NZ's drinking culture a roadblock for reducing harm

NZ's drinking culture a roadblock for reducing harm - Yahoo!Xtra News

It's not just about drinking and driving. That is the least of the harm that alcohol abuse does to lives in New Zealand. Alcoholics destroy their mental and physical health. The negative social affect on those that have to live with alcoholics is huge...not to mention the toll that they take on police and health resources that are here for the benefit of every New Zealander. Not just the alcoholics.

 Alcohol destroys lives, and whole families. The worst part of all of this, is that most New Zealanders accept alcoholism as normal, and allow their loved ones, and friends to live in denial. I would even go so far as saying that New Zealanders encourage this behaviour in one another, by just laughing off and making a joke of drunken behaviour.

This is mentioned in this article as a "culture of toleration of drunkenness as normal social behaviour".

So much attention is given to drinking and driving...when that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Legislation changes are needed to reduce levels of alcohol-related harm, but a change in attitude towards New Zealand's binge drinking culture is the vital cog, says the Alcohol Advisory Committee (Alac).

At a health select committee meeting in Parliament today, Alac council chairman Peter Glensor said there was no silver bullet when it came to reducing drinking-related harm, but the biggest impediment to addressing the issue was New Zealand's "culture of toleration of drunkenness as normal social behaviour".

Alac chief executive Gerard Vaughan said over the past 10 years alcohol consumption in New Zealand had risen 9 percent. Beer consumption had decreased, but wine and spirit drinking had increased.

It was also noted that the age when people first started to drink had dropped from 16 to 14.

Maori and Pacific people appeared to be drinking less frequently, but to a greater extent when they did drink.

Mr Vaughan said it was difficult to accurately assess whether alcohol-related harm was getting worse, "but we have to say that things are really bad".

The Law Commission, under instruction from the Government, has come up with ways to address New Zealand's alcohol problems through legislation changes and Mr Glensor told MPs today that the biggest contribution they could make was to implement the commission's recommendations.

Alac wanted to see provisions around alcohol sales tightened, including outlets having to actively seek proof of age as supermarkets do for people who appear to be under 25.

Drink-driving was still a huge issue, despite campaigns to try and reduce it, and Alac strongly recommended reducing the legal blood-alcohol level for driving -- particularly among young people.

"There is very strong evidence that when you do that it has an impact on drinking problems, because people don't want to be pinged and so they change their social behaviour," Mr Glensor said.

Mr Vaughan said dropping the limit to from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to 50mgs was important as decision making started to deteriorate once levels of over 50mgs were reached.

"When they are in that territory they make a poor decision to drive when they never intended to."

Dropping the level would make people a lot more conservative in their decision making.

Alac representatives said apart from the destructive culture, alcohol related harm was heightened by the ease of purchase, cheapness and round-the clock accessibility of alcohol.

The recession didn't appear to have had an effect on alcohol sales, and that was likely to be because of those reasons.

While there was no one solution to reducing alcohol-related harm, changes in law introduced as a package would have the effect of making people think differently about their habits, Mr Glensor said.