Ok, as the French say, 'nous revenons a nos moutons' or let us return to our mutts. I was going through this document before I was so rudely interrupted by NHS Lanarkshire and a wee trip to Malaysia,(not connected) but now that I'm bright eyed, bushy tailed (and sober) I will tackle the third section of this document which is called ' Taking Responsibility'.
This section of the document deals with what you would call public health issues. Smoking, alcohol, exercise and so on, are dealt with in this section. The title of this chapter begs the question; who is responsible here? The answer ain't simple and this section needs a couple of posts to itself. So I'm going to start with drink.
There are those who will always drink, no matter what you do. There are those who will never touch a drink. But if you want to know if there is a problem with drink you look at the middle section of drinkers; the moderate drinkers. These are the folk who will maybe have a beer or a glass of wine after work, will have the odd blow out of a weekend, but will get a taxi home and back to the grind come Monday morning. Are they in trouble? The short answer is yes, they are. Alcohol related disease is up especially amongst women; so is obesity, which is linked. What's gone wrong?
Here's a challenge for you. Go down to your local supermarket. Imagine for a minute that you have a drink problem. See how long it takes you to find a drink. Was there a display at the front door? Probably. Now, go along to the section where you buy pizza or cheese. I'll bet you a cheeky Chardonnay that there are bottles of white wine to go with them. Now go to the drinks section proper. Try to find a bottle of wine that is under 13% strength. I can guarantee that you will be looking for a very long time. Now try to find a non alcoholic brand. Yep, down at the bottom stuck at the back of the shelf and it tastes like mouthwash. That is one of the main reasons that we are having such problems with alcohol just now.
There is a deafening silence about the role of the drinks industry and the supermarkets in this problem. Just why has table wine gone up in strength from 10%, which was the average a few years ago, to 13%? It certainly doesn't add anything to the taste, unless you like having your tongue scorched with raw ethanol. It is particularly dangerous for women; it means that after only one drink of a very average sized glass of wine, they are over their limit. The whole point of having a legalised drug is that it can be controlled, but it patently is not at the moment.
A number of table wines have gone to 14% and I saw one at 14.5%. That's just 0.5% off a fortified wine. Some very hard questions have to be asked of the drinks industry about this.
And what about the supermarkets? Why are they setting up their stores in a 'C'mon, take a drink' fashion? Cut price boxes of Budweiser at the door, displays scattered at various points through the store so that you couldn't avoid it even if you wanted to and that wee salve to their conscience, 'If you look under 21 you may be asked for ID.' Whoopee. We all know that it's only people under 21 that have drink problems.
Now, I am aware this is turning into a bit of a rant. Perhaps you are chuckling to yourself as you read this. So let's sober you up. Is there anyone out there reading this, that does not have a friend, a relative or a neighbour with a drink problem?
We all know someone. And it's not funny. Something's got to be done about it.
Here's some suggestions.
1. Ban supermarkets from having front door displays. There's no excuse for this. Limit them to having only one place in the supermarket from where drink is sold, so that it's not an obstacle course for people with a drink problem.
2. Get the drinks industry to print the number of calories contained in a drink, on the side of the bottle. This will discourage women from drinking too much, and might even make an inroads into discouraging teenage drinking of alcopops from fashion conscious girls.
3. Don't just charge on broad bands in taxing drink. This means that an 11% wine gets charged the same as a 14% wine. Have some flexibility within the band, so that a wine with a higher percentage, gets charged more tax.
4. Look at local licensing. In Canada, drink only gets sold at a liquor store; nowhere else. That means that teenagers have no excuse to be in the shop, people with a drink problem can more easily avoid their addiction, and their relatives and friends can work out sooner that they have a problem, because they can't shop round to conceal it.
Right, I think I'll go and have a drink..of tea. Cheers!
