NZ's worst drug

[grace]

NZ's worst drug

15 December 2008

The Nelson Mail

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/nelsonmail/4793670a23218.html

 

It is difficult to argue with the logic in a call over the weekend by Wellington doctors for tough and urgent action over the nation's main problem drug - alcohol, the Nelson Mail said in an editorial on Monday.

 

However, more than logic will be required to prompt even greater efforts to combat a situation which is essentially of epidemic proportions. As with dealing with any problem, the first step is in recognising it exists. The evidence against booze is overwhelming.

 

Researchers say on average, around three people a day die of alcohol-related illnesses or accidents and drinking is behind more than two-thirds of emergency hospital admissions and well over half of all crime. Add the multi-million dollar costs of alcohol-related ACC payouts, lost productivity, public health and addiction services and the ongoing social costs and damage that often flow from parental addiction, and the scope of New Zealand's drinking problem starts to become apparent.

 

In a feature article in The Dominion Post on Saturday, economists put the total annual social cost of alcohol at up to $16 billion. One specialist estimates the damage it causes outscores that of methamphetamine by 100 to one.

 

With impeccable timing in the lead-up to Christmas, the capital's doctors are urging huge increases in beer and wine prices and fewer outlets as key solutions to a problem everyone acknowledges but few in power are prepared to tackle head-on. No doubt their frustration is echoed in emergency departments around the country, as doctors and other frontline workers are forced to deal with the effects of binge-drinking night after night.

 

Their colleagues in general wards also spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with the harm that prolonged problem drinking brings. Wellington's chief medical officer ranks alcohol alongside class B drugs morphine and ritalin, and says more than 100 disorders are associated with excessive drinking.

 

The doctors' campaign follows a Health Ministry draft strategy in August which suggested tackling the problem on a range of fronts over the next five years. The excess-drinking culture is so ingrained that modifying it in any meaningful way presents an enormous, perhaps impossible task - but not one that should be shirked. The need for action is proportionate to the damage and cost that inappropriate use of alcohol lumps on society.

 

One development that seems to coincide with the surge in binge-drinking among the young is the production and marketing of alco-pops, virtually fizzy drinks with a killer punch that are designed to appeal to the young and impressionable. This is virtually the booze industry's insidious version of the cannabis joint laced with methamphetamine, and can have a similar outcome.

 

There is no single remedy for the alcohol problem. There needs to be much greater resourcing of educative, rehabilitative and treatment services allowing the likes of Queen Mary Hospital at Hanmer and other residential treatment facilities around the country to close was a travesty. Significantly higher taxes on beer, wine and alco-pops would also help, as would an increase in efforts to publicise the social and national costs of current drinking trends. More yet could be done to de-glamourise alcohol and portray the swaggering drunk as a pathetic figure one staggering step away from being a public menace.

 

Taken in moderation, alcohol does little or no harm and, according to some studies, can be good for us. Unfortunately, like any drug, one of its key effects is to lower users' guard and self-control, thereby boosting the likelihood of its own abuse.

[Rocker]

Here we go again, being told how to live our lives.

Just because a group of people can't handle the 'turps' everyone has to pay. Yes, more taxes are the answer.

 

It seems arrogant doctors think they are the fountain of all knowledge.