Alcohol Abuse

Now I know what you might be thinking, alcohol doesn't kill people, a glass bottle smashed over someone's head in a brawl, kills people. I think we can all agree though, that, among a plethora of other affects, alcohol makes you more likely to misinterpret other people's behaviour and makes you less concerned for your own safety: a winning combination for violence.

 

Having talked to researchers in the field, the feeling among them seems to be that we aren’t taking alcohol seriously. One even said that alcohol is due to become the new smoking. The two health problems aren't the same, but the lax attitude towards excessive drinking today resembles the lax attitude towards smoking up until the mid-twentieth century. The recent report (released 18/04/07) by the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research in NSW shows an increase in violent crimes, which is attributed to alcohol, both Police Commissioner Ken Moroney and BOCSAR Director Dr. Don Weatherburn agree.

 

This most recent evidence is further justification for some local councillors to say that we should shut pubs earlier (Mayors of both Manly and Waverly councils). Meanwhile, another country is going the other way. In 2005, the UK extended pub-closing hours to try to avert crime. As you would expect, people cried that the sky would fall in. That didn’t happen; in-fact, crime fell. Figures from the UK’s Department for Culture and the Home Office in 2006 showed that serious violent crime fell by 21% and violent crime generally fell by 11% (Wintour, Patrick, “Violence figures calm fear over drinking laws”, The Guardian, 08/02/06). More recent figures agree: released on the 26th of April this year, Cardiff University’s violence research group found that serious assaults had declined since the new laws (Travis, Alan, “Serious assaults down since pub opening hours relaxed”, The Guardian, 26/04/07). Although the councillors mightn’t be aware of this evidence, they are made to take notice of the Land and Environment Court. In a recent decision on Kinsleas Hotel, the court’s judges said that closing the hotel early at 3am would: "force patrons on to the street against their will leading to aggressive and noisy behaviour." Still, the councils will continue their fight.

 

It is understandable to see how the councils would think pubs are a stain on their environment. The BOCSAR report said there was a connection between where pubs are and crime rates. So get rid of the pubs, get rid of the crime, right? I think that’s unfair to people that drink responsibly and I don’t think it will solve the problem. It will just move it, perhaps to parks where people already drink instead of drinking at a pub. Police reports obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald (Edmund Tadros, "Drinking at home a crime sensation", 21/04/07) showed that 37% of criminals were last drinking at home, compared with 35% at a pub. This means that (excessive) drinking is the problem, which can happen at home, at a pub, anywhere.

 

The BOCSAR report also revealed that young people were most likely to be involved in assaults; both as the perpetrators and the victims. The recent guest on FBi’s Headset (presented by Fi Poole, produced by Clinton Barnes, 03/05/07), Dr. Micheal Kennedy of the University of Western Sydney, agreed that alcohol is a factor in violent crime, but he said that community leaders, members of older generations, were setting a bad example. He says the disturbing tradition of alcohol abuse is handed down through public figures caught being drunk and disorderly, whether it be parliamentarians, television personalities, footballers, legal professionals or high-profile businessmen. Not that alcohol abuse doesn’t happen closer to home. The problem with young people is that they aren't always better than older people, although we would like it if we were.

 

Alcohol use and abuse is a problem for our society and we need to think about it differently. It's not to be taken lightly, but we need smart solutions, not ill-conceived solutions which defy the evidence.