It is now highly likely the min-istry will stick to the current age of 18 years old.

The backdown follows Cabinet's rejection on Tuesday of a new law to limit alcohol consumption. Ministers feared the proposal would not work in practice.

"Personally, I didn't agree [to extend the legal age to buy alcohol to 25] in the first place," said Dr Thawat Suntrajarn, head of the Disease Control Department.

"Since people of age 18 are eli-gible to vote, they should be mature enough to think for themselves on anything else," Thawat said. "We want it to be a practical directive, not just a piece of paper."

A ministry panel set up to look into the matter is due to meet with other groups involved in the issue at Government House on Tuesday to finalise their proposal, which will be resubmitted to the Cabinet within the next two weeks.

But Thawat said it was very like-ly to revert to the minimum age of 18, as currently stands. There were always two ideas throughout the drafting and public hearings on the bill, he said. One was for the legal age to remain at 18, whereas others favoured 25 years of age.

The side that wanted to extend the legal age to 25 reasoned that many undergraduate level students were involved in accidents in

which alcohol was a factor, Thawat said.

Therefore, they proposed the legal age should cover this group and pushed for a minimum age of 25, he explained.

In regard to the ban on ads for alcohol, Thawat said the exception made for live telecasts of international sports events was important.

"Of course, if we wanted to ban the live telecast, we could do so. But can we be sure of controlling the advertisement? No. There are always other ways [of banning ads from abroad] such as the Internet and satellite TV," he said.

Some local manufacturers called on the ministry this week to ban alcohol ads on telecasts broadcast live from overseas. They claim the exception will put local alcohol brands at a disadvantage.

At the meeting next Tuesday all concerned groups will discuss "acceptable" and "practical" ways to resolve matters such as this stemming from the bill, Thawat said.

"By 'acceptable', I mean reason-able," he said, adding he fully agreed that legal measures to control alcohol consumption should be carried out along with other measures, including tax and public education.

Meanwhile, Dr Taejing Siripanich, secretary general of the Don't Drive Drunk Foundation, was unhappy at developments.

Anyone who is allowed to consume alcoholic drinks should be an adult but Thais aged 18 were too immature, and many still be relied on their parents' money. "It would be better to set the minimum age at 20 or 21 - like the US," he said.

Arthit Khwankhom

The Nation