Nutts about drugs

The sacking of Professor David Nutt as Government chief drugs adviser was criticised by an unholy alliance of Guardianistas and Brown-bashers, the former seeing it as giving support to liberalising drugs policy, the latter as more evidence that the government are unwilling to tolerate dissent or criticism.

But, once you look into it more closely, Prof. Nutt’s message is as much anti-alcohol as pro-drug.

I heard a radio interview with him yesterday in which he said that if he had his way alcohol would be a Class B controlled drug. He also refused to be drawn on whether the harm caused by ecstasy, proportionate to the number of users and the frequency of use, was less or more than that caused by alcohol. The interviewer, to be fair, did press him on that particular point and he waffled and prevaricated, but he wasn’t asked the vital question as to whether he consumed alcohol himself.

He also said that “parents should be aware that the drug that is by far the most likely to harm their children is alcohol” – without adding the essential caveat that any drug can only harm you if you actually use it. Obviously parents don’t want their offspring either pissed on Diamond White or stoned on skunk, but I would imagine the vast majority would prefer them to have a glass or two of wine or beer rather than a daily joint.

It’s often said, by Prof. Nutt and others, that alcohol is more dangerous than many illegal drugs. It always seems to me that they are clouding the issue by confusing the overall effect on society with the effect on individuals. Obviously, given the prevalence of alcohol in society, it is not surprising that more people in total experience harmful effects. But is it true that it is more dangerous on a proportionate basis? I really don’t think so.

For a start, many people consume alcohol as much (if not more) for the taste as for the effect. I’m not aware that you can say that for any other drug. And, more importantly, alcohol can be consumed in moderation through an adult lifetime without any adverse health effects, and even with some small benefits. Other drugs such as cannabis, ecstasy, LSD and cocaine must be judged against the same yardstick.

In the final analysis, Nutt is not a hero of rationality and free speech, he is just, at heart, another Righteous bansturbator.

Edit 01/11/09: There's a very interesting commentary on the issue here from Frank Davis: A Plague on Both Their Houses.

How to alienate your customers

At a time when scarcely a day goes by that we don’t hear of another soldier dying in Afghanistan, the insensitivity of Kent licensee Bernice Walsh is beyond belief:

Landlady Bernice Walsh, of The Windmill, in Weald, Kent, told former RAF serviceman David Marchant that people could buy poppies ‘somewhere else’ when he asked her permission to leave a poppy tray in her pub.

She sounds like the kind of person who really believes in making her pub part of the community:

Another villager, who did not want to be named, said: “It’s a shame because people in the village want to support her, but she keeps rubbing people up the wrong way.

“We need a pub - it was closed for six months and then she came and everyone was really pleased about it, but immediately she banned dogs and it's a village pub and people like to take their dogs in so it’s upset an awful lot of people.”

She should remember that the community doesn’t need her, but she needs them. And Remembrance is not about the glorification of war but about the courage and sacrifice of the ordinary soldier. I wonder how long it will be before the Windmill gets a new licensee...

First quenched

It takes a special kind of genius to file for bankruptcy when the overall business sector in which you operate is seeing increased sales, but that is what First Quench, owners of Threshers and other various off-licences, have achieved. This came on the day when it was reported that off-trade beer sales had grown by 4.4%. They have experienced the fate of many mid-market operators in other sectors – caught between the supermarkets, the hard discounters, the specialists and the convenience of the local corner store. Maybe it’s not a good idea to give alcohol licences to newsagents, but that is the reality of the market in which First Quench had to operate and they never really came to terms with it. Their stores were always about the most expensive for any product on offer, and someone else always had a wider range of everything they sold, so there was never a compelling reason for anyone to shop there. I suspect this will mark the beginning of the end for the old-fashioned off-licence.

You may also like to answer the poll on the left about where you buy alcohol in the off-trade - remember that you can choose more than one option.

Critical mass

York is a major historic city with a thriving tourist trade, and as such you would expect it to have a good number of busy pubs. But it always seems to me that, even taking that into account, York seems to support considerably more pubs than you might think, and certainly more proportionately than comparable cities such as Chester, with several new ones opening up in recent years. A recent CAMRA mini-guide showed well over 60 establishments serving independently-brewed cask beer within and just outside the city walls. It seems to me there is a “critical mass” factor at work here, where the existence of good pubs encourages an interest in beer and pubgoing and creates a virtuous circle that leads other pubs to thrive.

You can see something along the same lines in the South Manchester suburb of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, which is a prosperous and somewhat “yuppified” area (typical of many city suburbs across the country) where a lot of new bars have opened up and there are probably more than twice as many on-licences as there once were. A lot of these places, such as the Bar, the Marble Beer House and Dulcimer, do offer something interesting on the beer front, but they aren’t by any means exclusively or indeed mainly used by beer buffs.

In contrast, it often seems that failure breeds failure. Some of Manchester’s more down-market suburbs such as Levenshulme have lost more than half their pubs. If nobody else in your circle goes to pubs, then you won’t either. As Chris Maclean says here:

Worse still is the idea that you can profit from another’s demise. People believe that if their nearest competitor is destroyed in this process somehow they’ll be able to mop up the additional business. How wrong can they be? A closed pub seems to blight the area. It seems to me that, if you drive through an area, if one pub is shut then the others nearby are struggling.

This becomes very relevant when we consider the oft-heard suggestion that the decline in pubgoing means that a lot more pubs need to close to give the others a chance to survive. It isn’t anywhere near as simple as that.

It is certainly true that, if the demand for pubgoing falls, then over time the number of pubs will fall too. In fact the closure of pubs tends to lag considerably behind the fall in demand, so you end up with a number of struggling pubs with few customers which in itself can be somewhat offputting. It is also impossible to consider this subject without reiterating the point that if you introduce an external legislative constraint that makes pubs significantly less appealing to half their customers, the results are fairly predictable.

But, on the other hand, it doesn't necessarily follow that, if you reduce the number of pubs, it makes the others stronger. The decision to visit a pub is very much dependent on a specific combination of location and circumstance, and if you alter one factor it may well sway the whole decision. People visit pubs for a vast range of reasons about which it’s difficult to generalise, and it’s all too easy for commentators to assume that others’ motivation tends to be the same as their own. Probably making a deliberate decision to go to the pub in preference to other leisure options only accounts for a minority of visits.

As an example, if someone regularly walks to a pub in their village, and that pub closes, the odds are he’ll stop going to the pub entirely rather than use whatever means available to go three miles to the pub in the next village. Even if he does occasionally go to the other pub, he’s unlikely to go there anywhere near as often. In contrast, if the petrol station closed in his village, he would drive three miles to the nearest one rather than stop driving. And even if there are other pubs easily accessible, there may be very good reasons why the customers of one closed pub won’t use those that remain.

Many of the pubs that have closed have been ones on free-standing sites in the middle of extensive areas of housing, where there are no other pubs nearby, which from a narrow rational view of demand you might have expected to have a secure future.

This strongly suggests that simply culling the number of pubs will not guarantee the survival and prosperity of those that remain. What is more important is encouraging the interest and attitude of mind that leads people to visit pubs.

(this post is a revised and expanded version of my response to this blog post by Jesusjohn)

Eating the whole barn

One of the few recent success stories in the pub dining market has been the rise of Whitbread’s Taybarns all-you-can eat concept, typically converted from former Brewer’s Fayre outlets. They are now serving over 10,000 people a week in some of the busier branches and there are plans to open 30 more next year. Predictably, the food snobs are outraged, claiming it will lead to binge eating. “The irony is that if you give people complete and unadulterated choice they eat a narrower range of food simply because they can - you can eat burgers every day if you like” says Professor Martin Caraher, professor of food and health policy at City University London. Ah yes, we can’t be giving the plebs freedom of choice, they have to be told to eat what’s good for them. You’ll eat that lentil salad whether you like it or not!

While undoubtedly to some extent the format will appeal to gluttons, in reality, as I have argued before, people have for various reasons become more choosy with their food and are increasingly frustrated by the conventional combinations dictated to them by standard menus. The key appeal of all-you-can-eat is not so much quantity as freedom of choice. Indeed, given the excessive portion sizes in many conventional eateries, it’s likely that some of the customers of all-you-can-eat venues actually value the fact that they only need to select as much as they want, and they don’t end up being embarrassed by leaving substantial quantities on their plate, so in fact end up eating less, not more. This point is reinforced in this article where Whitbread manager Simon Ewins says Taybarns orders the same amount of chips for 8,000 meals a week as the previous pub ordered for 2,000. Probably a lot of those chips with the 2,000 meals were left on the plate.

Taybarns may not be a gourmet’s paradise, but I suspect it’s here to stay. However, might we see in the future the all-you-can-eat concept attracting the same kind of Righteous indignation that all-you-can-drink does?

Welcome to Alcohol Alley

There has been a bout of predictable hand-wringing in the media in response to this Manchester Evening News report about the “alcohol alley” of Moston Lane in North Manchester, where apparently there are 22 outlets selling alcohol in a 1.4 mile stretch. The Sun and Daily Mail have both got in on the act. But surely that is typical of any urban high street – along a shorter stretch of leafy Heaton Moor Road, and the adjacent Shaw Road, in Stockport, there are maybe 4 pubs, a social club, 5 café-bars, 5 off-licences and 5 restaurants, giving roughly the same concentration. And the existence of off-licences is a reflection of demand, it doesn’t create it out of thin air.

I have to say I’m not entirely happy about the granting of alcohol licences to every two-bit newsagent, where supervision is inevitably going to be less firm than in supermarkets or specialist shops, but on the other hand we don’t want to head towards the Scandinavian model of queueing up like social outcasts at a grim outlet of the state-controlled alcohol monopoly. And isn’t the fact that three pubs on Moston Lane have closed down likely to have much more to do with the smoking ban, which has scythed through urban locals across the country? What a ridiculous comment from Bob Hill of the residents’ association that this signifies “a shift from sociable drinking to boozing in the streets” – how much of the off-trade alcohol is actually drunk on the streets as opposed to in people’s houses?

What pubs are really about

Every Saturday, the Daily Telegraph Weekend section has an article about a featured pub. Those written by Adrian Tierney-Jones, as is today’s about the Hunters Inn in North Devon, are generally very good, and concentrate on what the pub is really like. But, unfortunately, some of the other writers spend most of the piece describing the menu and only as an afterthought may mention what beers are on the bar and say something about the character of the place.

Regrettably, much of the writing about pubs that you come across in the mainstream media seems to make the assumption that serving meals is the primary purpose of pubs – a view that is also the fundamental premise of the Good Pub Guide. This is not another rant about pubs “going over to food” – of course pub food is here to stay and some of it can be very good. But surely the key purpose of pubs is to provide somewhere for people to meet and socialise, lubricated by a few drinks, and this is something we should never lose sight of. Fortunately a recent pub crawl around Stockport Market Place showed the tradition of a good night in the pub to be alive and well in a number of establishments, in particular the Boar’s Head and the Arden Arms.

And the recent Channel 4 documentary underlined the point – what the former regulars of the Red Lion at Longden Common missed was not the meals out but the sociability of the pub.

Minimum doubts

A question mark has been raised over the Scottish government’s plans to introduce minimum alcohol pricing by a European court ruling that minimum tobacco pricing breaches competition rules. Hopefully they will realise how misguided and fraught with unintended consequences the plan is before it comes to fruition, but to see it thrown out in court would certainly provide a delicious moment of Schadenfreude.

Limit cut parked

There was a rare piece of good news for licensees and pubgoers in the Irish Republic as Prime Minister Brian Cowan – the son of a County Offaly publican – announced that plans to lower the drink-drive limit from 80mg to 50mg were to be “parked”, following the threat of a back-bench revolt. Irish pubs are already reeling following the smoking ban, and this move would have led thousands more to call last orders. Given that the vast majority of accidents attributed to drink-driving are caused by drivers well over the current legal limit, it has always seemed to me that cutting the limit is a far better way of discouraging responsible people from going to the pub than of improving road safety.

Explosive drinking

In contrast to the tendentious nonsense spouted the other week by Strathclyde chief constable Stephen House that you were less likely to experience violence by going to the pub than by staying at home, Emma Reynolds of Tesco has stated that drinking in the pub is potentially more explosive than doing so at home. She sort of has a point, in that most examples of alcohol-related violence occur in or near licensed premises, and you’re unlikely to come to much harm sitting in front of the fire with a couple of bottles.

But, in reality, the risks involved in going to the pub are pretty small too, especially if you choose your venue sensibly. I struggle to recall when I last saw anything “kicking off” in a pub, and I’m quite often in pubs late Friday or Saturday nights. The biggest risk is probably being involved in a road accident on your way home, especially if you’ve had a bit to drink and are walking.

All this business of saying drinking in the pub is better than at home, or vice versa, is really a false opposition cooked up by the anti-drink lobby to try to divide and rule, and sadly taken up by some defenders of pubs who really should know better. In reality, most people’s experience of drinking alcohol will cover a mixture of the two depending on circumstances.

Does it ever stop?

Scarcely a day seems to go by at present without some self-appointed “expert” from the medical profession clamouring for new curbs on alcohol. This is the latest dictatorial nonsense in today’s Guardian: Alcohol is worse than cigarettes. So why should everyone’s freedom be curbed because a 24-year-old woman in Derby died from alcoholic liver disease? And does it really matter if more than half the population are drinking more than the official guidelines, given that these figures were made up in the first place and have no scientific basis? This is what is in store for us:

Curbs on ads will have to be accompanied by restrictions on sponsorship and opening hours, minimum unit pricing, and a re-evaluation of the delusion that under-age drinking around the family table encourages responsible drinking. I would argue that every health district requires a named individual responsible for local awareness, early detection and effective support and treatment.

Falling off a cliff

Despite all the hysteria in the media about “binge-drink Britain” and our “ever-growing” alcohol problems, the actual facts tell a completely different story, with alcohol consumption falling at the fastest rate for more than 60 years. Indeed, it has been falling steadily for the past five years, despite the introduction of “24-hour drinking”. So remind me again why we need mandatory codes, minimum pricing and all the rest of the panoply of anti-drink measures that are being touted. Obviously the BBPA have an axe to grind, but they are spot-on in pointing out that it doesn’t automatically follow that reducing overall consumption leads to a fall in “problem drinking” and therefore a more targeted approach is needed rather than making everyone suffer.

Cats' protection

Following his speech at the Tory Conference, I wrote to Chris Grayling to express my concern that his plans were likely to adversely affect independent craft producers of beer and cider. I specifically mentioned Robinson’s Old Tom in my letter.

To his credit, he replied very promptly. He said:

Can I reassure you of one thing, though – our plans for a tighter regime for “super-strength” beers and ciders specifically exclude exemptions for traditional craft products – so small producers should not have to worry that we will inadvertently make their lives more difficult in future.

Fair enough, but no promise to protect Old Tom there. I still think this whole plan will run into the sands over the obvious difficulty of making qualitative distinctions between alcoholic drinks of similar strength. I know Tennent’s Super is crap and Duvel is a quality craft product, but how can you enshrine that in a tax system? And, let us be honest, there are parts of the West Country where farmhouse scrumpy plays the same role in society as Tennent’s Super does in central Scotland.

Requiem for the Red Lion

Last night I watched the Channel 4 documentary called The Red Lion. This is the most common pub name in the UK and film-maker Sue Bourne travelled the length of the country to visit ten of them and talk to their regular customers. No doubt the anti-drink lobby would be aghast at some of the levels of alcohol consumption discussed, such as the Lancashire rugby player who admitted to sometimes drinking twenty pints on a Saturday, and the Kent licensee who gave the impression of being a functioning alcoholic and was treating himself to an early-morning “sharpener”. But, overall, it put across a very clear impression of the companionship and sense of community that pubs can provide.

It is very well summed up by this Guardian review, especially the poignant conclusion:

Yes, you find unhappiness in the Red Lion, and people trying to drink away their loneliness. But there's also lots of good times, companionship, cameraderie and laughter. The saddest Red Lion by far is the one in Longden Common. It was the centre of this tiny Shropshire community; everyone went on a Saturday night, unless they were ill, and they tried not to be on a Saturday. But then it closed, and with it went the village’s main point of contact. They used to do stuff together, go on holiday even; now they stay at home and watch telly. I hope they watched this at least, because it was a lovely portrait of a peculiarly British institution.

Nanny turns into bully

This new book looks like essential reading:

The nanny state has given way to a bully state in which politicians coerce the public into submission.

A new book by controversial former MSP Brian Monteith argues that the nanny state is dead but has been replaced by a much more malevolent bully state where we are not just preached at, but forced to do what the politicians think we should.

The Bully State: The End of Tolerance charts the movement from nannying health warnings about smoking, through compulsory motor cycle helmets and seat belts, to the bully times of today, when we can be fined for smoking in our own cars and Marmite is banned in schools.

Monteith warns: “We won't lose the freedoms that we cherish by a military coup or some great cataclysmic war engulfing us, but through the gradual invasion of our private lives by the very politicians we elect to protect us – and all in the cause of looking after our health.

“Today’s politicians think us mature enough to elect them, but too immature to decide what we should eat, smoke, drink or drive. So they give officials powers to snoop on us, enter our homes, fine householders without trial for using the wrong rubbish bins, and make shopkeepers hide the cigarettes under the counter.

“This is not just some left-wing campaign. It started when New Labour and Conservative politicians decided that information and choice weren’t enough in their brave new target-setting world. Now politicians of all colours simply bully us into submission if we do things they don’t approve of.”