Sweet-tasting and high-strength "alcopops" have become the drink of choice for many young women. They take much of the blame for binge-drinking, and governments, unsurprisingly, are seeking to limit their consumption. Australia imposed a 70 per cent tax hike on them.
Most alcopop drinkers simply switched to other spirits. The Key Government, however, has come up with an alternative that could be more effective.
It wants, as part of the Alcohol Reform Bill, to ban off-licence stores from selling alcopops with more than 6 per cent alcohol content. Some drinkers may react, once again, by opting for substitutes. But the attraction of alcopops is their sweetness and cheapness. It may just be that deprived of this, young women, especially, may reduce their drinking.
The threat of this outcome was enough to persuade managing directors from companies which sell products such as Bacardi and Jim Beam to attend a meeting with the Justice Minister.
This indicated they see the Government's proposal as a threat to an increasingly important market. And why else would the industry have started a concerted attack from two angles? First, it questions why alcopops have been singled out. Secondly, it says the ban would fly in the face of transtasman free trade agreements.
