave a presentation of their policy advice which originate from aforementioned compliance research.
At the end of the meeting 95% voted in favour of the programme plan, wich wil come to action in this summer.

Hans de Vries, Municipality of Alkmaar (hdevries@alkmaar.nl)