Alcohol - our favourite drug?

I think I'm starting to share the Nanny State fears recently expressed by the Police amongst others.

Now we have the idea that labelling on alcoholic drinks pointing up the dangers of alcohol will help to reduce the harms caused by alcohol.

There's no doubt alcohol can and does cause harm - but we do know this. It can't have escaped most people's notice that drinking too much causes health and social harms. Get too drunk, too often and you will feel ill. Ditto get in to fights, cause criminal damage and so on.

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support the idea that big labels on any drug e.g. cigs have done any good. What has changed attitudes to tobacco over the years has been - well, the years. Just look at any episode of 'Life on Mars' - they're all smoking up a storm. What happened to reduce cig consumption was a gradual confirmation that it is definitely bad for you (cancer studies and so on). These were reported in the press and people eventually coupled them with the offensive smelliness of smoking, the cost and its impact on others through passive smoking. All these factors combined to reduce smoking to around 25-30% of the adult population. But there it sticks. And no amount of labelling is going to change that number. Other factors such as peer pressure, fashion etc will continue to lead some people in to the fag trap, from which hopefully more and more will escape, but don't bet on it.

But it takes years for attitudes to a drug change - and you have to ask, if a drug goes out of fashion what's going to replace it? If alcohol goes the same way as tobacco - so that only 30% instead of 98% use it, then what is going to come in instead? Do we really want to sacrifice the pub as a cornerstone of community life by driving down alcohol sales to a noncommercial point? I don't think so. Instead we need to strike a balance. Eat, drink and be merry a few times a week. Besides the advice on the number of units it's safe to consume is in danger of falling in to disrepute. Wine and beers have more alcohol in them now than when the limits were suggested, so the idea you can measure units by the glass is WRONG. Glasses have got bigger too, so a glass of wine in a pub these days probably contains at least two units. Follow the guv's advice and you'll be seriously pissed - a lot. And labels won't help.