Garth George: Hard line needed on alcohol laws

Rotorua MP Todd McClay is consulting his electorate on their views on the pending reform of alcohol laws through surveys, by letter and via his website and already he has discovered that a large majority of us want the drinking age raised, without exception, to 20.

As I have said in this column lately, I reckon it should be raised to 21 and it be made illegal to supply liquor to any person under 18, even at home.

But the age at which people can buy liquor is only one of the urgent things that should be done to deal with a national epidemic of drunkenness which is doing vast damage in our society, particularly to young people.

The trouble is that Parliament is determined to find compromises that keep it on side with the booze barons, who contribute nearly $1 billion to the exchequer every year (from taxpayers' pockets, of course), and no doubt large amounts to political parties. So, that aside, my reply to Mr McClay is this, which, it must be said, largely coincides with the policy of the Maori Party, whose moves to crack down on binge drinking are in the hands of Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell.

As has been proved with the campaign against smoking, the most successful ploy has been to increase the price. It seems ridiculous to me that I can buy enough booze to get drunk for the price of a single pack of 20 fags.

An immediate sharp, then steady (as with tobacco), increase in excise duty on alcohol, while probably unfair to the 90 per cent of folk who always drink sensibly, is certain to encourage those hundreds of thousands who overindulge to cut their consumption.

The next most important move would be to prohibit the advertising of alcohol in any medium and restrict it absolutely to point of sale.

Those people who drink sensibly know where to get what they want so it is obvious that advertising is intended to suck in new drinkers - and they're young people.

You only have to look at the arcane TV advertisements that clutter our screens to see the subtle messages that it's cool to drink booze and that without it life isn't nearly as exciting.

Similarly, sponsorship by the booze industry of sports teams should also be banned. Who would miss the absence of the booze advertisement on All Blacks jerseys where it announces, even subliminally, that hard men drink a certain beer?

Supermarkets should be forbidden to sell alcohol altogether, and not just hide it away as the liquor reform bill, to come before Parliament soon, suggests. If they do retain the right to sell beer and wine, the supermarkets should be prevented from putting any items on special, selling any at a discount, and from advertising liquor either in store of in their weekly-special mailbox stuffers.

Minimum prices should be set.

The number of off-licence liquor outlets should be subject to a sinking lid policy and the powers of licensing committees strengthened so that no new outlet is permitted within a set distance of another. As it is there are four shops from which I can buy liquor within 500m of my front door.

And, as the Maori Party submits, the proximity to a school should be among the criteria for granting an off-licence. It should also be automatic to close down permanently any off-licensee who is found to be in breach of any liquor law.

And, lastly, the offence of being intoxicated in a public place should be revived, whether the police like it or not. Waking up hung over after a night in a squalid cop shop drunk tank is a powerful incentive not to do it again.

Trust me, I know.

garth.george@hotmail.com