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things like having two glasses of red wine a day helps your heart, and whatever
else. What we’d like to see is more balanced articles saying that two glasses a day
might help your heart but – depending on what size those glasses are – you may
well be damaging your liver. If we’re going to put these messages out, let’s be
sensible and have them balanced.’
To this end, one of the trust’s central messages is the importance of having
alcohol-free days every week. ‘Even though a key message is to try not to drink
too much in the first place, for those of us who do choose to drink – and in no
way are we about abstinence, I’d be a real hypocrite if that was the case – for
your liver to stand a chance of regeneration you do need two to three days off
every week. I think that’s a far more realistic message for people.’
Despite the industry’s undoubted power, given the mounting costs of alcohol-
related illness is he confident that the government will eventually have no choice
but to get tough – in five or ten years could we see genuinely effective legislation
on advertising and marketing?
‘I think we’ll be on the road to that. If we think how long it took to get good
legislation in about tobacco then we need to be realistic about what we can
achieve – I think it’s more a process of slow chipping away and having political
parties that are signed up to making significant change. But I don’t think our
present government is as signed up as I’d like them to be.’
Ultimately, what should signed up mean in terms of advertising? ‘Bluntly, a
complete ban,’ he says. ‘We’d like equity with tobacco – a complete ban on
advertising and a complete ban on sponsorship, particularly sporting events, and
a real consideration for how alcohol is sold, particularly by the supermarkets.’
*****
His ambition now is to make the trust a household name, and through that to
improve people’s knowledge of their livers, he says – ‘what the function of the liver
is, how easy it is to damage, what you can do to look after it as effectively as
possible. And that would be on a UK-wide basis, so we have equity of impact
among all four countries, some of which have specific issues about which should
focus in a little bit more – the fact alcohol is such an issue in Scotland, for example.’
But ultimately it does all come back to awareness, he says. ‘Just that reminder
that the liver is a very important organ, and people should think about it in the
same way they think about their lungs or heart.’
DDN
September 2012 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 19
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Profile |
Andrew Langford
‘In no way are we about
abstinence... for your liver
to stand a chance of
regeneration you do need
two to three days off
every week. I think that’s
a far more realistic
message for people.’
Andrew Langford
ion