Downing Street Says » Alcohol Abuse

The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister and Hazel Blears would attend an alcohol abuse event this afternoon. Alcohol abuse was an issue to which the Prime Minister attached great importance. As the recent Crime Survey had underlined, binge drinking had now become a major problem. The Survey showed that 44% of victims of crime thought that their assailant was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the attack. Other figures showed that around 70% of weekend night admissions to Casualty were due to alcohol. Binge drinking had now clearly become one of the significant causes of crime. That was why the Prime Minister would be attending today’s industry-organised seminar where he would make a speech to discuss the National Alcohol Strategy. He would say, “Millions of people drink alcohol responsibly every day. No one wants to stop that pleasure. But there is a clear and growing problem on our town and city centre streets up and down the country on Friday and Saturday nights. At a time when overall crime is falling, alcohol related violent crime is rising. New powers are there. They need to be used. As a society we must make sure that binge drinking does not become the new British Disease”.

Asked for an update on the Government’s plans for twenty-four hour drinking, the PMOS referred journalists to the Licensing Act which would deal with issues regarding opening hours and the like.

Asked what the Prime Minister wanted the drinks industry to do about alcohol abuse, the PMOS said that we were launching a consultation process in which we would consider ways that industry could help. One proposal was the establishment of a Voluntary Responsibility Scheme where industry could perhaps make a financial contribution towards meeting the costs of alcohol misuse. This would be paid into local funds which would be collected and managed by local authorities, with councils at an individual authority level covering their costs through contributions received. The money could be used to cover costs for additional Community Support Officers, additional cleaning, additional bus services, or setting up Pub Watch scheme. Details were still at the consultation stage and had yet to be developed, but those were examples of some of the issues being considered.

Asked why the industry should be taxed for the behaviour of individuals, the PMOS said the Prime Minister believed that we all had a part to play in educating people in how to drink alcohol responsibly. Obviously he did not want to stop people enjoying a drink. However, he wanted them to be aware of the damage that alcohol-related crime was doing to society as a whole. That was why he believed it was important to do something to tackle the problem collectively. This would involve the Government, individuals, and industry all playing a part.

Asked if the Government was planning to review its drinking guidelines to prevent binge drinking, the PMOS said not as far as he was aware. He pointed out that those who engaged in binge drinking deliberately flouted the guidelines in any event. Asked if the Government would launch a publicity drive to highlight the guidelines, the PMOS said that the Government consistently publicised what the guidelines were. In our view, the industry also needed to take part-ownership of the education process on binge drinking.

25 Comments »

To combat health problems caused by tobacco use – both to excess and in moderation – Ireland has very sensibly banned all smoking in the work-place, including pubs.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine what a health-neutral non-binge level of alcohol intake should be for any particular individual. Therefore, following Ireland’s example, it seems appropriate for the UK to ban all alcohol consumption in the work-place, especially in pubs but also in all public places.

In the past, the UK has actively sought advice on eg "zero tolerance policing" from overseas law enforcement authorities such as the New York Police Department. Tips on introducing a new law banning alcohol consumption could also usefully be gleaned from the prohibition-era archives of the USA. But Saudi Arabia might offer the best contemporary model of an anti-alcohol regime for us to adopt.
Comment by Patrick Haseldine — 20 May 2004 on 9:55 pm | Link
If it was possible to ban alcohol, every government on earth would have done so already; I suggest a good read of "The History of Narcotics", which is basically a study of narcotics law through the 15th century to present.

The problem is, you can only legislate things you can police; Prohibition, when the public in question has no interest in being prohibited, doesn’t work. It’s the whole reason the war on some drugs has failed.

Banning tobacco in public works because people are willing to not smoke in public; that’s different than a complete ban.

Alcoholics do the most damage when they drink alone, in their own home; arguably, the worst thing Britain could do for alcoholics is to ban the pub.
Comment by Gregory Block — 21 May 2004 on 10:23 am | Link
Also worthy of note: Saudi Arabia has lots of alcohol, and lots of people who drink it. And they’re not all foreigners.
Comment by Gregory Block — 21 May 2004 on 10:24 am | Link
A couple of years ago in Cambridge I was with a few friends trying to go to the pub in the evening. Every single one we went to said it was closed, and give different and strange excuses – staff shortages, no power, all sorts of things.

After about the tenth pub we figured something else was afoot. Eventually we found an honest pub with a notice explaining what was going on.
The police had rung up every pub and requested that they close because a football team with particularly violent supporters was playing Cambridge United that evening, and they didn’t want Cambridge town centre to become dangerous. They had all obeyed and closed.

As a regular drinker I was actually quite happy about this. My drug of choice makes lots of people violent, and I should accept some responsibility for that. If the penalty is that sometimes I can’t have a beer when and where I like, then so be it. So, for example, I would happily accept a ban on street drinking in Cambridge, which is a topic of some local discussion here.
Comment by Francis Irving — 21 May 2004 on 10:34 am | Link
Heavy drinking is not a problem, it is a symptom of a problem. This is just more nonsense from politicians trying to solve symptoms instead of problems.

For some people, they drink because they have become an alcoholic. This is one area where education might help both in preventing people developing an adiction and helping those who have an adiction (or people around them) to recognise the problem and seek help.

Most people who drink heavily or binge drink do not have a physical adiction so the question remains ‘why do they do it?’. This is not the place for a comprehensive psycosocial discussion of the causes for substance abuse but it clearly has very little to do with how easy it is to get hold of alcohol – so bans are not the solution. Perhaps the Government should be looking at why people are so unhappy/frustrated/agressive? Its not going to lead to a nice simple politicians solution but it would be much more worthwhile and I do think the Government could take action to help solve the problem.
Comment by Uncarved Block — 21 May 2004 on 1:43 pm | Link
Would the government really want to ban drinking? if it weren’t for the tax revenue issue would smoking not have already been banned?

Drinking culture is quite prevalent in the uk, alcohol is cheaper in most other european countries, and consumption less restricted.

As Uncarved Block says, the drinking isn’t the problem, it is a symptom. Much like i gun culture is a symptom and not the problem. The governments approach to such matters always reminds me of a doctor attempting to surgically remove spots on a patient with chicken pox.

After all this, I don’t really know what the actual problem is – dissatisfaction with the general way of life?
Comment by lodjer — 21 May 2004 on 2:20 pm | Link
Banning smoking will meet with the same problems as has plagued prohibition of any drug to date; its popularity, as a drug, would reflect negatively on any government, and the intense lobbying by the tobacco industries, both from outside government on the populace as well as from within by insiders would be almost insurmountable.

Drinking is the same, and worse, in many ways – smokers are prepared to pay more for their cigarettes, whereas the whole of Britain seems to stand up and shout every time the price of a pint of beer goes up.
Comment by Gregory Block — 21 May 2004 on 2:32 pm | Link
"Most people who drink heavily or binge drink do not have a physical adiction so the question remains ‘why do they do it?’. This is not the place for a comprehensive psycosocial discussion of the causes for substance abuse but it clearly has very little to do with how easy it is to get hold of alcohol – so bans are not the solution. Perhaps the Government should be looking at why people are so unhappy/frustrated/agressive? Its not going to lead to a nice simple politicians solution but it would be much more worthwhile and I do think the Government could take action to help solve the problem."

Here’s an interesting point: Binge drinking is, in and of itself, a problem. It may have causes, but do not ignore the fact, and it is a fact, that a person who binge drinks has a problem.

Here’s the problem in Britain: Nobody actually thinks so. People don’t think there’s anything wrong with this behavior, so why on earth would anyone feel like curbing it? We’re all willing to forgo smoking in specific situations because it’s seen as socially unacceptable; social unacceptability is the single strongest reason why people don’t think it’s OK to drive while they’re drunk. Solving the problem of how Britain *thinks* about drunkenness, and making people look at it as a problem, even a problem with a possible cause, has to be the first step.

As in any problem like this, the first step is to realize that there’s a problem in the first place – and that means talking about binge drinking, in and of itself, as a problem, first and foremost. Fail to change the social acceptability of binge drinking, and it becomes a solution to any problem – whether that problem is unemployment, overworked and poor workplaces, social injustice, you name it – alcohol is everyone’s preferred solution for forgetting their problems, and British people don’t think there’s anything particularly odd about getting absolutely hammered.

You think that’s not a problem?
Comment by Gregory Block — 21 May 2004 on 3:02 pm | Link
What is wrong with just leaving people to do their own thing? If half the country wants to drink themselves into a stupor, so what? There has always been the problem of violence associated with excessive alcohol – it’s not new, or even recent. In my own experience, it is the younger drinkers who often cause trouble; that isn’t to say ALL youngsters cannot hold their drink but cutting down on the number of obviously underage drinkers would start to alleviate the problem. How about just insisting that people produce ID to get into a pub or club? No ID, no admittance. Ok, we don’t yet have an official form of ID but there are plenty of others. If you don’t have ID you don’t drink, end of story.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 21 May 2004 on 3:08 pm | Link
"a person who binge drinks has a problem"

This is an oversimplification. When I say that binge drinking is a symptom not a problem that is what I mean. How am I causing harm by going to the local and drinking ten pints? If i do it because I am clinically depressed and have no other way of coping with the situation, then it is a problem. If on the other hand, I have just had a busy week at work, and am just doing it to unwind, then what harm am i causing? I am causing some harm to myself, but that is a)not a great deal of harm (given that I am not an alcoholic) and b)my problem.

I don’t see how it in itself is a problem.

As P J O’Rourke puts it (as i remember)
a) the world is terrible place
b) alcohol helps to forget this
therefore:
anyone with a conscience is never found sober after 7pm.

Given the number of things that are seriously wrong with the world, and that he is actively participating in some of them, I think Tony should shut up and f**k off.

Besides, i seem to remember a certain Blair family member being quite fond of the odd binge or two.
Comment by lodjer — 21 May 2004 on 3:33 pm | Link
The problem that I have with ‘binge drinking’ is the definition.
Apparently if you drink more than a couple of glasses of red wine in a day you become a ‘binge drinker’.
Over an agreable meal with good company I can manage a bottle of red wine. So I guess I must have a drinking problem.
The problem I have is that politicians and researchers who probably also can drink a bottle in an evening are classifying me as a ‘binge drinker’.

Maybe we could come up with some more useful threshold values for things like ‘inveterate liar’ – more than two evasions of the truth in a day.
Comment by Roger Huffadine — 22 May 2004 on 11:54 am | Link
"If on the other hand, I have just had a busy week at work, and am just doing it to unwind, then what harm am i causing?"

And that’s exactly my point.

This isn’t about people arguing over whether a couple of drinks in a pub is "binge drinking". This is about individuals protecting their god-given right to get completely and utterly drunk and have that be socially acceptable.

The whole of history, for 400 years, is littered with drug control laws, enacted to ensure that the drugs don’t affect the productivity of workers; the bans on opium and other narcotics often referenced it directly. Hell people will happily tell you that the reasons pubs don’t stay open past 11 is because nobody would make it into work sober in the morning.

This is NOT normal. This does NOT happen on the rest of the planet. Britain is a bloody freakshow when it comes to drunkenness – and to pretend that it’s normal is just that – to pretend.

"Not hurting anybody" is relative. It’s not just about the NHS calls, or the drunk driving incidents, or the violence, or the policing. Just look around Japan – the streets are littered with pissed people who vomit on trains after getting out of the bars at 6 in the morning so that they can get a little more sober before getting home to change clothes to go into the office.

People, at some point, need to move their definiton of what "extreme" is. Tokyo’s drinking problem is ‘extreme’. Britain’s drinking problem is ‘extreme’.

This isn’t about getting pissed. This is about lots of people getting completely wankered and staggering home every bloody night of the week. Hell, some people get pissed three out of five days in a working week, to the point where they’re getting pretty good at operating while pissed, and think they’re doing a lot better than many others.

Sooner or later, someone’s going to have to wake the hell up and realize that there’s a problem – that, like Essex girls and sex, Britain doesn’t know how to say no to "aww, come on, just one more pint".
Comment by Gregory Block — 22 May 2004 on 11:51 pm | Link
Indeed there are a lot of people who are ‘alcoholic’ and twas ever thus.
If the spin was focusing on ‘alcoholism’ and the provision of services to reduce its effects on society then you would hear my applause.
The spin is on a randomly selected threshold for the definition of a ‘binge’ and that is what caused my ‘whinge’.
The sad truth is that regardless of how many statistics we see the number of alcoholics will not reduce until there are appropriate support services to deal with the problem.
It looks like the government ‘might’ impose charges on drinks companies to pay for policing [but not for support services to alcoholics], my bet is that this will be introduced as a tax and will be spent on ‘educational’ trips for MPs.
Comment by Roger Huffadine — 23 May 2004 on 11:27 am | Link
<I>This is about individuals protecting their god-given right to get completely and utterly drunk and have that be socially acceptable.</I>

Yes, Gregory, that’s exactly what it’s about. It’s <i>my</i> right to get langered three nights out of five if that’s what I so choose. That’s what being an adult is about. And, frankly, as a productive member of society, you and the government can take your nose the hell out of my business.

And what it’s also about it is a public health lobby outside democratic control providing countless well-paid jobs at the tax payers expense using my money to tell me what way I should live my life. No, actually if they were just telling me that would be fine. I can listen to what they and others have to say and make an informed choice. However, they’re seeking to control the way I live my life through legislation and taxation. What’s worse is that the eejits are too blinkered to see that controlling physical health can lead to serious damage to the fabric of society. E.g. high tobacco taxes have given a large number of criminals a cushy life through smuggling, and given the rest of us a major organised crime problem.

As others have pointed out, excess drinking is a problem usually associated with young people – like Friday night fighting and recreational drug use. Most of us get over it. The government likes to boast that we’re one of the most successful economy in the world one moment, then the next whitters on about alcohol abuse. Surely, if that were the case, we’d have a society like China during the Opium Wars and we’d all die at 55. We don’t.
Comment by Young Fogey — 24 May 2004 on 1:29 am | Link
I’ll agree with you on the issue of legislation – the pub laws should be changed, the venues should be allowed to open for as long as they choose; that level of archaic lawmaking has no place in modern society. "Last call" should vanish – last call should be when the pub wants to close, not when the government wants it to.

I’ll disagree with you on taxes – so long as the sin tax collected from alcohol is used to cure the social ramifications of its ills and to follow a harm-reduction strategy.

And I’ll completely disagree with your opinion on binge drinking – as is my right to do so, and note that public opinion can’t be legislated, but continue to hope that public opinion on binge drinking will change enough that getting completely lathered three nights out of five isn’t considered socially acceptable.

I say that as a smoker, full in the knowledge and comfortable with the fact that over the next ten years, I will be prohibited from doing so in restaraunts, I will be frowned upon by coworkers, and eventually, ostracised to sitting outside on the sidewalk – something I even have to do in my own home now – to have a fag.

You and I both know that there is nothing wrong with responsible drinking – or for that matter, responsible use of any substance, regardless of what it is, for the purposes of self-entertainment. The whole of Britain, I believe, knows and believes that. However, "responsible" has a pretty fast and loose definition in this country when it comes to alcohol; and while I have no interest in taking away your rights to drink, I’ve got a problem with a society that paints getting blind drunk as a glamorous passtime, and I hope that changes.

That’s all.
Comment by Gregory Block — 24 May 2004 on 10:45 am | Link
"And what it’s also about it is a public health lobby outside democratic control providing countless well-paid jobs at the tax payers expense using my money to tell me what way I should live my life."

It’s not remotely out of democratic control; Blair’s intervention is proof enough of that, and the government is free to set the agenda for public education in the NHS. I’ve no doubt that you can find politicians who are willing to fight any use of public money to ‘reinform’ public debate on alcohol or smoking; you are free to do so.

I don’t consider a ‘public health lobby’ to be outside of political control; neither should you. Nothing is.
Comment by Gregory Block — 24 May 2004 on 10:48 am | Link
The taxes collected from alcohol are not necessarily spent on alcohol related ‘ills’ and in any case sin taxes are often disproportionate to the damage caused by the ‘sin’ – in the case of tobacco by a ratio of 5:1. Truly a case of dogma driving up crime and creating what is, in effect, a massive subsidy of the middle-classes by the poor.

While it may be true that the health lobby is, in theory, subject to political control, I’ve yet to hear a politician have the balls to take them on.

As for whether the attitude to drink in this country is too lax – it probably is if you take your cue on these matters from prohibitionist, Protestant, America. I’m afraid I don’t see it as much of a model.

"I say that as a smoker, full in the knowledge and comfortable with the fact that over the next ten years, I will be prohibited from doing so in restaraunts, I will be frowned upon by coworkers, and eventually, ostracised to sitting outside on the sidewalk – something I even have to do in my own home now – to have a fag."

That’s a pretty spectacular display of self-hatred, Gregory.
Comment by Young Fogey — 24 May 2004 on 12:58 pm | Link
"The taxes collected from alcohol are not necessarily spent on alcohol related ‘ills’ and in any case sin taxes are often disproportionate to the damage caused by the ‘sin’ – in the case of tobacco by a ratio of 5:1. Truly a case of dogma driving up crime and creating what is, in effect, a massive subsidy of the middle-classes by the poor."

The fact is, if it *was* earmarked money, you’d have the same issue – the taxation issue is a red herring for you. Brown hates earmarking money – that’s the primary reason it doesn’t happen. It ties his hands, and financiers don’t like having their hands tied.

As for attitude to drink being lax compared to a ‘prudish’ America – having lived my life in an awful lot of countries now, and having personally enjoyed the, er, "occasional" binge, I don’t feel I’m being biased. Then again, we never do.

And as for self-hatred? No, I’m simply aware that my habit will result in my death, should all else not be the cause of it. I find myself perfectly comfortable with the idea that others don’t like my habit, and would prefer I not do it in their dwelling, and arguably, presence. Social pressure puts smokers on the sidewalk, in the same way that smokers will eventually be banned from pubs – the staff don’t want to die from our habits.

That’s pragmatism. And in any society, one obeys that social pressure in order to fit in with one’s peers. If that culture changes, we change with them, by definition. By the time smoking isn’t going to be acceptable, most people won’t be smoking.

By the time extreme levels of binge drinking are unacceptable, by definition, most people won’t be binge drinking. Therefore, most people won’t see it as a problem to condemn. There’s a long road between that and where we are today.

This isn’t about condemning public drunkenness; it’s about condemning a culture that encourages that idolizes it.

Besides. We’re all friends here. Have an alco-pop on me. 😉
Comment by Gregory Block — 24 May 2004 on 1:56 pm | Link
This is a ridiculous suggestion. I used to work in the brewery industry and they and the consumer are already taxed to the hilt.
When I started working for Whitbread there were 6 major breweries in Sheffield. All of them have closed because, quite simply, profits are too hard to make in brewing.
People are killed and injured on the roads every day but is the government thinking of taxing car manufacturers? I don\x92t think so.
I enjoy going out for a drink as most people do. If trouble is caused by yobs then they should be arrested, fined and made to pay damages. This should pay for the trouble they cause instead of levying an extra tax on the majority of the public.
Comment by Lee Wiggett — 24 May 2004 on 11:03 pm | Link
We as a charity are very involved with work in the field of alcohol abuse. We are currently seeking funds for providing free "alcohol awareness" workshops to visit schools in the Essex area to explain to the children the dangers of alcohol misuse…We won’t be "demonising" alcohol! These workshops will be free and we need your help. Please visit our website and donate if you can..if we can help save the lives of some of our children it will all be worthwhile. Thanks
Comment by Terry M — 25 Aug 2004 on 6:48 pm | Link
Got the web address wrong in my previous bit!!
Comment by Terry M — 25 Aug 2004 on 6:52 pm | Link
When I ask people why do you drink they say it make`s them happy.That about sum`s it up.People are unhappy with there life`s.Many thing`s cause this and government`s can only do so much.Decent housing,education,less stress in people`s live`s, yes they can do thing`s to help but government`s can`t do all thing`s.It also cannot help children to grow up having parent`s who drink heavily (some example),what chance do they have what chance does society have!.
Comment by george dutton — 26 Aug 2004 on 12:48 am | Link
"When I ask people why do you drink they say it make`s them happy"

Someone ask them why it is they think that alcohol, a depressant that makes them more uninhibited in low doses, is "making them happy".

How’s about just being LESS REPRESSED, instead of being MORE DRUNK.
Comment by Gregory Block — 26 Aug 2004 on 3:13 pm | Link
At it again Gregory you NEVER learn!.I never said anything about low or high dose`s!.Gregory again twist`s thing`s to suit.
Comment by george dutton — 26 Aug 2004 on 7:23 pm | Link
Да уж, это на самом деле непросто. 🙂
Comment by пyпcя — 29 Oct 2009 on 6:33 am | Link

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