Over the weekend, the Sydney Morning Herald published a piece that illustrated the dangers of Little Fat Lamb, the go-to alcohol for a lot of young drinkers: it tastes good enough, and it’s good value for money. You can get it in a bunch of colourful flavours like cola (the best) and tropical (the absolute, disgusting worst).

When the SMH described the drink it didn’t sound as fun.

The article included quotes from people calling for the drink to be taxed more, and saying that its signature bottles look too much like a soft drink and are therefore too appealing to young people.

The piece speculated that if Little Fat Lamb was anonymously making memes as part of its marketing push — the cider has a cult following on social media — then it was acting illegally.

I get the arguments for drinking less, and obviously think Little Fat Lamb should market itself within the law. But here’s the thing — young people are drinking both less and more expensively than we ever have in the past.

This whole debate is giving the media a better time than a couple of glasses of chardonnay. Already, the Daily Mail and Today Show have jumped onto the story. Nine News followed up with a story full of photos of teenagers holding the famous bottles. Scary stuff.

$4 For 8 Drinks? Not Really

The main claim is that Little Fat Lamb is too cheap. The SMH‘s headline warned that kids were paying “$4 for eight drinks”.

That’s pretty misleading. One lone bottle-o in Melbourne sold the drink for $3.99 for one day only in March — usually, Little Fat Lamb retails for $8.

Eight dollars for eight standard drinks means LFL isn’t even the cheapest option: goon goes at around three standards-per-dollar, and even cheap vodka and beers (hello, Aldi) get you drunk for cheaper.

And if your parents are buying bottles of wine for $10 or less, then they’re getting pretty much the same value for money — and no one’s arguing that those drinks are too cheap or should be taken off the shelves.

So it’s not as though Little Fat Lamb is drastically undercutting the market. They’re already more expensive than other options.

But a lot of critics also say that Little Fat Lamb is bad because its advertised like a soft drink. They say that there are statistics showing that younger drinkers are turning to Little Fat Lamb more, and that this is reason enough to make it harder to buy.

Again, this is wrong.

Research from late last year showed just how rapidly overall alcohol consumption had fallen in the past two decades. In 1999, 45 percent of adolescents reported that they had drunk in the past month, while only 25 percent did so when asked in 2015.

Underage drinking is now at a record low too: 80 percent of 12-17 year olds don’t drink. Young adults engage in less “risky drinking”. Studies consistently show that young people today are opposed to heavy drinking in larger numbers than our parents were.

Despite all this, there are calls to tax our Little Fat Lambs more.

This Is Nothing New

The price of alcohol is a recurring debate. These calls follow similar discussions last year over whether products like goon should be taxed at higher rates. In 2008, Kevin Rudd raised taxes on “alcopops” — pre-mixed spirits-based drinks, like Cruisers — by 70 percent, as part of a moral panic over the drinks.

A study on the tax found that it didn’t reduce hospital visits for alcohol-related incidents, and increased sales in pure spirits by 20 percent in the three years after the tax was introduced.

Look, maybe a tax does discourage drinking. Maybe. But fear-mongering articles that simplify the debate don’t help anyone. I’m ready to be convinced, but so far, old people, you haven’t done it.

In the meantime: lay off my Little Fat Lamb.