Has the government been drinking again?

Baroness Hayter

Something funny appears to be happening in the Department of Health. Some time ago, the government asked the Chief Medical Officers to review the accepted “Safe Drinking Levels”, in the light of more recent research, to see whether the 21 units per week (for men) and 14 units (for women) were still “best evidence” limits.

In answer to a question I posed as to how this work was going, Health Minister Earl Howe replied on 17 June 2013 saying that the review would conclude in January 2014, and guidelines then “could take 6 months” – which would have brought us to this summer.

However, prodded again, Earl Howe replied on 20 November 2014 that “The review is currently underway and we expect to be able to consult on any new guidelines by summer 2015.”

So a year has slipped by and no white smoke.

Why am I suspicious that perhaps the Chief Medical Officer’s review might be suggesting a LOWERING of the recommended safe limits? Could it be that, having seen the drinks industry’s lobbying against Minimum Unit Price for alcohol, I see their hand in this as well?

This month, Scotland lowered its drink/drive limit from 80 to 50mg, leaving the rest of the UK now alone with Malta across Europe at 80. Meanwhile, the government is freeing up the availability of occasional licenses and failing to increase the duty on booze. Somehow it feels government dependency on alcohol, rather regardless of the health effects.

2 comments for “Has the government been drinking again?

  1. MilesJSD
    07/12/2014 at 9:31 pm

    Points relevant:
    1. Lobbying/Advocacy:
    It is the Poor, Incommunicable, and Disadvantaged, peoples and individuals of the British Isles,
    whose Needs need to be strongly and thoroughly advocated and up-front top-priority ‘lobbied-for’ –

    NOT the obscene profiteerings of the super-rich, Establishment-approved, on-high-encastled-&-deeply-bunkered, personal-armed-bodyguarded, self-bloating Individual Capitalists
    at the expense of not only The People
    but of all of this Earth’s Vital Lifesupports.

    2. Oxy-morons:
    (a) The NHS – National Health Service is in fact a National Hospitals & Illnesses Sector.
    Britain has never yet succeeded in establlshing an Holistic Health & Wellbeing Building Service;
    in fact, the 1978 UN Declaration of Primary Health Care
    [NOT simply of “Primary Illness-Response”}
    was procrusteanly made to fit under the long pre-established British Primary Medical Care –

    no-one seems have noticed that the ensuing hi-jacking of the term “Primary Health Care” for Medical Clinics, Hospitals, Doctors-Nurses-Pharmacists public-descripts, shingles, and claims,
    is a phony hoodwink contrived by the British Authorities, NGOs, and Community-Bodies,
    simply because of the sweet sound of that essential ‘commodity’ – “Health”.

    3. Noble Baroness Hayter, bravo !
    and from your closing words’ may we understand –

    (“)It looks as if Government relies upon a national alcohol-dependency and (upon) big taxes and profits from big-supermarket-sales of alcoholic drinks;
    and this domineering-reliance
    juggernauts along century after century
    regardless of the perniciously toxic
    and insidious ill-health effects
    of such a Booze-Britain ‘culture’ (“) ?
    ———————
    Note: several supermarkets do not stock environmentally-friendly-cans of non-alcoholic drinks, e.g. Kaliber, Bavaria.

  2. tizres
    08/12/2014 at 5:14 pm

    Baroness Hayter, it has been a while since Government advice on drinking levels was measured in units per week. Units are now given on a per day basis as there was evidence that the previous advice had led to binge drinking.

    That aside, the consequences between advising a drunk and legislating for harm caused by a drunk, and advising an occasional consumer and harm that is caused by an occasional consumer is insufficiently recognised by Parliament.

    What is Parliament trying to convey to drinkers when legislating for causing death by drunk driving with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 81g, or 51g, or 0g? The argument against a BAC of 0g is based on that alcohol can be found in a teetotaller, which should surely be a factor in any other limit set by Parliament. Further, the Crown Prosecution Service* has a number of other “relevant” factors that can be argued by expert witnesses. That this is so, indicate weaknesses, or factors that can not be satisfactorily expressed, exist in the current legislation.

    Is the science (evidence) now available that will allow legislators to play around with policy?

    *http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/road_traffic_offences_drink_driving/#a03

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