Alcohol harms and solutions: It’s a numbers game

Thirty seven years ago, in 1977, the Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare handed down its final report into drugs in Australia.

The Committee pulled no punches stating that, “Alcohol is the major drug of abuse in Australia. It now constitutes a problem of epidemic proportions [and] …any failure by governments or individuals to acknowledge that a major problem and potential national disaster is upon us would constitute gross irresponsibility”.

Almost four decades on, alcohol continues to cause significant harm in Australia.

As the Australian Medical Association’s (AMA) National Alcohol Summit gets underway in Canberra, a summit being held by the AMA in the absence of interest from the Commonwealth, I ask myself – what would the members of the 1977 Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare make of Australia’s heavy alcohol toll in 2014?

Certainly, the numbers paint a very clear and very disturbing picture.

Today alcohol will kill 15 Australians.

A further 430 Australians will be hospitalised because of alcohol.

192 Australians are victims of alcohol-related violence, and 66 people are victims of alcohol-related domestic violence every single day.

This year the cost of these harms will be $36 billion, greater than the cost of harms from tobacco.

Four decades on and alcohol is more available, more heavily promoted and more affordable.

This isn’t at all surprising when you look at the environment. There are 58,000 liquor licenses across Australia and alcohol is available around the clock. In the city of Sydney alone there are still 286 24-hour liquor licences and almost 700 venues that trade beyond midnight.

Alcohol is cheap, costing as little as thirty-three cents per standard drink, and more affordable than it has been in three decades.

And alcohol is promoted everywhere; on TV, radio, print, on-line, and outdoor advertising. It is also heavily promoted in-stores, with 30 point-of-sale promotions per store in NSW.

Combined, the aggressive pricing promotion and availability of alcohol has created the perfect storm. Here too, the numbers tell a story.

For every 10% increase in liquor outlets there is a 3.3% increase in domestic violence.

For every hour increase in trading hours there is a 20% increase in alcohol-related assaults.

Of course these findings are not new. Sadly we have long known what the solutions are, yet Government’s remain reluctant to act.

Professor Robin Room, Director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research (CAPR) and advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) on alcohol and drugs explains it thus:

“Governments tend to respond in ways that don’t interfere with the market and that don’t upset people who at stake and the result is that they do symbolic things rather than things that are actually effective.”

The alcohol industry is doing all it can to ensure that alcohol is not further regulated.

Opposed to the recommendations of the Henry Review, the Wine Federation of Australia exaggerated job losses by 95%, claiming up to 12,000 jobs would be lost when the exact number was only 599.

The alcohol industry has also repeatedly disputed the evidence.

Head of the Australian Liquor Stores Association, Terry Mott recently levelled outrageous claims suggesting there is no correlation that an increase in retail liquor outlets will result in an increase in alcohol-related violence in the community, when in fact the evidence is irrefutable.

With one eye on its profits and another on its shareholders, the alcohol industry cannot and will not concede there is a problem.

But the rest of the nation has no such problem. 78% of Australians think that alcohol is a problem, and 79% of Australians think more needs to be done to reduce alcohol harms.

Governments must demonstrate leadership. What is needed now is decisive action from our political leaders, and commitment to a national plan.

Thirty seven years ago, the Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare identified the problem and the urgent need for action.

Today, nearly four decades later, the harms from alcohol are even more significant.

The evidence of what to do to prevent these harms is already available, and countless reviews have recommended that if we are sincere about addressing the issue we need action that would address the price, promotion and availability of alcohol in Australia.

It is my sincere hope that we do not have to wait another thirty seven years for meaningful change.