Enjoy drinking
but not to excess There's no excuse for drunkenness, says Andrew Jefford, who believes it's timefor the trade to get tough on junk drinks' and promote drinking in moderation It's not often I disagree with Roger "Colonel" Protz, the commanding-officer-in-perpetuity of those lucky enough to write about beer, and a campaigning hero of mine. In his column on 25 September, though, Roger seemed to suggest that the recent Cabinet Office study quantifying the cost of alcohol misuse in Englandand Wales (£1.4 to £1.7bn to the NHS, £7.3bn in crime and £1.5bn in lost working days) was in some way exaggerated, and that the problems were worse whenRoger was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. Might I suggest that his memory is playing tricks? For one thing, the report showed that alcoholic drinks are almost 50% more affordable in 2000 than they were in 1978, let alone in the 1950s and '60s. The truth is that most of the 20th century was a relatively abstemious time in British history. The total quantity of pure alcohol drunk in Britain was about 40 million gallons in the 1930s, which was less than half what it had been in the heavy-boozing 1870s. By the late 1950s, as the coffee-bar era got into its swing, consumption of beer and spirits was almost exactly the same as it was in the 1930s, while considerably less wine was drunk. The quantity of pure alcohol drunk per person per year was 8.25 pints in 1965, which is a long way below the 1995 figure of 12.6 pints. Not only are we drinking more today, but, worryingly, the age of those drinking heavily has plummeted. Between 1919 and 1939, those in the 18 to 24 age group were the lightest drinkers in the adult population. Now they are the heaviest. One million young people in that age group admit to drinking to get drunk every week; one in 10 of all 15 to 16-year-olds now exceeds the weekly recommended maximum alcohol intake figures for adults this also applies to one in 20 of all 14 to 15-year-olds. Hazardous drinking among British women is worst in the 16 to 19 age bracket, where one third drink excessively. Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool has seen a tenfold increase in children as young as eight being admitted with acute alcohol poisoning over the last decade, and UK teenagers are now Europe's leading sufferers of binge drinking and alcohol problems. (Tellingly, British parents are the least likely of all those in Europe to know where their children are on a Saturday night.) No, I'm not an anti-alcohol campaigner. Far from it. I believe that the creation and enjoyment of great alcoholic drinks is an intimate and life-enhancing part of European culture, and I want as many people to derive healthful pleasure from it as they can. I'm pleased that the report recognises that moderate drinking prolongs as many lives as heavy drinking curtails (which, as it happens, was exactly the same conclusion as the Greek writer Euripides came to 2,500 years ago when he described Dionysus, the wine god, as "most terrible, yet most gentle, to mankind"). But there is a British problem about alcohol today, and it's no use pretending it doesn't exist. If we're going to solve it, a few things need to change. First, those involved in legislating, manufacturing, selling and writing about alcohol need to recognise that, just as some foods are healthier than others, so some forms of alcohol are more healthy, and more likely to be consumed moderately, than others. Raw alcohol mixed with sugar, flavourings, colouring and legal stimulants such as caffeine is the alcoholic equivalent of junk food. Junk drinks like this need to be taxed more heavily (the Govern-ment has sensibly started on this), and their marketing, advertising and sale needs to be scrutinized much more closely. Drink retailers could be much more active in guiding new drinkers towards healthier alternatives to the heavily marketed PPSs (premium packaged spirits). When I helped to open a new pub for Shepherd Neame last summer, it was proud that there wasn't a PPS in the place, and customers who requested those drinks were being offered a range of Belgian and other Continental beers (some of which were sweet and not all of which were bitter, but none of which were made with industrial alcohol, sugar, flavourings and colourings). Well, why not? Of course, plenty of binge drinkers and alcoholics use good real ale and good red wine to get drunk on, so junk drinks aren't the only villains of the piece. In this case, it is our attitudes that need to change. I was intrigued by the comments of two licensees who were quoted in Bar Talk in the Morning Advertiser on 28 August. The issue up for debate was the drunken behaviour of young Britons abroad. Tony Frederick of the Drum in Leyton said that these young people "like to unwind and go a bit mad", and Tony Gunner of the Queen's Head in Congleton, Cheshire, said that once abroad "nobody knows their identity so they can let off steam". With respect to both Tonys, I would suggest that drunkenness is not "unwinding" or "letting off steam" it is drunkenness. Being drunk is ugly and pathetic. There is nothing amusing, endearing or psychologically beneficial about it. It shames the drinker, demeans those with him or her, spoils the convivial atmosphere created by moderate drinking, almost certainly has negative health consequences for the drinker, and may be followed by criminal or violent acts. We all pay lip service to the "moderate drinking" mantra, but do we really mean it? Are we really prepared for zero tolerance towards the drunk, even if he's a regular, our best mate, the prop forward for the local rugby team or if she's our eldest daughter? If we do, now is the time to act.
