Reducing harm of alcohol ‘imperative’, says drinks industry body
The drinks industry agrees that reducing the level of alcohol-related harm in Ireland is “imperative”, according to Michael Patten, chairman of the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI).
Speaking at today's annual conference of the Beverage Council of Ireland in Galway, Patten said that critics of the industry found it difficult to reconcile the industry’s financial interest in alcohol sales with concern about alcohol abuse.
However, he argued, the reality was that “the alcohol industry has a strategic, even vested interest, in swinging the pendulum of attitudes to alcohol away from episodic binge drinking to more balanced and moderate consumption as well as addressing other forms of alcohol-related harm”.
“Continuing high levels of alcohol related harm pose significant challenges to the future sustainability of our industry and the regulatory environment in which we operate,” he said.
“Long-term moderate consumer of alcohol are preferable to short-term misusers of our products.”
Patten also said that these strategic interests complimented the general interests of participants in the alcohol industry as stakeholders in civic society in seeing the incidence of such harm being reduced.
Patten said that the industry was particularly concerned about binge drinking, underage drinking and drink driving.
He also rejected the so-called Nordic approach (named after its popularity in Scandinavian countries), which focuses on reducing total consumption of alcohol by increasing taxation, restricting advertising and limiting availability.
“The experience of the countries operating this model has been that it does little to tackle the issue of alcohol abuse because it is such an unfocussed approach,” he said.
Patten argued that the solution for Ireland should be based on a much more targeted approach to specific problem areas – like binge drinking – with very focussed interventions on areas where harm was being done “rather than treating even moderate drinkers as if they are the problem”.
“The industry fully supports targeted interventions to reduce alcohol related harm by focusing on high risk drinking behaviours, particularly binge drinking, drink driving and underage drinking,” he said.
“We believe that a multi-stakeholder, multi-action response is required to deliver long-term change in an issue as complex as alcohol misuse. In addition we need to fully play our role working alongside others to shift attitudes to alcohol and to make alcohol misuse less acceptable.”
DIGI is the representative body for the Drinks Industry in Ireland.
| Related Stories: |
|
