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drinkanddrugsnews
| February 2015
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‘W
hat attracts me to any job is that it’s a
cause that I can believe in, care about
and think I know a little bit about,’
says Alcohol Concern chief executive
Jackie Ballard. ‘And that there’s a challenge there, a
job to be done.’
And there’s quite a job to be done when it comes
to taking on the drinks industry, as she’s fully aware.
With its massive marketing budgets and mighty
lobbying power, how does any organisation go about
tackling that? ‘At various different levels,’ she says.
‘There is a level of trying to talk directly to the public,
trying to encourage individuals to change their
behaviour, and for us the primary vehicle for that is
the Dry January campaign.’
Encouraging people to give up drinking for a
month also gives them ‘a breathing space to rethink
their relationship with alcohol’, she says, with the
‘vast majority’ going on to drink less throughout the
year. ‘They realise, “I can manage quite well without
it, I’ve saved some money, lost some weight, I wake
up in the morning feeling more lively”.
We have to make the public aware of the kind of
choices the government is making – choosing to
allow self-regulation, not to put duty up on alcohol,
things like that,’ she says. So how confident is she
that Alcohol Concern can get its message about
minimum unit pricing [MUP] over convincingly?
‘With the public discourse, I can only assume that
it’s misguided information from the drinks industry
that’s overwhelming the health messages,’ she says.
‘The heaviest drinkers are spending 33p per unit on
booze, because they’re looking for the cheapest way of
getting drunk or blotting out their problems. But the
lowest-risk drinkers, who read the
Daily Mail
and think,
“ooh, this will affect me”, are spending £1.10 per unit...
This will have no impact whatsoever on them, but it
will have the impact on the heaviest drinkers and
young people who are pre-loading before going out.’
The charity is still hopeful that ‘at least one’ of the
main parties will have MUP in their election
manifesto, and that even a Conservative-led
government after May would ultimately implement it.
What about the government’s responsibility deal
with the industry, which recently included a new set
of pledges, including an end to the sale of super-
strength drinks in large cans – does she have any
confidence in it to deliver? ‘No,’ she states. ‘The
primary purpose of any business is to sell their
product and make a profit.’
She also backs the all-party parliamentary group
on alcohol misuse’s recent recommendation that
there should be warnings on all alcohol labels. ‘When
I talk to people and say, “alcohol is the second biggest
risk factor for cancer” they say, “really? I didn’t know
that”. People don’t tend to know about all the other
conditions associated with alcohol, and it doesn’t trip
off the tongue that there’s a safe, sensible limit in
terms of drinking and that you should have a couple
of days a week where you don’t drink at all. Alcohol is
a poison. Every other bottle of poison in the
supermarket has a warning label on it.’
Ballard has a wealth of experience in the charity
sector, heading up RSPCA, Action on Hearing Loss and
Womankind Worldwide. But there were also some
personal reasons for taking the job at Alcohol Concern,
she explains. ‘I do know something about the issue.
When I was a teenager my parents were landlords of a
pub, and my father was also a very heavy drinker and
ultimately died of cirrhosis of the liver.’
She was also an MP for four years, ‘surrounded by
people who were drinking more than they ought to’ in
parliament’, she says. ‘The more I looked into it the more
I realised that there was a huge issue here, with a big
imbalance between the people who are trying to get a
change to our culture and those who are pushing and
marketing their products. I don’t think it’s a hopeless
cause but it is a challenge, and that fires me up.’
Picture: Emli Bendixen/Third Sector
Just over six months into
her new job, Alcohol
Concern chief executive
Jackie Ballard talks to
David Gilliver
about
communication,
information, and standing
up to big business
Fight the power
‘I can only
assume that
it’s misguided
information
from the drinks
industry that’s
overwhelming
the health
messages...’
Read the full interview online
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com