Alcohol
its pricing...and the treatment of people with problems... what do YOU think?
Jump to more content from this blog
About this blog
PM The evening news and current affairs programme presented by Eddie Mair.
iPM The programme that starts with its listeners. Join the discussions online and contribute ideas for a weekly programme presented by Eddie Mair and Jennifer Tracey.
The PM Privacy Commission
Read the final report of the PM Privacy Commission.
- Full Audio and Transcripts
- Hugh Tomlinson QC
- Zac Goldsmith MP
- Max Mosley
- Stephen Abell
- Hugh Grant
- Sir Charles Gray
- Alan Rusbridger
- Helen Wood
- Max Clifford
- Marcus Partington
- John Kampfner
- Christopher Graham
- Louise Mensch
- Andy Trotter
- John Mullin
- Avril Sanders Royle
- Jimmy Wales
Meet the commissioners, view the terms of reference and hear the Commission Chair Sir Michael Lyons explain his approach.
RSS feed
Email us
Listen to PM
Well they've had enough of having a pop at the smokers... now it's time to get the drinkers. Nanny State gone mad!!!
Its not just the low price of alcohol but the incredibly high price of non alcoholic drinks - try buying J2Os in a pub, or shock horror, coffee and they sometimes cost more than a glass of wine. Why not take some of the tax on alcohol and use it to cut the price of the alternative drinks.
I don't think the price is the issue - and it only penalises the less well off. However, alcohol consumption is definitely a problem for many people, including those in the older age groups. I think that a hard hitting campaign, along the lines of the smoking campaigns which have, over the years, helped people "see sense" over the dangers of smoking, will be more beneficial.
Can I suggest having images of diseased livers versus healthy images plastered in all the national newspapers? Plus campaigns about how excessive consumption can lead to injurious falls, accidents involving others (particularly, but not exclusively, when in charge of a motor vehicle), and how excessive consumption can lead to children being neglected? Then, particularly with regard to children, how alcohol affects people differently according to their body weight .....
There are many, many aspects which could be explored and exploited in order to bring the point home to those who are in danger of destroying their health, or their lives, through the overconsumption of alcohol.
I was listening to your interview with a mother that had lost her husband and son through alcohol problems. While we may sympathise, to increase taxes and decrease the level of alcohol permitted in driving will not cure these cases. Instead, the rest of us, who can control our alcohol intake and who enjoy moderate drinking and the great culture and benefits it brings will be punished by such measures. This is about education and dealing with dysfunctional families and in some cases the drinking problems that runs in families not the vast majority who pay enough taxes already.
I don't think the price is the issue - and it only penalises the less well off. However, alcohol consumption is definitely a problem for many people, including those in the older age groups. I think that a hard hitting campaign, along the lines of the smoking campaigns which have, over the years, helped people "see sense" over the dangers of smoking, will be more beneficial.
Can I suggest having images of diseased livers versus healthy images plastered in all the national newspapers? Plus campaigns about how excessive consumption can lead to injurious falls, accidents involving others (particularly, but not exclusively, when in charge of a motor vehicle), and how excessive consumption can lead to children being neglected? Then, particularly with regard to children, how alcohol affects people differently according to their body weight .....
There are many, many aspects which could be explored and exploited in order to bring the point home to those who are in danger of destroying their health, or their lives, through the overconsumption of alcohol.
I work with people with mental health problems and often there are co-current problems with alochol (and drugs). Part of my role is to help people maximise their benefits. Sadly clients with these kind of problems often access a good disposable income through Disability Living Allowance and use this money to fund their addiction which means there physical and mental state just deteriorates. I wish that the benefit was paid for specific care needs (such as a carer or for transport) instead of just topping up their benefit, enabling vulnerable adults with dual diagnosis to drink themselves to death.
So sad to hear the last interview with the lady whose husband and son died from alcoholism. My daughter also has alcohol addiction and thanks to the SHARP project, Liverpool has just celebrated her first year of sobriety. I can't begin to express my gratitude to the people who set it up and admiration for those that run and take part in the scheme.
After listening to the lady who lost both her husband and young son to a mental illness, I question the apparant lack of help given to both her husband and son. WHEN? WHEN? WHEN? are the professionals treating adults with mental illnesses going to realise the need to keep carers informed, and to provide adequate treatment/assistance when it is needed? It is time for mental illnesses to be given a higher profile, and more resources to be available for the care of those so affected.
I submitted this by email earlier, having discovered the blod I thought I would give it a try!
I listen with interest to another fringe group demanding higher taxes and restrictions. This time it is alcohol that they are upset about.
Just because there is an urban and metropolitan probelem with young drinkers, why should I and millions of others who enjoy a (not inexpensive) pint in our rural local pubs, suffer.
Our pubs have already been devastated by the banning of smoking by the same do-gooders citing the same problems.
I accept that there are serious health and social problems related to alcohol - my brother's death at 45 was partly due to excessive alcohol consumption.
What I do not accept is the simplistic notion that restricted access to drink, especially through taxation, will solve the problem. The sooner people accept that alcohol is a largely SYMPTOM of much deeper malaises within society and not a cause then the sooner we can start addressing the real issues, difficult as they are.
Who can blame youngsters turning to the bottle when their prospects are so bleak? Working hard for little reward, little chance of having a house, virtually no chance of a pension, whilst all the while being bombarded with consumer pressures and celebrities that simply serve to make them feel inadequate and unvalued. Oh, and a planet that is heading for disaster!
Do these people really think that 10% on tax will solve the issue? Increased prices will simply exacerbate the problem with an increase in crime etc to pay for it - as we see with illegal drugs.
As for my brother, the price and availability of alcohol, even physically depriving him of it, would not have made a ha'porth of difference. If only it had been that simple!
I work with people with mental health problems and often there are co-current problems with alochol (and drugs). Part of my role is to help people maximise their benefits. Sadly clients with these kind of problems often access a substantial disposable income through Disability Living Allowance and use this money to fund their addiction which means their physical and mental state just deteriorates. I wish that the benefit was paid directly for specific care needs (such as a carer or for transport) instead of just topping up their benefit, enabling vulnerable adults with dual diagnosis to drink themselves to death.
I love alcoholic drinks and really enjoy a glass or two of wine in the evening.
However, I positively hate drinking during the daytime but find there are very few palatable alternatives to alcoholic drinks.
They are all too sticky, sweet, fizzy and toooooo expensive.
I usually plump for water but would like there to be a few alternatives.
A bit of tax payers money spent on developing alternative drinks would be well spent.
Given that light to moderate drinking has no harmful effect and some positive effect, why would a free society even contemplate a blanket attempt to tax people out of drinking?
I think that half the time with young people wanting to get drunk, it's because they want to get away from their dad-to-day lives. They have awful times at home, so they sink their woes in drink. Make their home life better (having said that, I don't know how), and no drink needed!
Couldn't the cost burden on the NHS due to alcohol related illnesses be quantified and used to adjust the tax on alcohol. As long as we are all aware of the health risks of drinking (it would be hard not to in light of all the stories such as today's), we would be free to make our own choices and responsible for any consequences.
I don't think the price is the issue - and it only penalises the less well off. However, alcohol consumption is definitely a problem for many people, including those in the older age groups. I think that a hard hitting campaign, along the lines of the smoking campaigns which have, over the years, helped people "see sense" over the dangers of smoking, will be more beneficial.
Can I suggest having images of diseased livers versus healthy images plastered in all the national newspapers? Plus campaigns about how excessive consumption can lead to injurious falls, accidents involving others (particularly, but not exclusively, when in charge of a motor vehicle), and how excessive consumption can lead to children being neglected? Then, particularly with regard to children, how alcohol affects people differently according to their body weight .....
There are many, many aspects which could be explored and exploited in order to bring the point home to those who are in danger of destroying their health, or their lives, through the overconsumption of alcohol.
While I can see why people focus on the price of alcohol, the reality is that those who already have a problem with alcohol have an illness called 'addiction'. For those people the price is completely irrelevent. Any addict will always find a way of 'acquiring' their substance. Effective and early access to suitable 'outcomes', rather than 'political headline grabbing' driven treatment is necessary.
At the other end of the journey to addiction i.e. where youngsters start drinking and progress into 'binge' drinking I'm afraid again the answer is not simply in the price. Any reduction in young binge drinking has got to be led by very powerful, hard hitting truths about the hidden long term damage done.
I have suffered the effects of 3 teenage binge drinkers (and their mates) next door for 4 years. The list of antisocial behaviour is endless, but in June included enormous nightly noise for a week, topped by a 48-hour 'bender'/drinking/pot-smoking/swearing party for a whole weekend. The parents are totally complicit, buying crates of booze, even running these do's.
It occurs to me that in Britain sadly, there is now no-one to show kids what being a real man (or woman) actually is. All great role models, heroes and examples of the past have been torn down with cynical iconoclasm in the age of so called post-modern enlightenment. In the vaccuum created, youngsters try to emulate "adult" behaviour.
We need to foster respect for things that are truly worthwhile, in young people who can think for themselves instead of behave like a herd of sheep, unable to question the received wisdom of their sad and misguided peers - and even their parents.
It's not only pubs & homes provide alcohols, superstores are stocking more & more & more shelves with the cheap alcohols. Some pubs advertise £1 a drink in their so called - Happy Hour.
Music concerts & festival activities in the open spaces, provide free alcohol;Drink as much as you like. No wonder youngsters with little understanding of the effects of alcohol, are the ones who are suffering; whereas alcohol sale is booming.
I suggest we need inspectors to go & check the stores & events held from time to time.
Another day, another health scare story by another single issue medical group, presumably hoping that there may be some funding heading their way should this 'gain legs'. No - I am not being cynical, I have many friends in the medical research arena. The comments so far sum it up, namely why should the vast majority of sensible drinkers be penalised by a relatively small group, many of which I am sure are from the lower wage bracket, who will be disproportionally hit with tax rises, just as the case with tobacco taxes, with little or no effect to their consumption. This just means less money to spend on food/clothes/children (which then increases last weeks 'child poverty' problem). Of course somebody will be always be able to wheel out an unfortunate whose life/health was ruined by drinking as justification for some further 'crackdown' by nanny. Heaven knows - Grabber Gordon must be rubbing his hands in glee at the thought that the public (or certain sections) may actually WANT him to increase taxation. Can't the state just allow us everyday law abiding hard working people to live our lives as we see fit without continuing and increasing intrusion?
Sorry for the multiple postings - They've been getting sent to Room 502!
Research into the treatment of alcoholism - there is not enough mention of this aspect. What research is being made into treatment (not centres, therapy etc) that can be prescribed by a G.P. and picked up at a chemist? How much (if any) is the drinks industry contributing to such research (if any)? Surely the industry should back such research and be a major financial contributor.
I have worked on the 'front line' of the health service for over 25yrs and come into contact virtually every working day and night with alcohol related problems. It is sad that it does seem to me that more and more, younger and younger people are getting involved with alcohol and then needing urgent medical care.
I have no answers but I empathise strongly with the mother who lost her husband and son. That the people who we turn to for help in a crisis will not help because the patient has had a drink is absolutely and totally frustrating. As a professional I call upon the Crisis Team regularly with the hope of helping a very sick person but they (the Crisis Team) always refuse. The patient returns to an ever more spiralling out of control life of drink and associated health and social problems.
Martin Firth (10),
"The sooner people accept that alcohol is a largely SYMPTOM of much deeper malaises within society and not a cause then the sooner we can start addressing the real issues, difficult as they are."
Spot on!
Salaam/Shalom/Shanthi/Dorood/Peace
Namaste -ed
I have a very small mind and must live with it.
-- E. Dijkstra
I have listened to your program and it raised some major concerns for me. My husband is a alcoholic and has been struggling for the past two years to be sober as yet to no avail. He was having anxiety/panic attacks and went to his GP for help, he was at this stage a 'healthy' drinker but was not a 'alcholic', although if the GP had taken the time to find out he would have realised that his drinking was inexcess of what is 'normal'. He was referred to a psychiatrist who instantly prescribed anti depressents since then things have spiralled out of control for him. he has lost his job, broken his leg, lost his licence and almost lost his wife. The lady who spoke today mentioned her son also being prescribed anti depressents which made matters worse for him. It is so frustratng not finding someone who can look at the whole person/problem but just treating one part of their symptom, my husband sees a councellor, has been to rehab etc and yet noone has suggested that the antidepressents may be adding to the problem not helping it. GP seem completely inadequately trained with these issues and what to do with people when they come for help. We are going to have another generation of people with maybe far worse alcohol problems and a NHS system which has no clue how to help them.
Ed Inglehart is right. It is a symptom of society's malaise. The government never actually tackle any issue, and alcohol is just the same. All they have done so far is open the pubs 24 hours a day and tax drink. My local TV station had a report recently saying that a lot of pubs are closing down. My first reaction was joy. Then I realised that this is exactly what we DON'T want. It just shifts the problem around - i.e. into the home instead of licensed premises where there is at least some kind of 'containment'. Alcoholics already drink heavily at home as well.
The government don't have an answer, so it is up to us, that put up daily with the effects of drink, to TELL them what will work - and MAKE THEM LISTEN - AND ACT.
I am sure that writing this next bit will draw criticism and derision on the part of the cynics, but I have taken a PERSONAL STAND AGAINST DRINK. I have sworn not to drink alcohol again, as long as I live in this house, surrounded by the problems it causes. It doesn't keep you alive, and I truthfully don't miss it one iota.
IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO IS PREPARED TO STAND WITH ME - despite ridicule, cynicism and derision? It will take a 'critical mass' of people to do this, to make people take notice, and to make them start to question their attitudes to drink, but I truly believe that if people did this and made it known, eventually some would listen to us.
Those whom I have told so far have been incredulous. But at least they listened to why I am doing it...
I agree with Ed I and others - that the massive increase in alcohol consumption is a symptom of a society that is dysfunctional. Binge drinking of youth, or the bottle of whisky a day by a exec of a company are just various facets of the same problem. Of course the greater availability, lower relative cost etc makes the problem worse.
In reference to another comment above, I never drink at lunchtime, but that's mainly because I get a headache in the afternoon, no matter how little I have drunk, almost without exception.
But no two people are alike, and a consumption that one person can "tolerate" can make another seriously ill very quickly. The medical profession - itself well used to the effects of personal intake of alcohol - don't seem to me to have sufficient information to help those who are in trouble. Anti-depressants to alcholics? I was told to keep off the alcohol when (for completely different reasons) I had anti-depressants for a short time - how will alchoholics manage that, when they're addicted to the stuff? (Actually, I'm cannot remember the last time I had a prescription drug and it was *not* labelled to avoid alcohol!).
Jeremiah @ 26, alas, the pubs that are closing are almost certainly the ones that are individual and don't have a money-cushion to fall back on: precisely the ones that might still have a landlord who knows his customers, knows if they have had too much, and doesn't sell to the underage or the over-indulged. The places with no seats so that you can never put your drink down but have to put it down your neck instead, and where the emphasis is on selling booze as fast as possible and devil take the drunkards, have corporate cash keeping them open.
I speak as one who has watched during the past decade as the number of places where a person can get nissed as a pewt on the local mile of road out of town has risen from four that had to close at eleven at night, to something in excess of twenty-five all open until the early hours. The number of drunks waking me by shouting and bawling and breaking things on the road outside at two in the morning seven days a week has risen 100% during that time.
I have great sympathy for those above and featured on the programme whose family are or were affected by alcoholism.
Why should we be surprised at the news that more & more and even younger people are suffering the effects of alcohol, when we regard it as normal that our towns & cities are full of drunken people on a saturday night?
I agree with others above that this is a deeply rooted social problem. It is certainly not helped by supermarket shelves stacked full of bargain booze and our acceptance that overindulging is *normal*. We need to teach schoolchildren about the realities about alcohol, good & bad, and that going out & getting *hammered* on a saturday night isn't the only way to have fun.
RE: PRICE OF ALCOHOL (AND AVIATION)
You asked us to give our views about whether the price of alcohol should be increased. To me, this is a similar question to whether the price of a flight should be increased. In both cases, consumption of the product should be reduced because excess is harmful.
The knee-jerk reaction seems always to be that the price of a unit – a bottle of booze or a ticket – should be increased by a moderate percentage, perhaps twenty or fifty percent. The trouble is that this will not affect rich people who will continue to drink or fly as they did before, but could cause poor people to be deprived of an important pleasure altogether.
What should be done is differential pricing. The government should issue vouchers to everybody and this could be for, say, £1 for each stated week for alcohol and one flight of any length once a year.
Each voucher can be handed over for a tax-free product. Any extra product require would be subject to a very heavy tax which has the effect of multiplying the current price, say tenfold. After a while the details can be reviewed to ensure that the scheme actually has the desired effect.
Before people object that £1 buys hardly any alcohol, remember that the tax on a litre of spirits is something like £10 so £1 tax-free would buy about a bottle. I agree that £1 would buy less at a pub or bar, but isn't that where the deterrent effect is most needed for public drunkenness?
Is this idea practicable? Yes, of course it is! From about 1939 to 1952 food and lots of other things – relevantly petrol – were rationed. It worked despite shortages and lack of computer power, so it would certainly work today.
This would largely solve the problem of drunkenness, new cases of liver damage and alcoholism, and carbon emissions from passenger aircraft.
Brian Seager.
I wonder if there was a black market in ration coupons ... or petrol ...
Sid
Increasing the price of alcohol is yet again our society's obsession with treating the sympton instead of the cause. The problem with alcoholism cannot be dealt with with just making it more expensive. This is the same type of faulty thinking that we use with our so-called 'war on terror'. Consider Einstein's proposition that we cannot solve significant problems at the same level of thinking at which we were when we created the problems.
Alcoholism is a complex problem with it's roots in the malaise of society. We need to address these problems first and work on raising the level of consciousness of all those involved.
Increased alcoholism could be seen as one of the symptons of the general state of our world and we are all responsible for the cure.
Milla (25) I hope that your husband - and you - get the help and support you need to turn around the problems you have. Thank you for sharing them with us.
What a difficult issue this is. Alcoholism not only ruins the lives of those who suffer from it; but also those who love them. The fact that so many younger people are drinking to excess several times a week is an interesting phenomenon, though. This must be one of the best-educated generations in terms of health, wellbeing and environment, and yet the hazards of drinking clearly aren't dissuading them from getting drunk on a regular basis.
Drink-driving and smoking campaigns have shown that hard-hitting, sustained messages about the damage to health and others around us can make a real difference to our attitudes and actions, and this is perhaps what we need now.
Sid Cumberland @ 31, surely not?
Once again we have the so called "experts" coming on the radio TELLING us that we need to increase the price of a drink to stop the youngsters binge drinking.
They haven't a clue and to make the vast majority of normal drinkers who enjoy a pint or a glass sensibly pay for the inadequacies of others is just another way to pay more taxes. It will not solve the problem.
Like the vast majority, I enjoy a social drink and cannot see why I should pay extra when the prices are high enough as they are. Parents are the key to solving this, along with a whole host of other issues.
There is a problem solving process which is never applied by our governments, and others.
They all come up with "solutions" without proper analysis of the problem.
Typically, the so called "experts" are again TELLING us how to solve a problem by indirectly increasing taxes on alcohol.
Why should I and millions of other sensible social drinkers pay for the inadequacies of others?
How about a proper analysis of the problem before coming up with a totally ludicrous "solution" which will do absolutely nothing to address this issue?
Pubs are struggling to survive now, and further increases in the duty on alcohol will make it even worse. Some parliamentarians just do not have a clue and should try to engage their brains before opening their mouths.
I don't think that the excessive drinking is only related to young adults (and pre-adults) wanting an escape from unpleasant lives, because I listened too often at the beginning of this century to students (reading one of the highly competitive 'academic' subjects in a university, and mostly at least appearing to be having a good time in general) boasting to each other about how they had had to be carried home the night before because they'd got so drunk they couldn't walk, or admiringly recounting the exploits of their friends who were so hungover they hadn't turned up for the afternoon tutorial or lecture at all that day, not as a one-off but as something that happened two or three times a week in some cases. (Never did they do it, it just happened to them.) They weren't drinking to escape a horrible lifestyle, as far as I could make out; they were drinking because it was what 'everyone' did, annd it was a way to gain acceptance. That's rather frightening.
I also can't help wondering about the person who didn't notice she was drinking too much until her liver was in a really bad state and started bleeding. For goodness' sake, isn't being drunk something that one notices? Not having any money the next day when one had thirty or forty quid the previous evening? Hangovers? Needing to be told what happened the night before? I find it really hard to credit that at least some of the warning signs aren't reasonably obvious indicators that *something* is going on, and that it might be something to do with alcohol.
It does look rather as if 'education' is at least some of the answer but I do wonder how it can be done at this point. How does one make something 'uncool' at a stroke, when it's been 'cool' for as long as much of the population can remember? They mostly aren't drinking-and-driving, which is good, so I suppose it must be possible...
If you double the price of alcohol, will the cnsumption be halved? Very unlikely; it probably wouldn't even reduce consumption by 25%. Most of any reduction would be among those who don't binge-drink anyway. I'm with Big Sister on this one - we used to see pictures of rotted lungs. Let's see pictures of rotting livers. It might help those not yet addicted.
[Sent again in case 1st tx didn't arrive.]