Kerre Woodham: Do we need to adjust our alcohol policies?

The cost of alcohol abuse in this country is absolutely phenomenal. Worldwide, I can't even imagine what it would be, but here in this country it's bad enough. A report that came out last year from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, the first of its kind since 2009, found that: 

• The cost of alcohol abuse in terms of alcohol harm based on disability adjusted life years is $9.1 billion. 
• $4.8b associated with disability-adjusted life years from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) 
• $1.2 b associated with disability-adjusted life years from alcohol use disorder 
• $281m - intimate partner violence (for alcohol use disorder alone) 
• $74m - child maltreatment (for hazardous drinking alone), 
• $2.1b in societal cost of road crashes where alcohol was a factor 
• $4b in lost productivity associated with alcohol use, including FASD, crimes and workplace absenteeism 
• $810m, predominantly in health and ACC spending. 

Peter Dunne, in an article in Newsroom this week, argues that these costs are a result of a decades-long failure in policy. He says when he was working for the Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council way back in the late 70s, they undertook the first national survey of New Zealanders' alcohol consumption and drinking patterns. The most dramatic finding, he says, was that 9% of drinkers were responsible for two-thirds of the alcohol drunk. 

Of all the alcohol consumed in the country, 9% of drinkers drink two-thirds of it. He says that told you there were binge drinkers, problem drinkers, who made up a minority of the population, and a minority of the drinking population, but consumed the most, and that's where education and policy should have been directed. However, around the same time that survey came out, the World Health Organisation came up with its own policy and advised that government interventions should focus on reducing alcohol consumption levels overall to reduce the number of alcohol-related problems, rather than focus on specific groups. 

So you've had broad-brush, once over lightly programmes, you know, general, ‘hey guys, you know, it's not what you drink, it's how you're drinking’, the general programs. And that, he says, has failed. Most people do know how to drink sensibly. They'll enjoy a glass or two of wine occasionally, and that'll be that. A couple of beers on a hot day after a surf. Fantastic. 

Then there are those of us who board a sky-sailing pirate ship to whiskey Valhalla and it's hoots way hay and off as Caitlin Moran put it. And sometimes that's fine, and sometimes that's not. When you set out to lose control, chuck everything in the air and see where it all lands, sometimes it lands you in a police cell, or hospital, or in the bed of someone you shouldn't be with. And that's when the trouble starts. 

Peter Dunne argues that we need to do away with the broad-brush approach and focus on the binge drinkers, the problem drinkers. Targeted policies for that 9 to 10% of the population who cannot drink sensibly, who do not drink moderately, and who are causing all of the harm. 

Do you need to be told how much you should drink, when you should drink it, like not when you're pregnant? Do you need to be told that? Do you just switch off when you drink and think, oh for heaven's sake, who on earth are they talking to? I know all of this stuff. Do we need to be focusing on the people who need to hear the message, all that money going into general education, redirected to those groups who need to hear the message most, and putting more of the money into the rehabilitation and the turning around and the changing of dangerous drinking behaviours? That is a hell of a lot of money to spend on disordered drinking, on problem drinking. And it's not you, probably, or you. But over there in the corner, it's us. And we're the ones that need to hear the message, not them. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.