When Is 24% Not 24%?

There's been a lot of oil-spreading today from 'public health' extremists trying to calm waters after a landmark study showed that moderate drinking is better for your health than not drinking at all.

PINT A DAY KEEPS DOC AWAY  

Reduce your chances of having a heart attack by a THIRD with a daily pint or glass of wine 

People who drink in moderation can also slash their risk of dying young by a quarter - even compared to teetotallers

OK, that's The Sun, but it was also widely covered by other news sources. The important bit in this is what The Sun calls "a quarter". The figure, if you look at the source in the BMJ, is an increase in risk of 24% or - in epidemiological terms - a relative risk (RR) of 1.24.

This, strangely enough, is exactly the same RR that the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (SCOTH) - after a generation long campaign of policy-driven cultivated junk science - came up with for your increased chances (not absolute chance) of lung cancer and heart disease from secondhand smoke if you live with a smoker for decades. On the basis of this {cough} incredibly huge risk from about 1 in a thousand to 1.24 in a thousand, property rights were destroyed and smoking banned in every pub, bingo hall, working mens club, office, garage, works van and bus shelter with more than 50% shelter in the whole of the country.

It was compelling; a definite and incontrovertible health threat.

About the time the BMA and ASH were promoting this 24% figure as an Armageddon which has seen the corpses of bar workers piled high in British pubs, the exact same increased RR for heart attacks was dismissed as irrelevant when related to Ibuprofen, as reported by the BBC.

For ibuprofen, the odds increased by almost a quarter (24%), and for diclofenac it rose by over a half (55%). For celecoxib the odds increased by a fifth (21%) and for rofecoxib it rose by a third (32%).

It's very important that people don't panic; hundreds of thousands of arthritis patients take these drugs without problems or side effects 
A spokeswoman from Arthritis Research Campaign

But this translates into a low actual risk.

So what is the reaction by 'public health' to this same RR for teetotalism today? Well, it's kinda a bit meh. They have dismissed it as if it's inconsequential, as if it's not worth even worrying about. The responses have generally been that there are far worse things in life to fuss over, nothing to see here, move on.

As Snowdon notes in Spectator Health, this is the very height of hypocrisy.

If moderate drinking was a pharmaceutical with the same weight of evidence behind it, doctors would be prescribing it. If it was a fruit, wellness gurus would be getting rich off it. But you will never hear anyone from the ‘public health’ lobby telling teetotallers to start drinking. You will seldom even hear them acknowledge the fact that teetotallers die younger. More likely, you will see them resorting to long-debunked arguments to cast doubt on the scientific evidence. They will do almost anything to avoid advising people to drink alcohol. 

On the face of it, this is remarkable. We live in an age in which weak epidemiological associations are used to justify all manner of interventions in people’s lifestyles and yet here is a strong, proven link between the consumption of a product and substantially lower risks of both heart disease and overall mortality, and yet it is treated as a trivial factoid.

How does a 24% relative risk over a very long period indoors translate to "no safe level" of exposure to secondhand smoke even if it's outdoors briefly on a windy day, and lead to liberty-destroying bans and the destruction of the hospitality industry, yet the same 24% when it goes against prohibitionist 'public health' ideology is all of a sudden something to be ignored? When is 24% dangerous in 'public health' communications and when is 24% not?

I think we should be told. I also think we should be told why one 24% figure is used to deliberately decimate pubs and the other one - which would be favourable to pubs - is derided as not very important at all.

It's never been about health, has it? 

More 'Public Health' Crocodile Tears Over Pubs

The cost of UK booze is the third highest in the EU behind Finland and Ireland, and we pay some of the most expensive prices in the world ... so today's tiresome 'public health' whine is about how alcohol is, nevertheless, far too cheap. Natch.

Alcohol continues to be sold at 'pocket money prices', report finds

It's about time they came out with a different sound bite because 'pocket money prices' is becoming boring. No-one who has shopped in a supermarket recognises it as true but it's exactly the same term they used in their last report of this kind in 2011. Mudgie explained why it was bollocks back then and nothing has changed since; it's still bollocks.

The report itself is the usual collection of pre-determined 'research', half-truths, selective arguments and junk opinions from professional finger-wagging misery guts, all wrapped up into a package of snake oil salesmanship designed to grab a few headlines and enrage the more bovine judgemental pricks in society.

However, one theme stands out for its stunning hypocrisy. You see, these alcohol-haters seem to think that they're a big friend of pubs now. No, seriously!

The former Chancellor stated that his programme of duty cuts was designed to protect the beleaguered pub, an admirable ambition given that they generally provide a safer, more controlled environment for drinking as well as being at the heart of so many communities. However, that ambition has not been realised. Pubs continue to close and the proportion of alcohol being sold from supermarkets and other off-trade premises has reached record levels.

They even provide this handy graphic. Look at them, they're thinking of those poor pubs, don't you see?

I bet the hospitality trade is so happy to have extremist temperance nuts on their side, and no mistake! Nuts like junk science-toting Andrea Crossfield of Healthier Futures, for example, who commented eagerly about this report on their website.

You may remember the name Andrea Crossfield because she used to be a tobacco controller. In fact, still is because Healthier Futures is just the new name for Tobacco Free Futures, an organisation which is hugely in favour of smoking bans which have helped close over 10,000 pubs since 2007. Andrea's interest, y'see, is that Healthier Futures is one of the four member organisations of the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA) which produced today's report.

Now, it's more than arguable that the move from drinking in pubs to drinking at home which today's report complained about has been significantly impacted by the tobacco control industry driving smokers and their tolerant friends out of the on-trade for good. So isn't it a bit rich for the AHA to complain about the shift from drinking in a pub to drinking at home where you can relax and make up your own rules?

It's like Andrea flattening a shop with a steamroller then holding a hand out for more money from government to fix it.

The main spokesman, though, is Ian Gilmore, a tedious say-anything, do-anything, prohibitionist maggot who simply doesn't like anyone drinking alcohol and has been banging this dreary, joyless drum for nearly a decade now. He cares as much about pubs as most people care about syphilis, yet he too thinks the pubs argument is a winner.

We need to make excessively cheap alcohol less affordable through the tax system. In addition, a minimum unit price would target these products drunk by harmful drinkers, while barely affecting moderate drinkers. A minimum unit price would leave pub prices untouched.’

Well of course it would, for now. Because the architects of the ridiculous minimum alcohol pricing idea - Sheffield University's School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) - have already laid out the plan for minimum pricing to be rolled out in pubs too, and I'm pretty sure puritanical Gilmore is aware of this.

Differential minimum pricing for on-trade and off-trade leads to more substantial reductions in consumption (30p off-trade together with an 80p on-trade minimum price -2.1% versus -0.6% for 30p only; 40p together with 100p -5.4% compared to -2.6% for 40p only). This is firstly because much of the consumption by younger and hazardous drinking groups (including those at increased risk of criminal offending due to high intake on a particular day) occurs in the on-trade. It is also because increasing prices of cheaper alcohol in the on-trade dampens down the behaviour switching effects when off-trade prices are increased. 

As you can see, as well as suggesting that the best outcome for 'public health' is a combination of minimum pricing of alcohol in supermarkets and pubs, they have also suggested which scaremongering tactic temperance shitsacks should use; to accuse the pub trade of harming youths and causing violence.

So while Gilmore today maintains that he's a friend of pubs and acting in their interests, in the back of his mind he is already planning an assault on them when - not if - any prospective minimum pricing folly doesn't work. Which it definitely wouldn't.

'Public health' positioning itself as being on the side of pubs is a novel approach, I'll give them that, but if anyone in the hospitality industry swallows it, they should realise that licensing headaches and irate neighbours will seem like a suburban tea party by the time weapons grade booze-hating lunatics like Gilmore are finished with them.

Back To The Future With CAMRA

As you can gather from the lack of posts here in the past week, it is still incredibly busy at Puddlecote Inc as our contract mobilisation date looms ever closer. 

Cash flow has become a bit less, erm, fluent recently due to the massive level of investment we have had to undertake. We currently have new vehicles all over the place and are ploughing through the training of the extra staff we have had to recruit. Rewards are high all round but it's squeaky bum time so if things are quiet here in coming weeks that'll be why.

I did manage to catch up with some news this afternoon over my lunchtime sarnie, Twix and Lucozade though, and this article leapt out at me somewhat.

The Government is being urged to hold a new consultation on alcohol consumption, after a study showed that most people believe that drinking in moderation is part of a healthy lifestyle. 

A survey of more than 2,000 adults revealed that over half disagreed with official health guidelines, and that they should be the same for men and women. 

The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) said its research showed that the Health Department should launch a public consultation on whether guidelines on drinking were "fit for purpose".

They are, of course, not fit for purpose at all. It's quite clear that the Chief Medical Officer was operating from a position of complete ignorance when declaring that "there is no safe level" of alcohol consumption back in January.

The science doesn't support this unless you ignore a whole host of studies which report a protective effect ... which Silly Sally's review did.

Today's article continued ...

A Department of Health spokesman said: "The alcohol guidelines give people the latest and most up to date scientific information so that they can make an informed decision about their drinking. This was the most comprehensive look at all the evidence on alcohol in 20 years (apart from the omissions, natch - DP). 

"The review team looked at all the studies on the protective effects of alcohol, but concluded that the protective effect was overestimated for most people."

All of which suggests that the public surveyed by CAMRA are far more educated on the matter than the government. Isn't that truly scary?

Anyhow, many of you may remember another time when the "no safe level" rationale was used; in order to promote the idea of a smoking ban, and CAMRA were right behind that initiative at the time. It brings to mind an article I wrote on just this subject back in 2011, which was published in a monthly newsletter aimed at members of .... CAMRA.

THERE IS A curious – and ill-judged – tendency amongst many beer lovers to consider their chosen vice as somehow resistant to the attentions of the health lobby as opposed to tobacco. Even CAMRA have fallen for it. In 2004, they weakly attempted to defend pubs from the harmful effects of the smoking ban by playing right into tobacco control hands and suggesting that a diversity of outlets offering choice for all would “split the pub trade”. In the end, they got their wish as all pubs were given no choice. Now, you can argue, if you like, that this has had no damaging effect on the hospitality trade (I’d heartily disagree) but it has certainly contributed to a big problem for pubs, and beer lovers, which is only now beginning to come home to roost. 

In a rousing 1919 speech following the ratification of Prohibition in the US, “anti-saloon” campaigner Billy Sunday declared “Prohibition is won, now for tobacco!”. Because all the while campaigners for the prohibition of alcohol were tied up with that issue, their assault on smoking was left on the back burner. Once the war against alcohol was completed, resources were freed up to attack tobacco, employing the same personnel and moral pleading which was so successful against booze.  

Nothing has changed from those days. Just as righteous crusaders tackled both substances around a century ago, so do their modern day equivalents act the same now. ASH have taken to coaching anti-alcohol campaigners on how to achieve the same demonisation of alcohol as has happened with tobacco, and the methodology is lifted from the successful anti-smoking playbook. Professor David Nutt was the first to suggest that “there is no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption”, a position which is increasingly becoming the default one. The Cancer Council of Australia certainly thinks that way, a couple of months ago advocating that total abstinence should be the only public health policy. In a chilling reminder of post-prohibition triumphalism in the US, the Australian press reported the campaign as “Cigs war won: now cancer campaigners set their sights on beer”. 

CAMRA keeps ploughing this furrow, as in August last year where they tried to claim some form of high ground by declaring that “beer can supplement a healthy lifestyle if consumed in a responsible manner”, but this approach is doomed if they think that playing in public health’s self-constructed playground is going to do anything but invite ridicule. ‘No safe level’ leaves no wriggle room whatsoever, and the protestation that beer is somehow not that bad will be thrown back at them by the health lobby as an admission of guilt. Which it is. 

No. The best form of defence, as always, is attack. And instead of back-sliding when the smoking in pubs debate was taking place, CAMRA would have been better served standing firm and resisting all legislation on tobacco. While that buffer was still in place, CAMRA were insulated against the worst excesses of an insatiable health lobby. Without it, resources are being withdrawn from tobacco in favour of new targets, and those who enjoy a pint or two are now squarely in the crosshair. 

So as CAMRA now wrestle with being next tick box on the denormalisation campaign, never let it be said that they weren't warned, eh?

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Huge kudos to Pete Brown for once again calling a spade a spade when it comes to anti-alcohol liars.

Via the PMA:

A new report, picked up by the Publican’s Morning Advertiser (PMA) on 9 March, claimed that alcohol taxes are too low because the revenue collected by Government from alcohol sales is far lower than the cost of alcohol to society. 

The report hinges on the claim that the Government collects £9bn in taxes in alcohol, whereas alcohol costs society £21bn a year. If these stats were true, there would be a strong case to answer. But the comparison between £9bn revenue and £21bn cost is completely erroneous. 

How about with that £21bn? As I’ve written previously, this number seemed plucked from the air. The vast bulk of it consists of ‘intangible’ (and therefore incalculable) costs such as the impact on the economy of the emotional trauma of the victims of alcohol-related crime (£4.7bn of the total.) 

The £21bn figure, even if it was correct, is the total cost of alcohol to society, not just the cost to the taxpayer of health and emergency services dealing with alcohol-related harm. 

And yet in the plus column, this report and others before it only consider duty receipts from alcohol direct to the government. There isn’t an honest accountant on the planet who would accept this as an acceptable balance of cost versus benefit. 

If the IAS were to compare like with like, they would have two options: firstly, to compare the cost to the UK taxpayer of alcohol abuse with the revenue to the UK treasury from alcohol sales. That would be a fair comparison. And it would reveal — as has previously been reported — that revenue would exceed cost to the tune of more than £6bn a year. 

If they want to include every single cost of alcohol to society — including everything from lost productivity due to hangovers to expenditure on alarms to prevent alcohol-fuelled crime — they need to also include the broadest possible range of benefits from alcohol consumption. 

And that would include the contribution pubs make to their local economy, and corporation tax paid by brewers, to the intangible benefit of the stronger social networks, increased community cohesion and stress reduction that moderate consumption gives the majority of drinkers. 

Anti-alcohol campaigners are aware of all this, and yet they continue to quote their figure of £21bn versus £9bn figures as fact.

Very well put.

The problem, of course, is that 'public health' is an inherently dishonest profession. By that I mean that they are not at all interested in truth, scientific integrity or even what is beneficial for the public, and don't even care that much what is good for public health. They only care about their own lucrative tax-sponging nest and how best to feather it for the future.

Brown puts this very well in his denouement.

If you continue to insist something is true when you know it’s not, that makes you a ‘liar’. It’s time the drinks industry went on the offensive against these people and named them for what they are.

Indeed. And the possibility that the drinks industry might very well do that is why the anti-alcohol version of 'public health' is seeking to do exactly what their anti-smoking counterparts have done - silence all speech by anyone who might meaningfully debate them.

Let's just compare something here. Say your employer lied about you to have you sacked, it would be illegal for them not to allow you your chance to debate them. 'Public health' has no such concerns, they can close businesses down on a whim and put thousands - or even millions - on the dole simply to boost their own bank accounts, and without fear of censure or financial penalty.

The 'public health' industry is the most vile, corrosive and damaging drain on the well-being of the public that there has ever been. There is not a single person working in 'public health' today who hasn't, at some point, lied to the public and to politicians. They all, without exception, deserve to be in jail.

But where do the anti-alcohol liars get their methods from? Well, from the anti-smoking liars, of course.

In 2010, a pal of Action on Smoking and Health - Henry Featherstone of the Policy Exchange think tank - peddled an economically bankrupt study in order to 'prove' that smoking costs more to the public's finances than it generates. Their report was destroyed by other economic think tanks and panned into ridicule by the printed media (apart from the Guardian, natch) because it was demonstrable nonsense from start to finish, and the author knew it as much as his pharma funders and his cheerleaders in the tobacco control industry did.

But tobacco controllers - the most corrupt liars of the lot - still quote it to this day and so do their vacuous poodles in parliament. It doesn't matter if it's bollocks, because they know very well it's bollocks but spout it anyway.

No-one from the anti-alcohol bandwagon will sue Pete Brown for calling them liars because - as he points out - they know very well that they are. They know that if they dared to take it to a court case, the court would judge them to be lying scum and scales might fall off millions of eyes.

So they'll just carry on using the £21bn figure even when they know they are lying, just as anti-smoking liars continue to use their own laughable lies when they are well aware that the figures they are quoting are pure fantasy.

If you're not keen on the lies being told about alcohol, fizzy drinks, e-cigs, fast food, chocolate or any other popular product, always remember it started with the liars in the tobacco control industry being allowed to get away with it. They're just copying the tobacco control playbook and destroying people's lives every day that they are permitted by our weak and pathetic politicians to do so.

Sydney: A Glimpse Of The Future?

Last summer a good friend of mine, Tim Andrews, popped by on his way to Europe and shared more than the recommended amount of sherberts with a few of us in London.

To peals of laughter, he regaled us with tales of some of the barmy rules his home of Sydney has imposed on drinking. From stories about the state deciding when he is allowed to drink to waiters chasing him around with a plastic chair because he walked out into the sunshine to enjoy a beer - where it is illegal to drink without being seated - we could only react with pity. Well, a lot of hilarity too, of course, I mean how could you not?

My personal favourite was a story of a politician who was offered a drink late at night and chose a single malt. His companion went to the bar but was told he couldn't be served that particular drink because it counted as a shot and the law said they were illegal after midnight in order to tackle binge-drinking. "What a stupid law that is!", raged the politician, to which his friend replied, "yes, but you voted for it".

Now, if you read Saturday's links, you might have seen this article. It not only suggests that Tim wasn't exaggerating, but also that the hysteria over drinking in Sydney is quite insane and is destroying the night time economy.

As I write this in 2016, not a day goes by without the press reporting of yet another bar, club, hotel, restaurant or venue closing.

Repeat after me. The state only ever steps in where free markets fail, OK?

Kings Cross, in particular, has been decimated so badly that it will never, ever, come back as an entertainment precinct. Hugo’s Lounge closing, which was the swankiest bar in Sydney for fifteen years and voted Australia’s best nightclub five years running, was the last nail in the coffin for the area. 

The venue also housed the 130-seat Hugo’s Pizza, which had not just won Best Pizza Restaurant in Australia at the Australian Restaurant & Catering Awards, but was also named the World’s Best Pizza in the American Pizza Challenge in New York. 

Manager Dave Evans cited revenue falling by 60% due thirty-six different "stringent conditions" that had been placed on the business over the past two-and-a-half years. The closing of the venue made seventy staff lose their jobs.

But how can this happen? Surely the state has our interests at heart? They serve us after all, yeah?

And oh, how ridiculous these rules have become in Sydney. A special little person has decided that there is a certain time at night when we are all allowed to go out, and there is a certain time that we are allowed into an establishment and a certain time that we are all supposed to be tucked into bed. There is a certain time we are allowed to buy some drinks, and over the course of the night the amount of drinks we are allowed to buy will change. The drinks we buy must be in a special cup made of a special material, and that special material will change over the course of the night at certain times. The cup has to be a certain size. It cannot be too big, because someone might die. Over the course of the night, this special little person will tell you what you can and cannot put into your cup because someone might die. 

It is now illegal to buy a bottle of wine after 10pm in the City of Sydney because not a single one of us is to be trusted with any level of personal responsibility. Apparently there is an epidemic of people being bashed to death over dinner with a bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc that we have all been blissfully unaware of. 

Likewise it is now illegal to have a scotch on the rocks after midnight in the City of Sydney because someone might die.

Ah, that's the one which caught the politician out.

You can drink it if you put some Coca-cola in it, but you can’t drink it if the Coca-cola has been mixed previously with it and it’s been put in a can. Because that is an “alcopop” whatever the hell that means. The only person more confused than me is the bartender. The poor sod is only trying to scrape a few nickels to make it through university; not only are they struggling with their hours being drastically cut back with venues shutting, but the government is now threatening them personally with fines if they break any of the rules.

Oh what a tangled web we weave when 'public health' is allowed free reign in the city of Simple Simon and his snobby, judgemental friends, eh?

It is also now easier to get a beer in Pyongyang, North Korea, than it is in Sydney.

It's a long read but do pour yourself a bevy and have a gander at the whole thing. I guarantee you your drink will taste ever the sweeter as you thank your lucky stars that the absurd restrictions Sydney residents are forced to put up with thanks to extremists are not in force over here. Yet.

I've said before that I pity the hell out of Tim for having to live in that Godawful city, but I've made a mental note not to laugh so much next time he recounts his stories. After seeing what he has to put up with, laughing about it must appear to him to be as cruel as kicking puppies.

Also bear in mind that these bansturbators share information globally and there are many temperance nuts who would like to create the anti-fun hellhole of Sydney over here too. It's why they need to be watched like a hawk and their efforts should be resisted at every turn. Sydney proves what can happen if we're not vigilant.

For the sake of your children who have to grow up in the world that 'public health' aspires to create, always remember that we're on the side of the angels here and they are most definitely not, won't you?

H/T Entropy72

An Update On That Non-Existent Slippery Slope

"The “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false." - Deborah Arnott, Feb 2012

"Look, if the slope is slippery, it's the most unslippery slippery dip I've ever seen in my life." - Simon Chapman, Aug 2012

What prompted those condescending quotes of denial was the idea that if we don't stand up to tobacco control industry fascists, sooner or later we'll have to suffer overweening hyperbole like this when ordering a bottle of wine.

'WARNING! Alcohol can cause death, poisoning, cancer and addiction'

So I thought today might be a good time to have a look at how "unslippery" that slippery slope is being recently. You know, to see how "patently false" the domino theory is.

'Put cigarette-style health warnings on fizzy drinks,' urge health chiefs

Last night Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health, said: 'The results of this study are promising, suggesting that health warning labels could have a role in the battle against poor diet and obesity. 

'As a society we are consuming too much sugar and in addition to a sugar tax any measure which is effective in reducing purchases, and ultimately consumption of sugary drinks should be welcomed. 

'Given the success that health warnings have had in other areas, such as smoking, it is right that we should adopt similar measures that may be effective in encouraging people to change their behaviour.' 

This follows just a few days after another bunch of tax spongers demanded the same for bottles of wine, using the Chief Morality Officer's evidence-free alcohol 'guidelines' as the justification.

Graphic cigarette-style warnings urged for alcohol

Alison Douglas, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, said: “People have the right to know what they’re putting into their bodies so they can make informed choices. The next step is to make sure the new guidelines are clearly communicated to the public. 

“One way to help inform customers would be to have compulsory health warnings on all alcohol products.”

Yes, just guidelines, remember, (even though the CMO's own report called them limits) because they are not going to be used as a tool for scaremongery and coercion, oh no.

I sometimes debate inwardly about whether 'public health' are fully aware that they lie every time their lips move, or whether the words just tumble out and coincidentally turn out to be proven embarrassingly wrong. Either way they are obviously undeserving of taxpayer cash and should be starved of it, in my opinion.

If you find any other examples like this of the slippery slope quite clearly not being a thing, and other consumer products definitely not being attacked by following the tobacco control template, do let me know won't you?

Count The Minimum Alcohol Pricing Deceptions

The Adam Smith Institute's Sam Bowman recently appeared on Irish TV to bring a modicum of truth to the truly idiotic garbage being spouted about minimum alcohol pricing (MUP).

It was a fairly substantial slot so all the aspects could be explored, but as a result this allowed Sam's opponent - Dr Stephen Stewart of the Royal College of Physicians - adequate time to vomit out every half-truth, prejudice, misleading stat, lie and conspiracy wackiness in favour of MUP all in one neatly-packaged video item.

You can watch the whole thing here or below but shall we count the deceptions? Yes, I think we should, don't you?

Claim number 1 from Stewart.

"Does not affect pubs or restaurant prices of alcohol"

This is only true of what is currently planned, but minimum pricing for pubs is, indeed, set out by the Sheffield researchers as a future option. The doctor states in this piece that he has read the Sheffield paper in depth so he surely must know this (page 6 here).

Differential minimum pricing for on-trade and off-trade leads to more substantial reductions in consumption (30p off-trade together with an 80p on-trade minimum price -2.1% versus -0.6% for 30p only; 40p together with 100p -5.4% compared to -2.6% for 40p only). This is firstly because much of the consumption by younger and hazardous drinking groups (including those at increased risk of criminal offending due to high intake on a particular day) occurs in the on-trade. It is also because increasing prices of cheaper alcohol in the on-trade dampens down the behaviour switching effects when off-trade prices are increased.

Now, Stewart could make this argument if his profession aren't well known for demanding more and more restrictions towards total prohibition, but they are. In fact, they are extremely well-known for doing just that and will undoubtedly do so. When MUP fails - as it will most definitely do because it's a load of donkey cock - there will be calls, based on the Sheffield model, for "differential minimum pricing" which will target pubs too.

In the scenario above, 80p per unit would affect Wetherspoons pubs in the UK and 100p would affect many many pubs outside of London and the South East, you can fully expect the same would happen in Ireland.

Claim number 2:

"and only the very cheapest"

This claim displays either crashing ignorance of economic pricing or is a convenient lie.  MUP wouldn't affect only the very cheapest drinks, because the premium of a brand would necessitate rising prices right up the scale. If cheap booze is raised to a similar price as branded stuff, the branded stuff will increase in price to protect the differential. Minimum pricing would cost every responsible drinker more, and the poorest would naturally feel it in their pocket most because of the margins being more acute to those with less disposable income. This is economics and business 101.

Again, this is either a crashing ignorance of business and economics or a convenient lie.

Claim number 3:

"alcohol is a very very price-sensitive commodity, and there's very good modelling from Sheffield about the impact this will have"

Well considering the Sheffield modelling is garbage and produced by incompetents, he's not on solid ground at all here. Because, you see, Sheffield used laughable assumptions which are not based on any evidence whatsoever.

The model assumes that minimum pricing will have more effect on the consumption patterns of heavy drinkers than on moderate drinkers because heavy drinkers are more price-sensitive. This is a convenient belief since it is heavy drinkers who cause and suffer the most alcohol-related harm, but can we really assume that someone with an alcohol dependency is more likely to be deterred by price rises than a more casual consumer? The SAPM model says that they are, and yet there is ample evidence to support the common sense view that heavy drinkers and alcoholics are less price-sensitive than the general population (eg. Gallet, 2007; Wagenaar, 2009). Indeed, research has shown that price elasticity for the heaviest drinkers is “not significantly different from zero” - they will, in other words, purchase alcohol at almost any cost (Purshouse, 2009; p. 76). 

So, who does Stewart believe MUP should be targeted at? During the piece he insists that the purpose is solely to address harmful consumption, but his claim only works if it is directed at all drinkers, heavy or otherwise. Did he give away a secret agenda or is he lying? You decide.

Claim number 4:

"We actually have real world evidence from British Columbia in Canada, we saw from that that if you increase the price of alcohol by 10%, you see a fall in consumption of 4.5% but most importantly you see a reduction in mortality by alcohol related causes by 32% in the first year."

This is a lie.

Alas, this is entirely inconsistent with the established facts. Official statistics show that the alcohol mortality rate in British Columbia rose from 26 per 100,000 persons to 28 per 100,000 persons between 2002 and 2008. As the graph below shows, neither mortality (solid line) nor per capita alcohol consumption (dotted line) fell during this period.  

Between 2002 and 2011, the number of deaths directly attributed to alcohol in British Columbia rose from 315 to 443 with the largest annual death rates occurring after the minimum price rises of 2006. Between 2006 and 2008, when further minimum price rises occurred, the number of deaths rose from 383 to a peak of 448. Moreover, the rate of hospitalisations for both alcohol-related ailments and acute intoxication both rose during this decade.

Claim number 5:

"That's not true [that if you are addicted to alcohol you will buy it whatever the price], because you will be limited by what money you have"

Yes, that financial restriction which has curtailed drug addiction for eternity. Aww bless, perhaps someone should tell him about black markets and drug-related crime?

Claim number 6:

"What we will see is a reduction in the concentration of alcohol in a bottle of wine, and that can only be a good thing"

This is actually as truthful as Stewart gets in the whole piece. Just the thought of wine manufacturers reducing their levels of alcohol - not to just heavy drinkers but to everyone - brings a satisfied smile to his face. It does, however, show him up for being disingenuous when he says that the measure is targeted at harmful drinkers. The alcohol content of drinks is dictated my market pressure - if a wine is unpopular the public won't buy it - so the overwhelmingly moderate-drinking public are obviously quite happy with the range of options currently available. Stewart doesn't like this and wants to interfere to reduce it by force of law ... for everyone.

Claim number 7:

"I don't think we should not introduce legislation because it's not going to work for everybody ... there is going to be no individual law that is going to be able to affect every single harmful drinker"

Yes there is, it's called ad valorem tax, currently applied to alcohol and the preferred option of the EU. Hence why it's the CJEU Advocate General's opinion that MUP is illegal. The presenter puts this very fact to Stewart which leads us to ...

Claim number 8:

"It's a lot easier for the drinks industry to get round those taxes" 

Again, Stewart betrays himself. If targeting harmful drinkers as he claims to be concerned with, isn't it more sensible to try to affect all of them, not just the less well-off? Stewart doesn't seem to care, but is more interested in attacking the drinks industry. He doesn't care that there are better alternatives for 'public health', nor that supermarkets will have their coffers filled by a pointless initiative, just wants to bash the poor and demonise an industry providing popular products. he expands gleefully on this by talking about restricting advertising and availability, which will - of course - not target any particular subset of drinkers, it will affect every drinker.

Claim number 9:

"What we currently have is a public health policy which is driven by the alcohol industry"

I can only assume that Sam had debunked his nonsense so effectively on the show (and here recently too) that he was in desperation mode. As Sam quite rightly says, "we already have some of the highest alcohol taxes in Europe, in fact in the world in Ireland; to pretend the industry is setting all the rules here is just not true".

Indeed. It's barking conspiracy theory nuttiness from a Chicken Little bellwipe who seems to have been frustrated that all his dodgy claims are not being taken seriously.

Claim number 10: 

"Currently we have a nanny industry in alcohol who are deciding the pricing, deciding the availability, and deciding exactly how they want to promote alcohol" 

Oh, this is interesting. We've seen this daft argument here recently haven't we folks? In December it was food snobs trying to pretend that industry were the nannies and not hideous people who wish to restrict our choices, now the same flawed stupidity is rolled out by anti-alcohol frother Stewart. As I mentioned at the time.

The problem that nanny statists have - because that is precisely what they are - is that industry really doesn't have to try hard to sell popular products to the public, because they are just that. Popular. Whereas nasty curtain-twitching prohibitionists are not very popular at all! No-one likes a nag, especially when they restrict choice and ban stuff we like by pestering and bullying politicians. 

Of course, if the cult of 'public health' truly believed that people are so easily swayed by a few ads, they would simply do the same themselves and we'd all dutifully fall into line, but they don't. And the reason being? Because they demand regulations, legislation and bans on the basis that - wait for it - education is not effective. No really, they do ... at the same time as pretending that education (adverts) from the [insert industry here] are somehow miraculously compelling! It would be funny if it wasn't so utterly pathetic. 

The upside of all this, of course, is that their attempting to change the meaning of terms like 'nanny' and 'nanny state' simply illustrate how hurtful and damaging the terms are to them.

In truth, the Irish state - like our own - imposes heavy regulations on pricing, availability and marketing of alcohol by way of taxation, licensing and advertising restrictions. Stewart can try to push this laughable sound bite if he likes but it is an absurd and contorted perversion of reality; it won't work; and no matter how much butthurt he feels at being described as a nanny, he is one and will always be thought of in that manner by the public. Sorry, but that's life.

So that's 10 daft claims in one article, with not one of them standing up to proper scrutiny.

The last word must be left to Sam, who summed up the whole not-about-health mendacity and wriggling succinctly.

"Really what Stephen [Stewart] is saying is that he's annoyed that he's not in charge. 

"He's annoyed that the alcohol industry has too much say and he wants doctors to have a say instead. I think that's not right, I think that we should let individuals make the decision for themselves how much they drink and what they drink."

Ain't that the truth!

The Most Pathetic Nanny State Whine Of 2015

We may be approaching the end of 2015, but it wasn't too late for the most pathetic nanny state whining of the year to emerge over the Christmas period. I mean, just get a load of this!

Discount chain sparks fury for 'tempting children to alcohol' with Frozen themed champagne-style drink

Now, on reading the headline I believed that some drinks company had produced a Champagne-style alcoholic treat in Disney packaging. A bit naughty, I thought, so understandable that some might not like it, even though many adults enjoy Disney films too. But no, it isn't that at all!

OUTRAGED campaigners have blasted a Frozen-themed children’s drink in a champagne-style bottle for tempting kids to try booze. 

The non-alcoholic fizzy drink, covered in pictures of the Disney film’s characters, is described as “sophisticated” and “grown-up”. 

But campaigners say the drink should be removed from sale immediately.

That's right, this is a non-alcoholic drink. That is, a non-alcoholic drink aimed at children, packaged with characters which children like. There are actually people around us who worry about stuff like this.

Dr Sarah Jarvis, medical advisor to charity Drinkaware, warned: “Selling products which not only normalise but glamorise alcohol could increase the risk of young people wanting to experiment with alcohol.”

Hmm, I've got news for Sarah Jarvis, alcohol is already quite normal, you can't normalise something which is already normal, dear, it's kinda impossible. An overwhelming majority in this country see alcohol as a perfectly normal consumer product, anyone who believes differently is in a tiny minority and therefore abnormal, it's that simple.

We also have these normal things called pubs, Sarah dear, where normal kids can be found eating and drinking normal non-alcoholic fizzy drinks while their parents drink normal alcohol out of often the same normal glassware, we look forward to your campaign to ban kids from these normal establishments with interest.

But then this is the same Dr Jarvis whose obnoxious, condescending attitude towards the public and the advice she thinks we should be force-fed with was astutely described by Tom Paine in 2012.

She was a personable lady whom I would be happy to have as my GP and whose advice I would try to take. She simply didn't grasp, in her backed-by-state-force arrogance, that there was a difference between being an advisor and a boss. 

When we nationalised medical services in Britain (a mistake in my view, but that's for another time) we did not give the medical profession a promotion. We still expect them to serve us, not direct us. Nor do we expect them to describe us as a "cost" to the NHS, when the NHS is a cost to us. It may sound a bit Downton Abbey but this woman simply does not know her place.

Quite. And her place is most definitely not wagging her finger and voicing absurd dismal hysteria about an innocent soft drink at Christmas time. Of course, the Scottish state-funded prohibitionists are even worse.

Alison Douglas, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, insisted: “This product should be removed from sale immediately."

No it shouldn't you repulsive crone. These bottles have not broken any laws but have doubtless brought smiles, happiness and joy to thousands of kids this Christmas. That you want to take that away on the basis of some far-fetched theory about something that - as Grandad has pointed out - will almost certainly not happen speaks volumes about what a superlatively miserable and pathetic human being you are.

It also shows that these hideous bottom-feeding shroud-wavers can't even zip their sanctimonious, soulless pinch lips for a few short days, at a time of the year when the rest of us are in a happy mood. I do truly believe it is a form of mental illness and they require psychiatric help.

One thing is for certain, they should never be allowed to voice their abnormal views near politicians or be given cash for their puritannical anti-social extremist theories ... oh hold on!

See No Evil Except When We Tell You To

'Public health', 2013:

There was a significant shift from cigarettes being displayed to the cigarette box only. It is argued that the cigarette box has absorbed the meanings associated with smoking and has become an effective vehicle for advertising. It is also argued that this can only be minimised with plain packaging.

The public must be stopped from looking at packaging!

'Public health', 2015:

The drinks industry is facing a dramatic crackdown on advertising that would ban traditional scenes of pub 'craic' and force companies to use just images of the product itself. In a bid to 'de-glamorise' drinking, the legislation is expected to state that the ads can feature only the alcoholic product, the Irish Independent has learned.

The public must be made to look at packaging!

Look guys and gals in the 'public health' racket, it's quite clear that your justifications for regulations restricting choice and liberties are just feeble excuses. So much so that you're not even being consistent or coherent anymore. Can you just cut the crap and admit that your nanny state gravy train - in every policy area where you're active - is dedicated to the achievement of only one goal. Prohibition.

Come clean, eh? You know it makes sense.

Of Vapes And Virginia

A couple of videos have been doing the rounds on Twitter in the past couple of days that you may be interested in. Firstly, you may remember that the recent Battle of Ideas featured a debate on e-cigs entitled "Planet of the Vapes: why is there a war on e-cigarettes?", which was included in my review of the day here.

All sessions at the BoI were filmed and that particular one is now online to watch. So settle down after your Sunday bath with your favourite beverage (or several) and have a watch of the whole thing below.

Alternatively, if you don't fancy something of that length, here is an interesting 5 minute investigation by the Adam Smith Institute's Sam Bowman into the bizarre arrangement in Virginia whereby if you fancy a bottle of scotch, you have to buy it from the state government! Watch out for the awesome economics professor, so cool he could chill a bottle of Sauvignon in a few seconds.

A "War" On 80% Of The Public

Here's more of that non-existent slippery slope we keep hearing about.

An international expert on tobacco control is calling for Scotland to lead the way in a global ‘war’ to tackle alcohol problems, similar to the efforts which have been made to reduce smoking across the western world.

A "war", no less! So who is this caped crusader against a consumer product enjoyed harmlessly by the vast majority of the population?

Professor Gerard Hastings, who founded the Centre for Tobacco Control Research at Stirling University, and has advised governments and the World Health Organisation (WHO), said tobacco and alcohol were examples of an “industrial epidemic”, where health issues are being driven by commercial interests. 

He wants Scotland to take a leading role in urging the WHO to introduce a framework which will outline how countries can take action to address alcohol problems by introducing measures around advertising, packaging and the way it is sold.

Oh I see, it's far left wing anti-business nutcase Hastings, a guy (along with others) who came to the attention of Peter Oborne of the Telegraph last August.

Linda Bauld and Gerard Hastings are academics from Stirling University, where they contribute to something which calls itself the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies. Generally speaking this taxpayer funded group is in favour of heavy regulation and blanket bans.

But Prof Hastings also has a wider political and social agenda. Here is his latest anti-business rant:

At the time, Frank Davis offered an accurate description of this lunatic.

But I watched the YouTube video of Professor Gerard Hastings embedded in the text. It was one long emotional rant (he seemed like he was about to burst into tears) against not just smoking and drinking and fatty food, but against marketing, big business, inequality, profit, everything. Here was someone who had looked at the world around him and did not like it one bit, and desperately wanted to make it into a better world. He wanted to completely reconstruct it. For him, public health was not just about smoking and drinking and fatty food: it was about absolutely everything, and he wanted Public Health to be running absolutely everything. 

A century ago he would have been a bomb-throwing anarchist, like Gavrilo Princip. But now people like him are professors of public health, paid handsomely to interfere in everyone’s lives.

Indeed they are. And, as Frank says, not just on behaviours which are harmful, but on ones which are more often than not beneficial to society in general and arguably healthy. Predictably, he hates e-cigs too.

So how is this public-despising degenerate extremist planning on conducting this "war" then? Well, in the same way as with tobacco of course.

Hastings said: “With tobacco, public health has eventually got its head round it and said if you are really going to tackle tobacco, you have to do something about the business side of this. 

“Initially that focused in on advertising, as that is a very visible part of what they are doing. 

"But it is actually having to look at the whole marketing environment - which is not just the advertising but the product development, the pricing strategies, the distribution, the point of sale, the packaging and also indeed all the stuff that big business does to curry favour with government as well as customers. 

“To deal with that, the route that was taken was to produce the (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.” 

Hastings said a similar treaty should now been put place for alcohol

Oh dear, that very much contradicts what Debs said a while ago, doesn't it? (emphases mine)

[T]he “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false. The same argument was used against the ban on tobacco advertising, but 9 years after the tobacco ban in the UK, alcohol advertising is still permitted with no sign of it being prohibited. Tobacco is a uniquely dangerous consumer product which is why there is a WHO health treaty (the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) to regulate tobacco use.

Which is precisely what Hastings' (and presumably Bauld's too) new "war" on alcohol intends to set up. I suppose it's too much for us to hope ASH will issue an apology for declaring this domino theory a myth when it has now been proven to be 100% true? Nah, thought not.

As an aside, I was also mighty amused with this from fellow finger-wagging lefty twat Richard Simpson, a Labour MSP.

Simpson said he would support Hastings in terms of having an international campaign to limit the advertising of alcohol in a similar way to tobacco. 

“The harms are not quite the same, but there needs to be further restrictions on advertising,” he said. 

“It is about trying to de-normalise alcohol as well – it may be used by over 80% of the population, but having almost ubiquitous advertising and spending vast amounts on advertising is not acceptable.”

Admitting to being part of a tiny minority of 20% but declaring that it's "unacceptable" to abide by the choices of the 80% is astonishing from a politician. But then, hatred and bigotry does so cloud the faculties, doesn't it?

Battling History And Humanity

Where, oh where, do you start with this from New Zealand?

New Zealand has a problem and not enough is being done about it. Williams says drinking has been "normalised" in New Zealand, clouding the incredibly high risk that alcohol places on our health and several aspects of our well-being. 

"The drinking culture and pressures to drink and continue drinking are very persuasive and pervasive," she says.

This is from, you will not be surprised to learn, Alcohol Healthwatch director Rebecca Williams who gets paid for having such an opinion.

"There's (sic) very few areas or occasions you can go to in New Zealand where alcohol isn't an expected part of the activity. 

"It's seen as an essential element to relaxation, an essential element to social connection and an essential part of all our gatherings, generally."

Probably, Rebecca, because alcohol is very good as a relaxant and brilliant for encouraging social connection. Parties at your place must be pretty crap if you aren't comfortable with that.

These trends also worry New Zealand Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell, who believes drinking is "extremely" normalised. 

"We celebrate the birth of a child with alcohol and we commiserate the death of someone with alcohol," he says. "It's seen as such a normal thing that people buy it when they do their weekly grocery shop."

That's because it is normal, you berk. It's the very definition of the word normal.

Since you are one of the vanishing few who don't subscribe to the consensus, that makes you the one who isn't normal. That's how it works, y'see?

Bell says there's something about humans and the "pursuit of getting out of it". 

"Most, not all, cultures have had some form of intoxicant. Part of alcohol's popularity is it does what it says it's going to do. It give you warm feelings and it loosens your inhibitions."

Yes, it's been the same throughout the world for millennia, and it's a good thing. So why don't you just piss off and leave people to enjoy what they are clearly happy with?

Dry July's Scott Savidge acknowledges he's not an expert on alcohol - Dry July is first and foremost a fundraiser - but he says our longstanding relationship with alcohol is pretty clear. 

"It's so intensely socialised and so embedded in the culture and so freely available. 

"People have been eating plants and fermenting things to go to different spaces in their consciousness since the beginning."

Indeed, and that is never going to change, so stop trying.

Savidge believes the often-slated youth of today are no worse than other age groups and generations. 

"Younger people, students and so on are often targeted or highlighted because they're visible. What people don't see is the large numbers of people who aren't visible who are drinking problematically; the older people who drink at home in a way that's not monitored."

Were these people ever young themselves, because I'm struggling to imagine it. And 'monitored'? What sort of fucked up mentality would even consider the idea of monitoring people making free choices in their own homes?

Williams, of Alcohol Healthwatch, says there needs to be drastic action to stop the normalisation of alcohol becoming even deeper entrenched.

It's been entrenched for thousands of years, you sour old crone, stop wasting your pathetic life and go do something more constructive for society instead. Like peeling the pavement with your chin.

"The industry says it comes down to personal responsibility, but that's rubbish. It's a mix of personal choices and our environment. 

"The environment determines and sustains the culture. Every single review of our drinking habits says we need to restrict advertising of alcohol, yet we do nothing."

Every single review? Written by purse-lipped puritans like you, perchance?

Change needs to be made at the population level, she says. 

"No amount of education or social marketing will make a significant impact. There's (sic) so many studies and experts that say there needs to be taxation and restricted availability."

"So many", as in a few isolated professional miseries amongst millions of people who are quite content with how they choose to live their lives. You're outnumbered by orders of magnitude; you're the outliers here, the abnormal ones, not us, so go boil your heads in chip fat or something yeah?

At the moment, there's too much acceptance of drunken and drugged behaviour, according to Makary. 

He cites the drink-driving advertisements with a carload of drunks and one sober driver, implying it's okay to get drunk as long as you don't drive.

Yes, because it really is okay. That is just about the sum of it.

Look, I'm not a supreme idealist, I know that people like this have to exist - we've suffered their tedious ilk for just as long as some caveman first sucked on a weather-fermented fruit and knocked himself out - but can politicians please stop taking the hideous fuckmuppets seriously?

Humanity loves alcohol and history proves that will always be the case. Just because a handful of grumpy social outcasts open their miserable gobs once in a while doesn't mean anyone should be listening.

Happy Beer Day, Britain!

Forget Magna Carta, today is the day for all British people to celebrate lovely lovely beer!

Today beer and pubs are still central to the social health of the nation and in economic terms they contribute £22 billion annually to Britain’s GDP.

You won't hear miserable milk-curdling nanny statists mentioning that particular statistic, now will you?

One job in brewing generates twenty one jobs in agriculture, retail, pubs, and the supply chain. Britain’s brewing scene is the most dynamic and exciting it has ever been with more breweries per capita than any other country.

So let's help it stay that way. It may only be Monday but if you have a vape-friendly local or one with a decent smoking garden, pop down there. If not, go to the fridge and crack one open, or, if you're unstocked, pop down the Co-op and get some in.

On such an auspicious day, I can but paraphrase Frank Cross's rousing 1988 speech ...

I get it now! Then if you HAVE BEER, then it can happen, then the miracle can happen to you! It's not just the poor and the thirsty, it's everybody's who's GOT to have this miracle! And it can happen tonight for all of you. If you believe in this beer thing, the miracle will happen and then you'll want it to happen again tomorrow. You won't be one of these bastards who says 'Beer is bad because I'm a miserable nanny statist', it's NOT! It can happen every day, you've just got to want that feeling. And if you like it and you want it, you'll get greedy for it! You'll want it every day of your life and it can happen to you. I believe in it now! I believe it's going to happen to me now! I'm ready for it! And it's great! It's a good feeling, it's really better than I've felt in a long time. I, I, I'm ready. Have a Merry Beer Day Britain, everybody.

Hold this day in your hearts and God bless us, every one. Cheers!

(And, no, I get naff all for posts like this, unlike Cookie who used to be able to swim in his freebies!)

Public Health: The Anglosphere's Global Disease

You gotta laugh at the obsessive puritan mentality sometimes.

At @FedEuroAcadMed French MoH speaker lapses into English on "binge drinking" - is there a word in French? Tells you something

— Martin McKee (@martinmckee) May 13, 2015

The morbidly obese bubblegumphobe is referring to this meme going around 'public health' circles that binge-drinking is uniquely British; that it is a behavioural disease which has now spread to our neighbours across la Manche. So frighteningly swiftly has this happened (despite British drinking culture being thousands of years old) that poor Ministry of Health politicians in Paris have not had time to coin a French word for it, apparently, so have pinched 'le binge-drinking' instead.

He may have a point, you know. The French are renowned throughout history for being crap at wars because they couldn't pitch a tent until they discovered that the English were doing something called 'le camping' - if only Napoleon had known that, eh? Likewise, their poor workers were toiling for seven days a week without respite for centuries until some Gallic traveller visited our shores and dscovered that we enjoyed two days off which we called 'le weekend', and when cars were invented those tortured Frenchies were driving around throughout the day and night before someone told them about the peculiar - but brilliant - British invention of 'le parking'.

Similarly, we Brits had never experienced déjà vu until the French taught us about it; we had no businessmen in this country until a wandering French entrepreneur enlightened us as to how trade was done; women went commando as a matter of course because underwear was only sold on these shores once the French imported lingerie; Britain was devoid of art until our continental neighbours taught us to paint; we couldn't beat eggs without the French teaching us about omelettes; and British people cast no shadows until we'd discovered people in France had seen mysterious things called silhouettes.

It all makes sense now, doesn't it?

Of course, there might be another explanation. You see, the French have always been pretty relaxed about their booze, it's why we like to go there and buy the stuff at dirt cheap prices. Wine is a family thing and is available in supermarché wire baskets at knock-down prices compared to here.

In Britain (and other English-speaking countries), however, we've always had finger-wagging temperance lunatics who like to sneer at the choices of others, and embark on moral panics about the hellfire and eternal damnation that will ensue if you dare to consort with the demon drink. Our history is sadly riddled with the rotten anti-social nerks. And the terminology these puritans create to support their irrational moral crusades necessarily involve terms like 'binge-drinking' to describe something as inconsequential as a couple of pints of Stella on a Sunday afternoon.

The only thing being imported into France is that twisted and illiberal mindset by way of the globalisation of miserabilism, whereby charmless and disloyal grunts like McKee attend international summits and run down his own country in order to spread the dictatorial 'public health' disease to other - previously relaxed - nations so that their people can suffer too.

That's why the French don't have a word for binge-drinking; it's because their own snobby social engineers aren't as imaginative with their self-aggrandising and illiberal vocabulary as the minging, long-practiced, career neo-temperance shitsticks we are cursed with in Britain.

The Youth Non-Drinking Epidemic

More news today on this 'binge-drinking epidemic' amongst young people that we keep hearing about.

The study says the proportion of teenagers and young adults drinking on five or more days a week has more than halved since 2005. Binge drinking – which is defined as more than eight units for men and six units for women - has gone down by nearly a third to 18% among this age group over the same period.

Perhaps this might, erm, educate the drones at the National Union of Students into not unfairly painting their peers as a collection of violent, shit-faced, destructive savages by calling for urgent measures to whack up the price of drinks and even ban alcohol in student bars.

Nah, probably not. Because the 'binge-drinking epidemic' is just one of those moral panics that refuses to go away despite a decade of facts showing that it's bunkum. It's interesting too, that this dramatic decline is continuing at the same time as alcohol duty is being cut, booze is still advertised at sports events, in cinemas, at concerts and on the TV, and minimum alcohol pricing is still considered an entirely unwarranted proposal.

In fact, the only factor that this institutional decline can be attributed to is education, seeing as kids are harangued - on the national curriculum - from kindergarten to university about the evils of alcohol these days. Yet 'public health' still routinely insists that education is a poor driver of change and that we need armies of their kind to lobby for legislation with our taxes as well, or else we'll all soon be heading to Armageddon in a drug-infused tumbril.

But then, I suppose if teachers are doing all the work, there's not much scope for lobbyists, anti-business proselytisers, junk science researchers, global summits and the huge salaries and expense accounts that come with them, eh?

You WILL Drink In The Pub, Godammit!

The Irish licensed trade has come up with an ingenious business plan ... it's cosying up to government drink-haters to welcome consumers back to the pub by force.

In a move clearly targeted at the big supermarket chains, where cans of lager are routinely offered for below €1 each in bulk deals, the group called for a floor price of €1 “or more” to be introduced on every 10 grams of alcohol in a product. 

That would put the minimum retail price of a 500ml can of beer with a 5% alcohol concentration at €2.

So, Ireland already boasts (if that's the word) the most expensive alcohol in the EU apart from Finland, but these guys want to see the Irish public screwed even harder to nobble their competition?

LVA chief executive Donal O’Keeffe said the price had to be set high enough to have a “significant impact on consumption patterns”.

In other words, to stop people buying their booze from the supermarket where his members can't get their mitts on it.

You've got to feel sorry for yer average Irishman. Having only recently been rid of a law which put control of what they paid for their groceries firmly in the hands of those who supply it - resulting in no meaningful competition and higher prices for consumers - now their pub trade blames the repeal for why they are seeing fewer and fewer customers and so advocates a return to resale price maintenance. Or, as it should rightfully be described, a rip off cartel which is so damaging for household budgets that it is illegal in many jurisdictions.

Still, why should O'Keeffe and his members care, eh?

I've got news for you, guys. The reason people aren't using pubs so much any more is that you have an unnecessarily draconian smoking ban and much stiffened drink driving laws in the past decade. Barriers to enjoyment presented by those government initiatives do not exist when the beer is bought in a supermarket and consumed at home with a nice takeaway. The price differential is just an added bonus. Even if prices were raised to €2 per pint it's far cheaper than the €5 a boozer charges and still - this is the significant bit, lads - without the pettifogging rules.

You see, it is big government which has got you into this mess, so the answer really isn't more big government. Meanwhile, the Irish LVA's vapid support of the unsatisfiable temperance lobby proposal places them firmly into the category of useful idiots, which won't make a jot of difference when prohibitionists move onto demanding breathalysers for pub customers, the banning of buying of rounds and of happy hours, and - yes - minimum pricing for pub drinks too.

I shall, once again, quote the inestimable Crampton.

It's like a bunch of folks on the scaffolds complaining that the other guy's noose isn't quite tight enough. Y'all might instead direct your attention to the hangman sometime and try helping each other cut those ropes.

Eejits.

Nutt As A Fruitcake

Professor David Nutt - the ex government adviser who admirably favours drug legalisation and is a fan of e-cigs - would be a much easier person to like if he wasn't such a raving arse when it comes to alcohol.

Today he has written a mess of a piece for the Spectator arguing for fewer restrictions on cannabis and MDMA (ecstasy) while disingenuously pushing drinkers off a cliff. The utter crap he spouts about minimum alcohol pricing in particular is jaw-dropping.

... alcohol is cheaper and more easily available than it has been since the gin-epidemic of the 1700s ...

It was true five years ago that alcohol was more expensive in real terms by 19.3% than in the 1980s, and the duty escalator on alcohol has added even more to that statistic since. I don't remember having much problem buying booze back then either.

... and half of all 15-16 year olds are becoming dangerously intoxicated at least once a month.

I doubt that statistic very much, but I suppose it depends on what one describes as "dangerously intoxicated" I suppose. My guess is that Nutt is applying a particularly low bar here. But however you cut it, all measures of child and youth alcohol consumption are dramatically in decline, and have been for over a decade, so his hyperbole is badly applied.

He continues ...

Alcohol misuse costs the UK about £30 billion per year ...

No it doesn't, but still.

[P]revention is preferred to treatment and here we have a number of proven strategies that focus on reducing dangerous levels of consumption. The easiest and least intrusive of these is minimum unit pricing of alcohol.

Minimum pricing is "proven" is it? And there was I thinking it was just a flawed computer model produced by incompetent university temperance enthusiasts.

However whenever this is discussed publicly it provokes a barrage of attacks from the right-wing press, probably driven by lobbying from the drinks industry ...

Citation needed, you lazy Professor, you.

... with claims of ‘punishing the responsible drinker’ and politicians of both colours meekly accede. The truth is exactly the opposite, minimum unit pricing of 50p per unit would in practice save the ‘responsible’ drinker significant amounts of money.

No it wouldn't, because the premium of a brand would necessitate rising prices right up the scale. If cheap booze is raised to a similar price as branded stuff, the branded stuff will increase in price to protect the differential. Minimum pricing would cost every responsible drinker more, and the poorest would naturally feel it in their pocket most because of the margins being more acute to those with less disposable income. This is economics and business 101.

But still, let's hear him out.

To understand how this works we need to realise that almost every drinker – and certainly every subscriber to the Spectator – will already be drinking alcohol that is priced at more than 50p/unit as this translates into £3.50 per bottle of wine or £15 per bottle of spirits. In fact the only people drinking alcohol that costs less than 50p per unit are those that contribute the most costs of alcohol harm to our society. These are the young binge drinker and the older alcoholic. Increasing the minimum price of alcohol to these two groups would reduce consumption and harm.

That's right. Apparently, the "only" people who buy cheap alcohol are young binge-drinkers and codgers with a drink problem. No-one else. At all. The poor in society who drink responsibly but can only afford the very cheapest alcohol don't actually exist - funny that, considering Labour keep telling us there is a 'cost of living crisis'. If every responsible drinker is able to afford brand names instead of supermarket own brand vodka, it kinda suggests someone is lying to us, don't it?

As an aside, I find it curious that tobacco vending machines - by far the most expensive way of buying cigarettes - had to be banned because children were flocking to them, yet low-priced alcohol being raised by a few pence is brilliant policy because kids haven't got much money.

Anyhow, I digress.

Today the cost of alcohol misuse in the UK is around £30 billion per year —about £1000 per tax-payer.

No, David, it really isn't.

This sum might be thought acceptable to those who drink heavily but surely not to responsible drinkers. The 10 per cent of the population who are non-drinkers are particularly penalised since they get no benefit from using alcohol at all.

I believe they do. You see, if they don't drink, they don't pay any of the £9bn in alcohol duty the government derives from those who do, not to mention the £2bn VAT on top.

Real life experience in a province in Canada showed that introduced minimum pricing recently found a 10% increase in minimum unit price led to a 30% reduction in alcohol deaths.

No, Nutty, that didn't happen either, as Snowdon explained recently.

This is a reference to a statistical analysis of data from British Columbia conducted by Tim Stockwell (yes, him again). Stockwell claimed that there was a large drop in wholly alcohol-attributable deaths in 2006-07 which roughly coincided with some (fairly minor) increases in the minimum price of some drinks. 

Alas, this is entirely inconsistent with the established facts. Official statistics show that the alcohol mortality rate in British Columbia rose from 26 per 100,000 persons to 28 per 100,000 persons between 2002 and 2008. As the graph below shows, neither mortality (solid line) nor per capita alcohol consumption (dotted line) fell during this period. 

Between 2002 and 2011, the number of deaths directly attributed to alcohol in British Columbia rose from 315 to 443 with the largest annual death rates occurring after the minimum price rises of 2006. Between 2006 and 2008, when further minimum price rises occurred, the number of deaths rose from 383 to a peak of 448. Moreover, the rate of hospitalisations for both alcohol-related ailments and acute intoxication both rose during this decade.

So considering just about everything Nutt has said so far is demonstrably wrong, his further calculations are simply laughable.

Our two groups of consumers of cheap alcohol (the young and the alcohol dependent) contribute about 30 per cent the total burden of costs of alcohol (about £10bill/year) so reducing this by a quarter would save around £2.50 billion a year — the price of 8 new hospitals – or a tax-rebate of £100 or so per taxpayer.

The true, actual cost to the taxpayer is orders of magnitude lower than that at around £6.6bn, which is of course adequately covered by duty income. But even if we discount that and agree with Nutt's debatable share of costs, the quarter cost of £1.65bn is offset by the half billion cost of implementing the policy in the first place, as admitted in the Sheffield model itself.

There's more from Nutt.

Properly pricing alcohol can lead to a virtuous circle of health and wealth. France is a remarkable example of this.

You mean that France where booze is so considerably cheaper than here that we all pick some up on the way back from the place?

What is even more remarkable is the fact that the French alcohol industry has become more profitable; more expensive wine has greater profit margins. 

The UK alcohol industry is well aware of these data, and must accept that they would be more profitable under a more-expensive minimum-priced alcohol policy. So why do they resist any attempt to develop a more rational policy even one as minor as minimum pricing? One view is that they rely on the cheap super-strength ciders and lagers that have come on to the market in recent years to get young drinkers addicted.

And 9/11 was a government plot, yes David. {wibble}

My view is that they have taken a collective position to oppose any change in drink regulations on principle even if it would in the long run benefit them. Their profits are so enormous; they just can’t be bothered to innovate. 

Because anyone visiting the booze area of the supermarket can't fail to notice the complete lack of about 9 different types of Bacardi which weren't available 15 years ago. You know, when innovation and competition died as a concept for the drinks industry. Considering the anti-alcohol lobby has been fighting against the marketing of hundreds of new and innovative products for the past couple of decades, this has to be the daftest claim of the lot.

Now, it's clear that Nutt is a big fan of more realistic policies on drug use, and for that he is to be congratulated. But he is a piss poor advocate of common sense towards drugs when he is spouting such utter bollocks on alcohol.

Fortunately, no-one buys his transparent nonsense and he's getting caned in the comments. Good.