Now they're out to get the drinkers: Passive drinking..

teagar

"Its purpose instead is to raise awareness among governments about the importance of reducing alcohol abuse and to provide data that will persuade electorates that new laws are required - thereby emboldening governments to take action."


All they want is to tell people that, though they may love drinknig alcohol and would be pretty annoyed if they couldn't have it in their lives, however you cut it, it's not good for you. Sure there may be some science that says a bit of the sh!t in wine is good for you, but the alcohol in it certainly isn't.

I think everyone knows that a reduction in acohol abuse is a good thing.

tebbit

Back to the Victorian thing, remember that safe water is only a fairly recent thing, 20th century onwards and that low strength beer was a safe way of getting liquid

Hence beer used to be a good thing, safer than the water and tea was even a potential killer cos boiling doesn't get rid of all the nasties.

So drink beer you know its safe.

Frank the tank

I love to drink beer, and on occassion more than is sensibly good for me if I'm being absolutely honest. I believe ALCOHOL ABUSE is more of a social evil than smoking will ever be,but, prohibition is not the way forward. It made gangsters rich once before and it would do again.

I think the sale of alcohol should be restricted to pubs/clubs/restraunts where a licensee is responsible.

Sale of all other alcohol to be from some kind of licensed warehouse where membership has to be applied for before a photo pass is issued to the user. Even purchases from these outlets would be limited to a low amount in order to discourage selling it on.

Raise the legal age for alcohol purchase to 20years old.

pubs/clubs/restraunts and said warehouses would be the ONLY places to purchase alcohol, i.e. supermarkets and retail outlets would not be allowed to sell alcohol at all.

I'm not saying this would be ideal but it may help as I think it's the availability of the stuff that's the problem not it's price.

Jez mon

MingMong wrote:

Anyone know the recepie for crack?

Going to early adopt just in case :evil:

Crack? Crack is dead my friend. All the cool kids take Ice these days!!!

I agree that in general the state is going to get complained at either way, on the one hand it would be great if when someone wanted to anaesthetise themselves through drink someone/something would just be there to take the edge away without turning to potentially lethal amounts of poisoning.

If the WHO really want to change, then they are either going to somehow get a complete culture change or some new legislation. In my opinion many current laws aren't really enforceable. When do you stop serving someone because they are drunk? What do you do if their friends start buying the drinks, in a large busy establishment, you really can't police for that.

deptfordmarmoset

Frank the tank wrote:

Sale of all other alcohol to be from some kind of licensed warehouse where membership has to be applied for before a photo pass is issued to the user. Even purchases from these outlets would be limited to a low amount in order to discourage selling it on.

Raise the legal age for alcohol purchase to 20years old.

pubs/clubs/restraunts and said warehouses would be the ONLY places to purchase alcohol, i.e. supermarkets and retail outlets would not be allowed to sell alcohol at all.

I'm not saying this would be ideal but it may help as I think it's the availability of the stuff that's the problem not it's price.

States often try to regulate drinking, and more often than not they mess it up. I worked for a month in Sweden and realised that, after 6pm on a Saturday, it was illegal to buy anything to drink at home other than nasty 3% beer. So if you suddenly remember you need a bottle of wine to go with the Sunday lunch, you'd have to drive/ferry to Denmark to buy it legally. And Swedes do make that journey for drink. The Danes look down on them because they get stupid-stupid drunk and roll about the quaysides. They have not learned how to do it - and I've experienced their drinking from in-your-face up close whilst doing gigs in Gothenburg bars - they really haven't learned how to do it. Neither have many Brits. The Danes, at least as far as I've seen, however, manage to drink a lot but still stay cool.

Dowse40

So the world drug problem isn't down to crack and smack it's down to john smiths and stella?

finchy

I don't think that WHO would even have Britain in mind as a particularly bad place for alcohol abuse - more places like Eastern Europe, where it really is a MASSIVE problem.

pneumatic

It'll be coffee next on the list.

[sits back and prepared to wait a decade 8) ]

pottssteve

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Bloody Lefties

"Sally Casswell of Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, who helped produce the WHO document, says a focus on passive drinking is key to winning public acceptance for more stringent alcohol legislation. "It challenges the neoliberal ideology which promotes the drinker's freedom to choose his or her own behaviour," she says."

Imagine having the freedom to choose my own behaviour! What an evil neoliberal I must be!

A couple of things:

1. Once some people have a few ales inside them they seem unable to choose their own behaviour.

and

2. New Zealand has somewhat of a problem with alcohol abuse and drink driving.

guilliano

Ban the sale of all lager over 5.5%...... Only seriously alcohol dependant people will miss the likes of Tennents Super. It tastes like crap anyway.

I stopped drinking Stella years ago as I noticed it actually did make me irritable and on one occassion verbally aggressive. I know a few people who have said the same thing so there has to be some ingredient in it that promotes a mood change. Would be interesting to see a study on that by the WHO

Cheap cider, wine, vodka etc also don't help. I used to know a guy who would drink half a bottle of nasty clear liquid before he went out for a drink. After a couple of pints he was always looking to get into a row with someone.

Unfortunately changing the ingrained culture of an entire country would be a massively tough task and would take generations. This is time that governments simply don't have in the era of instant fixes, media saturation of anything that causes an outcry and constantly changing focus on the "new big scandal". In the meantime, while there is a process set in motion to re-educate and change the nature of countries with a social alcohol problem harsh changes may have to be made, and options such as a minimum price per unit, limiting alcoholic content of certain drinks and allocating funds to allow the police to enforce current laws stringently or even enhancing current laws will not find favour in all quarters. Maybe attaching other punishments to alcohol fueled anti-social behavior or violence, such as the ability to take away passports and drivers licences of repeat offenders, could work. Yes alcohol abuse is a health issue and is a drain on the NHS, but the social aspect has more visible wide reaching consequences and if this is tackled head on and forcefully then maybe it will be a small step in the direction of a long term culture change

fungus_the_muffin_man

Surely if you ban the sale of beer over 5.5% you then have to ban the sale of spirits and wines etc... It's not that simple. Someone who is alcohol dependent will find anything he needs to get the alcohol he needs. I've looked after 2 meth drinkers in the last month. Banning the sale of alcohol or certain products will not make things better.

Cressers

Prohibition, be it of alcohol entirely, or certain strenghts of beer, won't work as demonstrated by the Prohibition in the USA of the 1930's or the vain attempts to stop the drug culture. And again I ask, Who are the state, or the WHO, to attempt to dictate to you what you ingest into your body?

disgruntledgoat

Ban all the delicious beers Belgium has to offer at over 7%? You sir, are barking.

Le Commentateur

Crapaud wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

That argument doesn't work for me. As I stated above, I don't cause trouble for anybody when I've had a drink. ...

But the arguement isn't about you, it's about society as a whole. Drink culture in this country does affect you, whether you like it or not, in, at least, your taxes: the costs of policing, medical intervention, blah, blah, blah...

Imagine for a moment that you're in charge of tackling our drinking culture, how would you deal with it?

The cultural gesture of buying rounds is at the heart of the problem, and maybe not enough people think it uncool to be fighting/staggering drunk.

knedlicky

tebbit wrote:

Back to the Victorian thing, remember that safe water is only a fairly recent thing, 20th century onwards and that low strength beer was a safe way of getting liquid

Hence beer used to be a good thing, safer than the water and tea was even a potential killer cos boiling doesn't get rid of all the nasties.

Whether water was safe or not, drinking tea (or coffee) wasn’t on for most people because they were only affordable outside the upper classes from the very late 1800s onwards.

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

I worked for a month in Sweden and realised that, after 6pm on a Saturday, it was illegal to buy anything to drink at home other than nasty 3% beer. So if you suddenly remember you need a bottle of wine to go with the Sunday lunch, you'd have to drive/ferry to Denmark to buy it legally. And Swedes do make that journey for drink. The Danes look down on them because they get stupid-stupid drunk and roll about the quaysides. They have not learned how to do it ... Neither have many Brits. The Danes, at least as far as I've seen, however, manage to drink a lot but still stay cool.

That’s the thing, often those who don’t know how to manage their drink are from lands where states have greater regulation, thus showing how ineffective increased control ultimately is.
As well as Brits at home and on holiday/football trips abroad, those I’ve seen most indulge in binge drinking were Norwegians, which fits with deptfordmarmoset’s post above about Swedes - both from lands with restrictions.

johnfinch wrote:

I don't think that WHO would even have Britain in mind as a particularly bad place for alcohol abuse - more places like Eastern Europe, where it really is a MASSIVE problem.

It‘s probably true that WHO don’t have Britain in mind when it comes to alcoholism, because outside of Wales, the rate of alcoholism in the UK isn’t significantly higher than anywhere else in Europe. The lands with the highest rates are often those lands where there still are, or until recently were, restrictions on sale of alcohol, like Iceland and Finland (and Wales was drier than the rest of Britain until not that long ago).
But drinking yourself silly at home, which is the way to alcoholism in many European lands (you don’t see many drunks in the street on the Continent like to do in the UK), is one thing, and binge drinking and resultant violence and drinking and driving is another.

Alcohol abuse in Eastern Europe varies radically – there’s a big problem in places like Ukraine and Georgia, but by contrast Romania and Croatia actually have the lowest alcoholism rates in Europe.

finchy

knedlicky wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

I don't think that WHO would even have Britain in mind as a particularly bad place for alcohol abuse - more places like Eastern Europe, where it really is a MASSIVE problem.

Alcohol abuse in Eastern Europe varies radically – there’s a big problem in places like Ukraine and Georgia, but by contrast Romania and Croatia actually have the lowest alcoholism rates in Europe.

Indeed, my apologies, I just worded it badly. I meant to say some places in Eastern Europe, like Slovakia or Hungary.

nasahapley

guilliano wrote:

Ban the sale of all lager over 5.5%...... Only seriously alcohol dependant people will miss the likes of Tennents Super.

You'll have to prise my Leffe/Duvel/Corsendonk etc away from my cold dead hands matey*. And if you're going to ban lager over 5.5% then why not ban wine as well - at around 12% that must be really bad stuff. But I suppose we should allow that as it's a nice middle class drink.

*Just seen that D-Goat said exactly the same thing right at the top of the thread!

DavidBelcher

nasahapley wrote:

guilliano wrote:

Ban the sale of all lager over 5.5%...... Only seriously alcohol dependant people will miss the likes of Tennents Super.

You'll have to prise my Leffe/Duvel/Corsendonk etc away from my cold dead hands matey. And if you're going to ban lager over 5.5% then why not ban wine as well - at around 12% that must be really bad stuff. But I suppose we should allow that as it's a nice middle class drink.

Super-strength lagers - generally nasty get-smashed-fast stuff. But Carlsberg Special Brew is actually a good, well-crafted strong beer which badly needs reclaiming from the Digby Chicken-Caesars of the world and bracketed with the barley wines in decent beer retailers. Interestingly, in the pub trade it's sensibly sold in small bottles of the sort you normally associate with Whitbread Gold Label, etc., rather than the giant cans favoured by supermarkets/off-licences.

David