Up until 1973, Australia had a Minimum Legal Drinking Age of 21. Because of the Vietnam war, it was argued that if someone was old enough to go to war, they were old enough to drink. Now, under an ‘ocker’ drink culture mindset, that may make some strange sense, but when one actually dissects that logic, all sorts of issues and concerns both arise and left un-addressed. Ah, but such is the power of ‘memes’ (made even more potent by social media manipulation) The campaign, as we understand it, started in about 1969 and South Australia was the last state to drop the age. It has not gone well for us as a culture, not least our youth. In the United States, in most states you have to 21 to drink and that was essentially (if not introduced) enshrined in the 1980’s – The result was a stark difference in reducing the harms, that we Aussies had unwittingly unleased. The science now tells us that the delaying of alcohol use (or any other drug) to 21 is a very good start – 18 is too young. In the late 1980’s our movement initiated the 21 Be There campaign. It got no traction. However, when we re-ignited it in 2012, things were different. It culminated in a National Summit at Parliament House Canberra, received nationwide all medium coverage and saw a national poll saying that 50 percent of Australians thought raising the MLDA to 21 was a good more. Alas political will did not match and the target of raising the age did not happen. However – This campaign acted as a lightning rod for other alcohol change measures and we saw aggressive changes in alcohol and the young begin. The science is still there, the measure still valid and the campaign still continues.