For booze, read fags
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 11:11AM What is striking about health minister Roisin Shortall's crusade against alcohol is the similarity between the tactics there and those employed to combat smoking.
I have alluded before to the identical statements from Alcohol Action Ireland and those coming from ASH, differing only in the target commodity selected.
As with ASH, our Roisin is trying to convince anybody who will listen that drinking (alcohol) is now a serious problem in Ireland and the Government has a duty to intervene. And again, her recommendation is for Government to raise prices through further taxation. This has not worked for tobacco and it will not work for alcohol either. Indeed, I predict that should alcohol price increases be as high as those imposed on tobacco products, a whole new branch of smuggling will be created by our junior minister, though she will vehemently deny any responsibility when it happens.
But what truly amazes me is why the real question is not asked. Why do some people simply drink to get drunk? These are, by definition, the very people Roisin wishes to "help", by making alcohol prohibitively expensive for them, and the rest of us must suffer because of it. Surely if you explore the problem not the symptoms, you have a better chance of devising an action that could ease it. I would suggest that drinking to excess is the manifestation of personal issues, and is not the problem in itself. In the case of young people, it might be due to peer pressure, lack of education, low self esteem, escapism, depression or the desire for a feeling of euphoria. Whatever the motivation, that is where the problem lies and not inside a bottle.
A cynic might suggest that for a politician, it is more important to be seen to be doing something rather than actually making a difference. Many of the anti-smoking crusaders are cast from the same mould. They will agitate for measures to be taken against smokers that will marginalise that substantial minority even further but will make no difference to the amounts smoked. The attendant harm and criminal activity that their very actions create are left to others to clean up, while they deny any responsibility for it.
So, Roisin, it just may be that complicated social issues are at the heart of excessive drinking and fiddling with the price of booze does not address these issues. Indeed, you run the risk that your actions might make things worse.
Reader Comments (1)
The whole notion of using price inflation to reduce alcohol consumption is wrong headed. If it actually worked, Ireland, which has had some of the highest alcohol prices in the world for generations, would have very low consumption. If the cure works, why is the patient still sick? If this stuff works, why are we still talking about it?
The excise duty increases in 1989 and 1994 were actually followed by steady increases in alcohol sales in the years following (my analysis: http://preview.tinyurl.com/6o2amd7 ).
This is about taxation and nothing more. Alcohol taxation is a very old concept indeed and pre-dates the current hysteria about "public health" and it's predecessor as the focus of concern for those who want to save people from themselves, "public morality". These are simply excuses to rake more money into the public purse. In the past, governments made no bones about the fact that it was a handy thing to tax, because people will buy it anyway, even if you jack up the price. Now they have to make some effort to say it's for our own good, but it really is just a sham.
Per capita alcohol sales in Ireland peaked in 2003 and have shown a shallow decline since. No one tried to help us poor misguided drinkers despite ourselves when the sales trend was heading up and the economy was OK, but now that the government needs all the tax revenue it can lay it's hands on we are suddenly in a crisis (despite a slight downward trend in alcohol sales) and need to be helped by being taxed.
Our Labour Party minister for health wants to raise tax on alcohol, further impoverishing the poorest people in our society. Go socialism!