Yes, we have a drink problem and let me recap on last week's column, writes Vincent Browne. Alcohol consumption has increased here on a per capital basis by 46 per cent from 1989 to 2000.
In 2000, we consumed more drink per capita than any other country in Europe, bar one. We are probably top of the league now. About one in five boys aged between 12 and 14 years are current drinkers. In the 15- to 16-year age group, half the girls and two-thirds of the boys are current drinkers. One-third of these 15- and 16-year-olds engage in binge drinking, that is, consuming five or more drinks in a row.
A 1999 survey on drinking habits (SLÁN) showed that over half the men and nearly two- thirds of the women in the 18 to 24 age group engaged in "high-risk drinking" in each session. (High-risk drinking is consuming over 70 grams of pure alcohol for men and 50 grams for women.) More than a third of men in the 18 to 24 age group drink more than the recommended upper limit per week and nearly two in five women do so in that age group.
Drink is doing terrible harm.
At least 30 per cent of all road crashes and 40 per cent of all fatal crashes are associated with drink. So around 160 deaths on the roads each year and thousands of serious injuries are associated with drink. Excessive consumption of alcohol causes cirrhosis of the liver, heart disease, strokes and brain damage, thereby causing thousands of other deaths. Alcohol is also associated with assaults on the streets, violence in the home, marriage difficulties, absenteeism and personal disintegration.
What are we going to do about it?
Research in Europe has shown that reducing the per capita consumption of alcohol reduces its harm. And what is the one measure that the drinks industry opposes in dealing with the problems of alcohol? - reducing the per capita consumption of alcohol.
There are obvious ways of reducing consumption. Limiting availability has been found to be highly effective, therefore measures that curtail the availability of alcohol to young people are crucial. This may involve increasing the age at which people may be served drink in public places from 18 to 21 years and introducing an identity card system for everyone under the age of 23. Any pub, off-licence, club or restaurant serving alcohol to a person either under 21 or to a person under 23 without an identity card should lose their licence for a month on first conviction, six months on second conviction and for ever on third conviction.
Similarly, a pub, club or restaurant which serves alcohol to any person who already has consumed more than five drinks or allows that person to remain on their premises should suffer similar penalties. In effect this would mean that anyone who is drunk must be removed from a club or restaurant. The recommendation by the Commission on Liquor Licensing recently to curtail "super-pubs" and foster smaller and more intimate drinking environments should facilitate that. It may be necessary also to revert to shorter pub opening hours and curtail the hours during which drink may be served in clubs, as recommended by the Commission.
Driving following any consumption of alcohol should be criminalised - this too has been found to be highly effective if enforced. Increasing tax on alcohol has also been found to be effective.
And then there is education. Of course. One test of the genuineness of any strategy to deal with alcohol-related problems is to determine if education forms a central part. If it does, it is bogus. Education has been found to be a waste of time. Ditto the guff about promoting alternatives.
Michael McDowell signalled the Government's intention to do nothing of consequence about this recently when he said it was considering regulating the content of drink advertising. This is another measure found to be useless. Banning drink advertising altogether, on the other hand, (a policy he ruled out) has been found to have some effect.
There are a few issues to do with personal liberties involved in all of this. If people want to blow their minds and bodies on drink, that is their business and the State has no right to interfere. Just as it should be only their business if they want to blow their minds and bodies on drugs. It is part of being an autonomous human being with the liberty to take decisions for our own lives, provided we do not cause harm to others. The qualification is crucial and as far as drink is concerned, it has wide significance.
Conduct occasioned by drink, that causes death and injury on the roads, violence in homes and on the streets, disruption to others in pubs or restaurants is not part of individual liberty. The State has a right and a duty to intervene, a right and a duty to take on the vested interests which would seek to blur what is at stake.
(Several people e-mailed me following last week's column. I will respond to the points they made on another occasion.)