Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has an­nounced that Gov­ern­ment will seek to raise the le­gal drink­ing age in T&T from 18 to 21. Leg­is­la­tion is ex­pect­ed to be in­tro­duced fol­low­ing the re­sump­tion of Par­lia­ment in Sep­tem­ber.

The pro­posed mea­sure is aimed at curb­ing un­der­age drink­ing and ad­dress­ing re­lat­ed pub­lic health and safe­ty con­cerns. If en­act­ed, T&T will align more close­ly with coun­tries such as the Unit­ed States, which en­forces a drink­ing age of 21, al­though it would con­trast with the Unit­ed King­dom, where the le­gal drink­ing age re­mains 18.

As the coun­try con­sid­ers this sig­nif­i­cant pol­i­cy shift, com­par­isons are be­ing drawn to how oth­er na­tions im­ple­ment and en­force drink­ing laws.