We’ve all heard the refrain: “Britain has an alcohol problem.” It’s a problem that predates the Covid-19 pandemic, but the evidence for this claim seems stronger than ever. Millions of people were drinking at harmful levels while stuck at home during lockdown, and alcohol-related deaths, mostly from liver disease, soared to a 20-year high in 2020. The closure of services Life support also contributed, with higher and lower relapse rates. referrals from doctors and hospitals, while large numbers of long-term Covid patients consume problematic amounts of alcohol, a small study has suggested.
The causes of these patterns seem equally clear: the extreme stress, boredom, trauma and isolation of a prolonged and dangerously mismanaged pandemic, combined with Britain’s deeply rooted drinking culture and the general human propensity for the relaxing properties of alcohol. These demand factors are essential to understanding alcohol consumption here or anywhere else. Beer, wine and spirits are not imposed unilaterally on the British public, but are consumed with the enthusiastic participation of drinkers.
But what we’re not talking about enough is the influence of supply-siders on our domestic consumption: that is, the incredibly powerful multinational companies that produce and sell alcohol for huge profits, including breweries (like AB InBev and Heineken), distillers (such as Diageo and Pernod Ricard), and both “off-trade” and “on-trade” retailers (such as Tesco and Stonegate, respectively). Alcohol has an extremely long and complex history, but its increasing ubiquity is the product of its commodification and deregulation by Big Alcohol.
The industry and its army of trade associations and front groups strive relentlessly to increase consumption, market share and profits by manipulating and influencing prices and taxes, licensing and retail density, advertising and sponsorships , international trade agreements, obfuscating scientific findings and delaying the public. health efforts Rather than being subjected to heavy tobacco-style restrictions, the alcohol industry has so far successfully fought to maintain “self-regulation” and offload responsibility for alcohol-related harm to “problem” users individuals, especially through the discourse of “responsible driving”. “.
But alcohol-related harm is not limited to those suffering from dependence (around 600,000 people in England alone). Even relatively low doses of alcohol consumed on a regular basis increase the risk of health problems, such as digestive and cardiovascular diseases, traumatic injuries, and cancers of the esophagus, liver, and breast; a recent study estimated that almost 750,000 new cancer cases in 2020 were attributed to alcohol consumption worldwide, including about 100,000 from “moderate consumption”. Previously announced claims about alcohol, especially red wine, offering a “protective” role for problems such as heart disease and diabetes are also being questioned and are now considered “offset by the monotony”. [closely correlated] associations with cancer”.
The alcohol-related harm crisis is primarily caused by the fact that the profit-driven alcohol industry structurally incentivizes riskier drinking. Industry revenue would drop by 38%, or £13 billion a year, if all drinkers consumed alcohol below recommended guidelines, according to a study. Companies have a clear interest in preventing these reductions, but it is precisely this kind of structural change, rather than the voluntary and ineffective measures preferred by the industry, that will seriously curb alcohol harm.
Public health organizations such as the World Health Organization have long called for measures to reduce the power of the alcohol lobby by banning advertising, limiting density and opening hours detail and the increase in taxes and minimum unit prices. Other policies in this regard include mandatory nutrition information and warning labels, prohibiting industry participation in policy-making, and coordinating global restrictions to limit the flight of predatory capital. The profit motive driving the steady expansion of consumption should also be curbed by greater public ownership of production and retail. But restrictions alone will not be enough.
We also desperately need to start a conversation about genuine alternatives to their use. To begin with, there needs to be a massive expansion of free, public alcohol-specific health care for the highest-risk drinkers that does not require sobriety as a condition of use, including managed alcoholism programs, therapy, medication-assisted treatment and psychiatric care. This should also include the public development of desirable alternatives such as ‘synthetic alcohol’, the legalization and regulation of less risky psychoactive drugs and the promotion of public spaces that are not exclusively geared towards alcohol consumption.
Ultimately, it’s about expanding opportunities for relaxation, socialization, and pleasure in a way that doesn’t end up killing, hurting, or harming. It’s certainly a huge undertaking given Big Alcohol’s hold on global politics, discourse and the imagination. Radical and systemic political action is urgently required if we are to have any chance of tackling the UK’s huge drinking problem, or we will continue to mourn it.