One of the most interesting things about alcohol is that British people apparently find it hard to talk about it calmly and rationally, even when they are stone cold sober!
Over the last 30 years, alcohol has became steadily more
affordable: price rises have consistently failed to keep pace with wage
increases and Governments have kept alcohol taxes artificially low compared to
other sources of revenue. As affordability has increased, so has consumption.
And – hardly surprisingly – as consumption has increased, so has the harm caused by
alcohol. Alongside this Government incentive to consumption, alcohol has also become more
available and more heavily marketed; the alcohol content in available drinks
has also increased and much larger wine glasses have become the norm. These are changes that many of us have seen in our lifetimes. In 2010, in England alone, there were
over 1 million alcohol-related hospital admissions for the first time, and
harms associated with problem drinking continue to rise.
A recent poll
commissioned by the Methodist Church and its partners found that 61% of adult
respondents in the UK felt there was a problem with excessive drinking in their
neighbourhood. But public disorder, violence and other visible effects of alcohol misuse are not just issues of morality and enforcement; above all, they are medical issues to be considered alongside liver and heart disease.The simple fact is alcohol is a legal and socially acceptable drug which can cause dangerous long-term effects both on the body and people's behaviour. It is essential that all alcohol policy should be informed by medical research.
Studies such as the University of Sheffield’s landmark 2008 research
(see e.g. http://www.shef.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.95621!/file/PartB.pdf) have shown that a minimum price per unit of alcohol of between 40p and 50p
would reduce health harms, public disorder, alcoholism and sick days, saving lives
and millions of pounds in costs to the NHS and Police. As noted by Quaker
Action on Alcohol and Drugs,(see http://www.qaad.org/wp-content/press-releases/alcohol-briefing-june-2011.pdf),
per unit minimum pricing has been recommended by the
Chief Medical Officer (2009), the Royal College of Physicians, the British
Medical Association (2008), the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE,
2010), the all-party Parliamentary Committee on Alcohol (2010), and Alcohol
Concern. Churches (including the Methodist, Baptist and
United Reformed Churches) and charities have backed this call and David Cameron
announced support for the per unit minimum price at the end of 2011, although
there is significant opposition within the Coalition Government.
Objectively, the key question is whether setting a minimum unit
price is illegal under European competition law. This remains to be established: there are grounds for believing that the health argument may take legal precedence. However there is a less rational criticism of minimum pricing that
keeps emerging. People take queries about their alcohol consumption personally
as a moral criticism saying, in essence, “who are you to tell me how much to
drink; I know my limits”. Yet doctors routinely deal with people in their 20s or
30s who have effectively destroyed their livers or even brain function through
excessive drinking without showing the clichéd signs of alcoholism.
Another illusory claim is that if the British had a continental
drinking culture like, for example, the French, we would not exhibit the worst
kinds of binge-drinking. Until around 30 years ago, Britain was essentially at the bottom of
alcohol harms in Europe and liver disease and other alcohol-related conditions
were high. During the same time period that drinking culture caught on the UK, France
started to reconsider its drinking culture, and harms have fallen.
10 years ago, even to question
the role of alcohol in society was to risk being accused of being a weirdo or
even worse, religious! Now many voices are saying our drink culture has gone
too far, even if many of these voices think it is only ‘other people’ who are
in danger.
It is time consider the similarities between the present time and the 19th and early 20th Century
heyday of the Temperance movement. Then as now, alcohol (like gambling) is an activity whose
abuse disproportionately harms the poorest and most vulnerable. Concern for
social justice means challenging policies which exploit the vulnerable.
Maybe instead of a new Temperance-style movement, based on the negative command to abstain from alcohol, Churches can offer a
positive vision of life in community. Hard as it is to believe nowadays,
Christians were once known for their radical joy. There may be nothing wrong
with spirits in moderation, but isn’t a society that becomes reliant on
chemical props one that has lost touch with the Spirit?
