When doing my weekly round-up, I came across one post that I wanted to go into a bit more detail on my response. The BMA have outlined steps that they believe would help curb the culture of binge drinking. As much as I hate to disagree with a group who probably know a hell of a lot more about it than me, I’m going to disagree with one of their points regardless. I firmly believe that a minimum unit price is not the way forward in dealing with binge drinking or alcoholism.
But I should also point out, that this is not the policy of the party. The federal Liberal Democrat Party back this idea. An amendment to the Welsh Liberal Democrat conference against minimum pricing was defeated, meaning we do not have a set policy at present. But I’m not the type to write what the party believes anyway….
I do however agree with the BMA on labelling though. It is only recently that there has been a significant increase in the number of manufacturers that detail how many units are in each bottle or can. It can be quite a shock to see what the difference in alcohol is between a higher and lower strength lager for example, or in different sizes of cans or pints. I’d always thought of a can of Carlsberg and a pint of Stella to be around the same, a unit known as ‘one beer’ in the technical depths of my mind. But a can of Carlsberg contains 1.67 units of alcohol whereas a pint of Stella contains just short of 3 units. They might both be ‘one beer’ in my head, but one pint of Stella is equal to almost two cans of Carlsberg.
Something that should also be included on labels is the calorie content of these drinks. Better labelling on food has altered the way I shop. Things that I thought would be healthy turn out not to be, but some things turn out not to be as bad. Pointing out to people the effect that their drinking has on their belly could encourage many younger people to have a few less. Alcohol can contain a huge amount of calories. Ten pints and a kebab is more than an adult male’s recommended daily calorie intake after all.
Medically, there is no difference between the affluent professional who can afford to get pissed on good quality red wine every night whist telling themselves they are being civilised, and the guy who gets hammered on Carling in his house whist watching The Bill cause that is all he can afford. Both are damaging themselves, but only one will be put off by higher prices.
There are many who are responsible drinkers that will find themselves unable to indulge should minimum prices be introduced. I will declare an interest here and state that may even affect me. I can’t afford (after years of student loans and forced debt bondage by a Labour government) to go out as often as I’d like. Drinking in Cardiff can be expensive. So I am quite partial to drinking in my house with friends. It’s cheaper, and I can have just as good of a time in as out.
Minimum pricing would punish me for doing this, whist not affecting many who do have a problem. Those who will be most affected will be the poorest in our communities. Anyone with an alcohol problem and a bit of spare cash will not feel an impact.
It seems that inherent within this idea is an assumption that we trust middle class drinkers more than we trust working class drinkers. This proposal creates a bias in the system against the poor. The government would be saying ‘you’re not allowed booze, but the rich are’ without noting who is actually abusing it.
The problems with alcohol are not based around supply, but around out attitude and culture towards it.
Minimum pricing would not stop those who wish to abuse alcohol. They will still be able to afford to if they so wish, except for maybe the poorest of the poor. Why should responsible but poor drinkers pay for the excess of middle class alcoholics, who will still be able to afford their habit?
It is regressive and illiberal and would fly in the face of the current strategy of liberalising drinking laws in this country. 24 hour drinking has not entirely worked, but that is because it takes more than a few years to change drinking culture in this country. The aim of changing our attitude to alcohol is the right approach. Allowing pubs to open longer will eventually improve the British way of drinking, but it will take time. To start putting regressive policies in place on alcohol will only make this take longer.
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It is also just ineffective policy. If the aim is to reduce drinking levels, then the minimum unit price needs to be high in order to actually dissuade people from buying cheap alcohol (and bear in mind here that the price for alcoholics is likely to be highly inelastic) or the policy won’t work. A low price of say 40 or 50p a unit simply won’t have the desired effect because it is barely higher than the cost of most drinks now other than the supermarket lossleaders.
People who claim that this won’t deter casual drinkers are either not grasping basic economic theory or are misleading us as to how high they plan the cost to be.
I think it’s the licensing laws that need to be looked at rather than pricing. The bars that dominate our cities these days all encourage binge drinking through special offers and the volume of their music. Scientists have found that the amount of drink consumed can be reduced by a fifth if the volume of the music is at a sensible level that allows conversation. Drinking should be returned to what it should be, a social lubricant. For too many people, the only means of entertaining themselves in a bar is to drink competitively and laugh at how much of a state their friends get into. If the volume of the music were reduced they could actually talk to each other and perhaps find entertainment that way.
http://ewansliberalmusings.blogspot.com/2009/08/proper-solution-to-binge-drinking-based.html
I’d agree that there should be quieter places available, although I am not sure how this would best be achieved.
Too often on a night out I find that the only places are open have loud music, and sometimes that just isn’t what I’m after. Unfortunately it seems that this is what the majority want or I’m sure such place would exist. I guess we are forgetting that the aim of such places is, at the end of the day, to shift as much of their products as possible in order to make a profit. A pub that is open all day has longer to attempt to do this than a club that is only open from 10pm until 3am for example. While a pub can sit back and wait for people to drink slowly, a club wants them to drink as quickly as possible.
Interesting that I saw a piece on the news that in order to ‘curb’ binge drinking, one council had introduced a whole raft of measures such as no standing at the bar, an orderly queing system (policed by security guards) and a minimum security presence, and CCTVs. Certain large bars will be required to introduce these measures if they want to keep their licence.
I forget which council it was, but somewhere in Lancashire I think
Anyway, the whole approach seems to be wrong… I mean if we’re trying to introduce some kind of cafe culture, mainland European, civilised drinking type situation (whatever the fuck that means), wuold it not be better to introduce table service perhaps?
Just a thought. But one thing is for sure, turning bars into some kind of military zone won’t achieve that aim.
However, as good as the comments on licensing etc are, they miss the point that THESE PLACES WILL NOT BE AFFECTED. Alcohol in these places is expensive. It’s the 24 cans bulkbuys in the supermarket that are the issue. Unless the BMA are lying about how much they plan to charge,
Alcoholism is a major problem in modern culture. Each has there own liberty of course which the Liberals promote. Standing on doors for years I see how pathetic people are when they are drunk and unruly. Drunkeness and binge drinking provide a temporary psychosis, a self poisoning metaphor, an intoxicating malaise of stupidity.
There is nothing like lucidity! Nothing like winning a scrap fair and square with a yapping , jibbering fool! Picking up afterwards and telling him what he is doing is wrong. Not just to himself but to the culture we live in.