Europe to crack down on ‘passive drinking’, says leaked report
Our reporter in Brussels reveals that EC officials are plotting to make drinking as socially unacceptable as smoking.
Friday 26 May 2006, Bruno Waterfield
The campaigns to combat the effects of ‘passive smoking’ are widely credited for Europe’s growing number of smoking bans. Now alcohol is in the sights of the public health lobbyists, and they have invented the concept of ‘passive drinking’ as their killer argument.
I have seen a leaked draft report for the European Commission, which is due to be published some time in June. It makes claims about the high environmental or social toll of alcohol, the ‘harm done by someone else’s drinking’. The report is likely to inform proposals for a European Union alcohol strategy later this year.
Dr Peter Anderson, the report’s lead author, who has a background in the World Health Organisation (WHO) and plays a leading role in Tobacco Free Initiative Europe, tells me that the concept of social harm takes the alcohol debate beyond the traditional limits of individual choice and addiction. ‘You can make the argument that what an individual drinks is up to them, provided they understand what they are doing and bearing in mind that alcohol is a dependency-producing drug…. But when you talk about harm to others then that is a societal concern and justification for doing something about it. I think that is an important argument. If there was not harm to others then the argument gets a little less powerful’ (1).
The draft report doesn’t mince its words when it comes to estimating the social harms of alcohol. ‘The total tangible cost of alcohol to EU society in 2003 was estimated to be €125bn (€79bn-€220bn), equivalent to
1.3 per cent GDP, and which is roughly the same value as that found recently for tobacco.’ (2) The report further highlights the broader social cost of drinking, with the proviso that ‘these estimates are subject to a wide margin of error, [and] they are likely to be an underestimate of the true gross social cost of alcohol’. continued ...
= = = = = Comment: Just in case there are any jokers out there who doubt this:
1) Prof. Nutt (member of the ACMD) recently said that alcohol was more dangerous than Ecstasy. Note that Ecstasy is a class A drug.
2) In giving evidence before a parliamentary committee Prof. Rawlins (ACMD Chairman) said that, if it were to be an illegal drug, alcohol would be classed on the borderline between class A and B.
search for "Q127" and read down to Q129.
Note 2: ACMD = "Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs" - the government committee responsible for deciding upon the classifications of illegal drugs.