Curb on liquor industry urged
New Zealand’s top medical body has called for a clampdown on our rampant boozing, including banning advertising, raising the drinking age and increasing taxes.
In a ‘‘briefing’’ published yesterday, the New Zealand Medical Association says the Government needs to intervene more heavily in the liquor industry for the nation’s collective health.
‘‘We consider it vital to ensure that policies to reduce alcoholrelated harm are based on the best available evidence, not on ideology or on the basis of lobbying by vested commercial interests.’’
The last set of liquor law changes, which lowered drinkdriving limits and gave local authorities more power over opening hours, did not go far enough, the briefing, entitled AlcoholRelated Harm, says.
Recommendations include raising the drinking age to 20, introducing a minimum price for alcohol, increasing the alcohol excise tax by 50 per cent, and phasing out liquor advertising and sponsorship.
‘‘An end to the availability of extremely cheap alcohol must be a central element of a comprehensive strategy to reduce alcoholrelated harms.’’
However, the ideas, for now at least, have found little favour with the Government, with Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne responding that the last law changes needed to ‘‘settle in’’.
‘‘I believe the 2012 changes are effective and need more time to bed down fully before any further changes are considered.’’
The association said the liberalisation of drinking laws in 1989, combined with increasingly sophisticated liquor marketing, had encouraged a culture of heavy drinking, which had ‘‘resulted in what some researchers term an ‘‘alcogenic’’ environment’’.
Recent statistics show that about four out of five Kiwis drink, and of those, one in five has ‘‘hazardous drinking patterns’’, with a big section of those being young men.
About a third of teenagers and adolescents are binge drinkers, which is ‘‘particularly alarming’’ as teenagers who drink heavily are likely to develop a dependency in adulthood. Heavy drinking increases the risks of cancer, stroke, cirrhosis and mental health problems, with about 800 deaths a year attributed to alcohol. Road accidents are the biggest contributor to these deaths.
The association said in its briefing it considered further measures to reduce alcohol-related harm essential, and they should be a high priority.
Many of its recommendations echo the findings of a wide-ranging Law Commission review in 2010, most of which the Government ignored.