Sunday 22 May 2016

Pushed to the limit

Earlier this year, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer lowered the maximum “safe drinking” alcohol guideline for men from 21 units a week to 14, to bring it into line with that for women. That’s a mere six pints of Robinsons’ Unicorn, folks. I didn’t post anything about this at the time because it’s all been said before, and you eventually start suffering from “outrage fatigue”. The case against is well summed up here by Christopher Snowdon in his usual forthright manner.

A key point about this is that, while most existing drinkers were unlikely to pay much attention, by restricting the definition of “safe drinking” it immediately created a huge new population of problem drinkers, thus helping to keep the public health lobby in business without any increase in actual consumption. And, not surprisingly, “experts” have now expressed shock that millions of middle-aged men are drinking above government guidelines and do not believe it does them any harm. That could possibly be because they know the guidelines have been effectively plucked out of thin air, and it really doesn’t do them any harm.

The trade now seems at last to be waking up to the threat this poses. Paul Chase, director of drnks industry training consultancy CPL, has said that the trade cannot allow these overprotective new guidelines to stand and described them as “the opposite of science”, while CAMRA national director Nick Boley has rightly pointed out in a letter to the Guardian:

It is very easy to detect the joyless hand of the anti-alcohol lobby behind these guidelines. Indeed, one could surmise that they will only be content when every brewer, cider-maker, wine-maker, distiller and publican has been driven out of business, and a significant plank of our culture has been destroyed.
This letter is one of the most robust counters to the New Puritanism that I have yet seen from an official CAMRA spokesperson. I look forward to seeing more of the same. Hopefully the days are long gone when Mike Benner and others thought CAMRA should join forces with Alcohol Concern to fight the evil supermarkets.

There’s only so far you can go in appeasing the public health lobby when it is clear that their ultimate aim is your complete destruction. If you want to see the future, you need look no further than the current situation of the tobacco industry and its consumers.

9 comments:

  1. Pubs don't need drinkers to keep them going, they need ACVs
    duh

    ReplyDelete
  2. April 2012: Lansley told The Times: "We don't work in partnership with the tobacco companies because we are trying to arrive at a point where they have no business in this country."

    There really isn't much to say after that...except to remind drinkers of alcohol, like vapers and eaters of meat or sugar, that: These 'People' (PH) are N O T your friends.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I doubt CAMRA are gearing up to better represent all drinkers.

    Too many puritans that consider cask conditioned a special case of virtue and other drinks morally wrong.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Surely that's been the attitude of many an 'anti-keg' CAMRA member? Drink what I drink or don't drink at all...

      Delete
  4. Slight tangent but along the same lines - If you're admitted to A&E you're always asked if you've been drinking - If the answer's yes then your injury/mishap/accident is marked down as "alcohol related" - Even if alcohol played no part in how you came to be injured.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Re Kevin's comment. This is true. I once went to A&E after cutting my hand on a wine glass I was using to cut out scones. Even though I hadn't drank a drop, because it was a wine glass they told me it would be recorded as an alcohol related injury.

      Delete
    2. And yet this is then solemnly advanced as evidence of the growth of alcohol-related hospital admissions.

      Delete
  5. Incidentally, I've now turned on comment moderation for all comments, due to an outbreak of blatant trolling.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bring back Mr Bell End. I enjoyed his story of his onastic misadventure as much as the scatological misadventures or Mr Pie Tin.

      Delete

Comments, especially on older posts, may require prior approval by the blog owner. See here for details of my comment policy.

Please register an account to comment. Unregistered comments will generally be rejected unless I recognise the author. If you want to comment using an unregistered ID, you will need to tell me something about yourself.