Have your say... From Big Tobacco to Big Booze

Legalised to kill

The tobacco industry and the liquor industry have a lot in common. They’re both legally entitled to sell a product which frequently kills the user - and sometimes kills innocent victims as well. Both industries are well aware of the damage done by their industries and both have fought vigorously to avoid taking any responsibility for the death and destruction their products cause.

However, for the tobacco industry things changed in the latter half of the C20th when new research led to growing awareness that people could die from passive smoking. Once nonsmokers became aware of this, public acceptance of smoking began to wane (1). Few people wanted to be passive smokers and it became polite to ask – ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ Some said: ‘Yes – I do.’

The public groundswell

So did the government - and from the 1980s onwards, a raft of measures were passed to make life increasingly difficult for those who lit up - including graphic warning labels on packets, smoking bans in hotels, bars and the workplace and a dramatic increase in taxation on tobacco. A groundswell of public opinion against smokers imposing their poison on the public played a significant role in the process. It was no longer so cool to smoke and a lot of people quit. Ever since a bottleshop owner was murdered in Manurewa in 2008 there seems to have been an increasing awareness by politicians and the media of the death and destruction caused by alcohol (2). With a bit of a push, this awareness could also turn into a groundswell. England's Chief Medical Officer, Dr Liam Donaldson has tried to help the process along by claiming that the damage done to society by alcohol is akin to ‘passive drinking’ (3). 

Price and controls

According to Donaldson, the way to tackle passive drinking is exactly the same as the process used to discourage smoking – by raising the price and limiting availability. In developed nations around the world, momentum is building for big hikes in the cost of alcohol to alleviate the harm it causes. Australia recently imposed a 70% tax hike on alcoholpops. The government in Scotland is considering imposing minimum prices on alcohol and the World Health Organisation has a global plan to tackle alcohol abuse (4). Sir Geoffrey Palmer, head of the NZ Law Commission, has suggested that New Zealand could follow suit (5). The Commission has been asked by government to review New Zealand’s liquor legislation.

Part way into the process, Sir Geoffrey has already announced that increasing the price would be one of his key recommendations. In this speech (available at the Law Commission's website) Sir Geoffrey carefully noted that he was "launching some trial balloons today".  He said the Commission does not make Government policy, only recommendations, and that in the July discussion paper we are contemplating indicating some preferred policy options compared with others in order to concentrate the public debate.

At a speech in Nelson in February he said: "It seems to me that the taxpayer should not be asked to shoulder as much of the burden as is currently being met from public funds…  the case for increasing the price of alcohol to ensure drinkers contribute more to the costs imposed on society is persuasive."  Sir Geoffrey said we also need to decrease the availability of alcohol, place tighter controls on advertising and alcohol promotions and lower the permissible blood alcohol level for drink driving.

The 5+ Solution

Professor Doug Sellman of the National Addiction Centre at the University of Otago also wants to see the price raised.  Given the recent report by BERL that alcohol imposes a $5.3 billion burden on the economy (6) ($16 billion according to economist Brian Easton (7)), Professor Sellman wants to encourage the Law Commission to adopt a set of proposals referred to as the 5+ Solution. These proposals are part of evidence based recommendations from the World Health Organisation and are similar to those suggested by Sir Geoffrey Palmer.

The 5+ Solution is:

1   Increase the price of alcohol

2   Increase the purchase age of alcohol

3   Decrease accessibility of alcohol 

4   Decrease marketing and advertising of alcohol

5   Increase drink-driving measures      

PLUS: Increase treatment opportunities for heavy drinkers.

10 things the alcohol industry won't tell you

Will the government listen to these proposals? Maybe - but not without public support.  There needs to be another groundswell – this time against the damage done by the 785,000 binge drinkers in New Zealand (8). Professor Sellman seems to have a plan for that too. He intends to undertake a nationwide speaking tour starting in September to help persuade the public, the media and the government of the need to impose more effective regulation over the supply, sale and marketing of alcohol.

His plan is to give a public presentation in 30 different towns and cities titled "10 things the alcohol industry won't tell you about alcohol". His presentation will no doubt include research conducted at Curtin University in Australia where researchers recently gained access to confidential alcohol industry documents (9).  These documents identify the top 10 concerns of the liquor industry, not one of which is about the harm caused to consumers by alcohol.

Instead, these documents highlight the industry’s fear of being targeted by health reformers and controlled by government in the same way that the tobacco industry has been. The liquor industry’s contempt for its customers which is displayed in these documents shows how much liquor and tobacco have common. There is no doubt - Big Booze needs to be treated like Big Tobacco. Hopefully, the publicity that Doug Sellman’s speaking tour and the Law Commission’s review will generate will be enough to turn the tide of public opinion.  

Footnotes: (1)     Smoking hygiene: a study of attitudes to passive smoking: Wael AI-Delaimy, Derek Luo; Alistair Woodward; Dr Philippa Howden-Chapman; New Zealand Medical Journal, 22 January, 1999. (2)     John Roughan, NZ Herald, May 23, 2009 (3)     Realities of boozing are tough to swallow, Andy Coghlan, New Scientist, 31 March, 2009. (4)     Coghlan, ibid. (5)     NZ Herald, 24 April, 2009 (6)     Cost of Harmful Alcohol and Drug Use, Business and Economic Research Limited (BERL), Dr Ganesh Nana et al, March 2009. (7)   Assessment of the Health Impacts of Lowering the Minimum Legal Age for Purchasing       Alcohol, ALAC Occasional Publication No. 16, Wellington, April 2002. (8)     Interesting general statistics about alcohol,  ALAC website, www.alac.org.nz (9)     Bond L, Daube M, Chikritzhs T. Access to Confidential Alcohol Industry Documents: From ‘Big Tobacco’ to ‘Big Booze’. AMJ 2009, 1, 3, 1-26. Doi 10.4066/AMJ. 2009.43

Article submitted by Roger Brooking, Alcohol and Drug Counsellor. The views expressed in this article are the opinions of the person who submitted the article and may not be the opinions or views held by ALAC. To submit articles for this column please contact Michael Johnson, the editor of Alcohol.org.nz by email: m.johnson@alac.org.nz