Speaking up for drinkers

It’s an unfortunate fact of life that it’s always easier to drum up support for banning or restricting something than leaving it alone. One side can conjure up a righteous froth of indignation, whereas its opponents have to resort to arguments like “it’s not that bad really”, “people have been doing it for years”, “some people quite enjoy it” or “it provides jobs”. The defence of liberty, by its nature, often involves the defence of the mundane or even the somewhat distasteful. Added to this, people often lazily assume that government or industry will do the job of opposing curbs, so they don’t need to do anything themselves.

This is amplified by the often-heard assumption that anyone opposing restrictions is by definition a corporate shill, or pursuing a particular ideological agenda. How can any right-thinking person really be against this? This is especially prevalent in the sphere of lifestyle regulation. Regardless of the truth of the message, any industry association immediately leads to it being dismissed out of hand. Just try Googling Enstrom and Kabat.

So it’s welcome news that a new pressure group called Drinkers’ Voice has been set up to counter the exaggerated and often hysterical messages about the dangers of alcohol emanating from the public health lobby, and to urge a sense of proportion. Most notably, there is a huge weight of evidence that moderate drinking produces better health outcomes than total abstention, which you really wouldn’t get any sense of from following alcohol-related media stories.

Drinkers’ Voice as a matter of policy does not accept any industry funding, to ensure both the reality and the perception of independence. It speaks for the consumers of alcoholic drinks, not the producers. What it does have is a certain amount of involvement from CAMRA, which has led some to conclude that it is effectively a CAMRA front organisation. My understanding is that CAMRA is providing some seedcorn funding and start-up assistance, but the intention is very much that it should take flight as a fully independent body.

In recent years, there have been several motions passed at CAMRA AGMs urging the organisation to take a stronger line against the anti-drink lobby. However, CAMRA by definition does not represent all drinkers, and can all too easily be accused of glossing over the negative effects of alcohol in seeking to promote beer and pubs. There also remains a somewhat delusional tendency within its ranks who believe that the type of drinking that CAMRA supports can in some way be presented as less harmful. So the decision was taken that the objective could be better achieving by helping with the creation of an independent campaigning body.

The public health lobby are often portrayed as plucky Davids standing up against the self-interested Goliaths of the drinks industry in the interests of ordinary people. However, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the view that ordinary people are weak, gullible saps who need to be protected from their own base instincts is hardly an entirely benevolent one. It is well summed up by this quotation from C. S Lewis:

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

It is true that alcoholic drinks have not suffered anything like the legal and fiscal assault that has been experienced by tobacco. However, the duty escalator which was in effect for several years should not be forgotten and, while it now seems to have run out of steam, a few years back there was concerted government encouragement to reduce the strength of many popular beers and ciders. And one of the most effective attacks on the drinks trade has proved to be something that ostensibly targeted something else entirely, namely the smoking ban.

The past couple of decades have also seen an increasing trend to undermine the social acceptability of the regular, moderate drinking of alcohol, especially in out-of-home locations. This has been reflected in a marked decline in average consumption even without the assistance of punitive legislation, which has particularly affected younger age groups. This may well create the climate for more tangible restrictions in the future.

So, to sum up, Drinkers’ Voice is a much needed and extremely worthwhile endeavour. I urge you to give it your support and, if you can, bung them a donation too, as I have done.