Governments grow more suspicious of Big Booze, warns The Economist
United Kingdom | The Economist newspaper says that of all the substances people intoxicate themselves with, alcohol is the least restricted and causes the most harm. It warns that if the alcohol industry’s moderate consumption guidelines were really effective, they would ruin their sponsors’ finances.
It has the numbers to back up its claim. On its Graphic Detail page, on 19 October 2019, The Economist said that today some two-fifths of alcohol consumed in Britain is in excess of the recommended weekly maximum of 14 units (about one glass of wine per day).
Problem drinkers contribute bulk of revenues
Research has shown that some 25 percent of Britons are classified as problem drinkers – that is people who consume between 24 and 73 units per week. They drink 78 percent of all alcohol consumed and contribute 68 percent to industry revenues.
“Industry executives say they want the public to ‘drink less, but drink better’, meaning fewer, fancier tipples.” Adding up the numbers, The Economist concluded that “people would need to pay 22 percent to 98 percent more per drink to make up for the revenue loss that such a steep drop in consumption would cause.”
Alcohol outspends tobacco in lobbying
According to The Economist, health officials have taken note of this arithmetic. Allegedly, some even doubt that Big Booze is sincere in its efforts to discourage unhealthy boozing. The Economist reminded its readers that in 2018 America’s National Institutes of Health stopped a USD 100 million study of moderate drinking, which was partly funded by alcohol firms, because its design was deemed biased. This year the World Health Organisation and England’s public-health authority banned their staff from working with the industry.
The Economist also lists how much money alcohol producers spend on lobbying governments. In 1999 alcohol firms invested half as much on lobbying in the US as tobacco firms did. Today they spend 31 percent more, per The Economist’s data.
The article appeared in the Graphic Detail section of the print edition under the headline “A sober brawl”.
