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‘I THINK WE’RE ACTUALLY IN A BETTER PLACE
to reduce the harm from alcohol
than we have been for some time,’ Alcohol Concern’s president, Professor Sir Ian
Gilmore, told delegates at the charity’s annual conference,
Facing our alcohol
problem: taking back our health and high street
.
‘As professionals, our messages are much more joined-up and complimentary
than they were a few years ago,’ he said, plus there was much better
sharing of evidence internationally and the media and public were
more onside. ‘Just because MUP [minimum unit pricing] has
rolled into the long grass in Westminster and become
becalmed in Brussels regarding Scotland, I don’t think
we need to be depressed.’ It was a matter of ‘being
ready on all fronts’, he stressed.
Two key fronts, however, were the general public
and treatment services. In terms of the former, ‘If
you put it in the context of city centres and
children being safer then they do get it’, and a
crucial area to focus on was harm to others. ‘The
harm to third parties is hugely greater than with
passive smoking, which was what helped to swing
public opinion there.’ Regarding treatment services,
it was vital to keep emphasising that they were
‘incredibly good value’ in terms of the cost savings
to the system, and also to ‘do a really good PR job
on our colleagues’, he told delegates. ‘There’s still a
huge stigma around alcohol dependence.’
There was ‘no doubt’ that patients were suffering
because of a ‘judgemental and nihilistic’ approach on
the part of some professionals, agreed Dr Michael
Glynn, NHS England’s national clinical director for GI
and liver disease. ‘There’s this sense of “well, you
can’t do anything for them”. There’s still a long way to
go in terms of changing attitudes.’ It was also
essential that every health professional should be
vigilant, he stressed. ‘Everyone has to understand
that they can make a difference – the concept of
“every contact counts”. Anybody involved in health –
and other professionals – can give an intervention,
even with very little training.’
‘Too often the debate on alcohol is a debate on
anti-social behaviour, rather than public health and
prevention,’ said shadow public health minister Luciana Berger. ‘It’s not like we’re
short on evidence on the damage that alcohol does.’
The government’s responsibility deal showed that it was too close to vested
interests to take the necessary action, she told the conference. ‘There’s a
difference between listening to the concerns of industry and being dictated to by
them,’ with the scale of the challenge too great to rely on a ‘non-binding and
piecemeal’ deal. Labour’s approach would be to put the ‘needs of the population,
not industry’ first, she said, with targeted action on pricing, labelling, licensing
and education.
Although a Labour government would ‘strengthen efforts’ on higher-strength,
low-cost products, when questioned on minimum pricing she said that her party
was considering ‘a range’ of options. ‘We don’t think MUP as currently modelled
is the way to go on this, but we’re looking very carefully at this issue.’ Labour
was, however, committed to reviewing the licensing system and making public
health a mandatory factor in licensing decisions.
Presenting the government’s view, new crime prevention minister Lynne
Featherstone told the conference that MUP was ‘not permanently off the table,
but we didn’t feel it was sensible to proceed while it’s being challenged in the
courts’ regarding Scotland.
The government had ‘challenged the industry to do more, and it has responded’,
she stated, with six new responsibility deal pledges over the summer
(
DDN
, August, page 4). ‘We also want to cause a cultural shift in
the nation’s attitude to alcohol,’ while moving public health to
local authorities presented ‘tremendous opportunities’,
including the framework for ‘commissioning the right sort
of responses’ to alcohol problems. ‘There’s a massive
appetite for partnership working and local solutions.’
In terms of tackling promotion it was vital that
adverts were not targeting young people directly
and ‘encouraging them to be part of an unhealthy
drinking culture’ said Chante Joseph of the Youth
Alcohol Advertising Council (YAAC), with social
media in particular ‘pushing the boundaries’.
‘A lot of companies will target university
students during Freshers’ Week, for example,’ she
said. ‘A lot of it is incredibly inappropriate, and
there are no real deterrents.’ Advertising
regulations also were ‘weak and vague’, such as
‘not using actors under 25 – it’s these vague
codes that allow them to tackle young people’.
‘We’ve learned with tobacco that the only way
to deal with the problem is to take away the
marketing,’ said Professor Gerard Hastings of the
University of Stirling. ‘It’s like trying to deal with
malaria without trying to deal with the mosquito. If
we’re really serious about this then the only
solution is an outright ban.’
The problem was ‘power’, he told the
conference. ‘Massive companies that are so large
they no longer just control us as consumers, they
control our leaders as well. Corporations have the
power to ignore, make up and break the rules, and
with social media they now have the power to be
my mate. More and more, they have the power to
create our realities.’
Marketing became toxic when wedded to the massive power of corporate
alcohol, he said. ‘We desperately need red lines. We have to get serious and say,
“marketing is driving this problem. The only solution is to remove marketing.” The
lesson from tobacco is that half measures just don’t work, so we need to absorb
some of that ruthlessness of the corporate sector and be really single-minded
and determined about what we want and where we’re going.’
‘As professionals, our
messages are much
more joined-up and
complimentary than they
were a few years ago.’
PROFESSOR SIR IAN GILMORE
OPTIMISM
22 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| December 2014
Conference |
Alcohol Concern
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Just because minimum pricing is on the
back burner doesn’t mean it’s time to
get despondent, hear delegates at
Alcohol Concern’s annual conference