It seems that George Souris, the NSW Minister for Tourism, Major Events, Hospitality and Racing, and Minister for the Arts, could do with something of a Ministerial briefing – from the health portfolio.
He is reported by the Sydney Morning Herald suggesting that a crackdown on hotels in response to violence in Kings Cross could “drive a lot of the industry underground”, leading to illegal alcohol sales and corruption.
He is quoted saying: “Because an underground alcohol industry also lends itself to more illegality – illegal gambling, drugs and alcohol is not a good combination to drive underground. And together with that comes all sorts of corruption, potentially.”
Perhaps someone should point out to the Minister that there is a difference between regulation and prohibition – and that regulation, for example in reducing the density of alcohol outlets, is one of the proven strategies for reducing alcohol-related harm.
Ministers with a brief for representing industry interests may not “get it”, but at least one Melbourne retailer has acknowledged the impact of the alcohol trade.
As The Age reports, a retailer from Footscray, Grant Miles, has stopped selling alcohol at his grocery stop because he saw that it was causing such damage to the community. He said: “I feel that in some small way I might have been contributing to problems of alcohol abuse in Footscray and the surrounding areas.”
His decision has been applauded, with some researchers noting the link between disadvantage and unhealthy environments: “What we know here is that bottle shops are concentrated in disadvantaged areas. In Melbourne, for example, packaged liquor outlets are four times more common in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods than in the least disadvantaged.” (Amy Pennay, a research fellow with the Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, quoted by the ABC.)
Jason Trethowan, CEO of the Barwon Medicare Local in the Geelong region, commenting on Twitter about The Age article on the Footscray retailer (as per below), suggests there could be incentives to reward such actions.
Meanwhile, as the NSW Government is clearly in need of some evidence-based public health advice, here is a memo for the Premier and his colleagues, from Associate Professor Anthony Shakeshaft, Deputy Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.
Given the toll that alcohol takes on health and safety nationally, it may also be of interest to other state and territory governments.
***
TO: Premier Barry O’Farrell
FROM: Anthony Shakeshaft
The recent upsurge of public concern about violence and alcohol-related harm in Sydney gives your Government an opportunity to implement reforms that could save many lives and much suffering.
I recommend a seven-point plan.
1. Take an evidence-based approach
Tragic incidents, like the recent death of Thomas Kelly, inevitably produce knee-jerk reactions with the usual, predictable calls for more police, tougher punishments etc.
At times like this, it is important that political and community leaders look to the evidence-base about what has been proven to work to reduce alcohol-related harm.
***
2. Focus on availability
The more bottle shops, pubs and bars there are, and the longer they are open, then the more people will drink. For direct evidence, look at the Newcastle example: shutting pubs at 3am instead of 5am seems a small price to pay for a 37% reduction in assaults.
***
3. Ban advertising
Alcohol advertising is insidious, everywhere and essentially self-monitored. Compliance with the alcohol advertising code is not mandatory and it is difficult to monitor effectively because what does or does not comply is really a subjective judgement. The simpler solution is to follow the path of tobacco and just ban alcohol advertising and sponsorship.
***
4. Tax reform
The most efficient way to modify price is by taxing drinks based on their alcohol content.
The more expensive alcohol is the less we buy it, but we have also shown that when price goes up, our inclination is to drink on fewer days during the week to preserve our financial ability to binge drink on the weekend. So price alone is unlikely to reduce binge drinking significantly: that’s why restricting availability and banning advertising are also important.
We don’t have to drink a lot less to get a positive impact: the British clinical epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose estimated that if everybody drank just two standard drinks a week less, there would be about a 15% reduction in the number of high-risk drinkers.
***
5. Multi-pronged focus
There is no one solution. The drivers of excessive drinking are availability, advertising and price, and we need changes to all three together to make a lasting difference.
Increasing police numbers or zero tolerance policing are unlikely to be effective precisely because they do not impact on availability, advertising or price.
***
6. Put the community’s welfare first (not industry’s)
The choice for the community is fairly simple: reduce alcohol availability, ban alcohol advertising and increase its price, or continue to live with ongoing alcohol-related violence at its current rate or worse.
Any public health changes that make a difference are painful, slow and often resisted.
***
7. United front
Premier, I realise that you and your government alone cannot achieve all these necessary changes.
Implementing changes to availability, advertising and price to make a sustained difference requires all levels of government to work together because each level of government has a different jurisdiction. The Australian Government can most efficiently control advertising, price and standardise laws such as opening hours, while state and local governments can control planning and development.
We need a task force to determine how to most efficiently implement reforms to availability, advertising and price – not a review and not a scoping exercise, just a determination of how to implement what we know will work.
In view of the constraints on your time, I have kept this note short and sharp, but my colleagues and I would be happy to meet with you or your staff.
Associate Professor Anthony Shakeshaft, Deputy Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales
I have a better idea. Instead of demonising and abusing people who drink, why not look at European countries (France, Switzerland, etc) where alcohol is cheaper, easier to buy and consumed in greater quantities and figure out why they don’t have the problems we do.
I lived in Zurich for years. It was not uncommon to see groups of 16 and 17 year olds jumping onto trams with 6-packs of beer (and drinking one on the way home). Parks on a sunny day would be full of people drinking beer, wine, and sometimes even spirits. I never, ever felt even slightly in danger, even at 3am in their equivalent of Kings Cross surrounded by dozens of intoxicated people.
The alcohol, its price and ease of access to it are not the problems.
Correct comment. There are actually 2 separate issues: excessive alcohol consumption, and alcohol-fuelled violence. The latter does not necessary follow from the former unless certain other conditions exist. Sad to see that the 7-point plan includes no suggestions about changing the social culture around drinking, the role models who can influence this, the physical environments in which drinking occurs (compared to, say, a British ‘local’), or the skewed economics of licensed premises in which the cost of non-alcoholic drinks is artifically inflated to keep the cost of alcohol low. By all means come down hard on licensing, but there will always be more who get away with it than who are caught — hence the recent case in Canberra of man who attacked and nearly blinded another man after having drunk 20 schooners of beer at one local bar.
I like Jason’s idea – I would like to be given a grant to not sell alcohol. At last a role for Medicare Locals – not selling alcohol.
Hi all, it’s Anthony here – my first go at online blogging or whatever this is so be patient with me! Of course I agree that not all drinking leads to violence and not all violence is associated with alcohol. But the balance of evidence clearly shows these two things are related: it’s not a question of absolutes but a question of probabilities and the evidence says that the more alcohol is consumed the higher the likelihood there is of alcohol related harm (violence, assaults, street offences etc). I also agree some European countries have different drinking cultures which means the relationship between drinking and violence may be different there, but they are not problem free – they just have different types of alcohol-related problems, like higher rates of drink driving and diseases from drinking too much too frequently (as opposed to accidents and injuries and violence from being drunk).
I disagree with Margo that the 7 point plan does not target the social culture around drinking. I think one of the most effective ways to change the drinking culture is to tighten up the access, price and advertising of alcohol. I think those things will help change the drinking culture, which is exactly what happened with RBT and drink driving – new legislation was introduced, everyone complained that it was a violation of civil liberties but it resulted in a significant drop in alcohol related traffic crash deaths and injuries. So there’s an example of legislation changing drinking culture.
I am very intrigued by the idea of paying people not to sell alcohol – that’d be an interesting trial to see if it works!
Yes. Prohibition was certainly a rousing success in America.
The rest of your commentary seem equally poorly thought out and devoid of critical analysis. What really stands out, however, is that your #1 point is to “take an evidence based approach”, after which you promptly do the exact opposite.
Where is your evidence supporting items 2, 3 and 4 given, as already mentioned, there are numerous countries in Europe with more easily accessible, extensively advertised and low-taxed alcohol ?
Why do I get the feeling you’re just another prohibitionist ? This country already has some of the tightest laws and highest costs related to alcohol in the western world. On what basis are you arguing tightening the screws a little bit more will make a difference, when there is so much evidence demonstrating access to and cost of alcohol clearly play minor, if any, roles ?
The fundamental problem is violence, not alcohol. Alcohol is just a catalyst.