A crucial distinction

It’s often said (particularly over the past three weeks) that Britain has an “alcohol problem”. But, in reality, even if you accept the analysis of the neo-Prohibitionists at face value, we have three separate problems which may overlap to some extent, but certainly aren’t one monolithic issue:

1. An increase in late-night alcohol-related disorder, particularly in town and city centres
   
2. Many more people regularly drinking at levels that in the long term are likely to do serious damage to their health
   
3. A rise in drinking, often at hazardous levels, amongst under-18s

Clearly, the strategies needed to combat these three issues are going to be distinctly different, and indeed may conflict with each other – encouraging drinking on licensed premises may reduce uncontrolled excess, but at the same time may lead to more late-night violence. It’s certainly far from certain that cutting average consumption across the population is a magic bullet for any of them.

And it’s funny how we are at least officially stricter on underage sales than at any time in living memory, yet apparently far more underage drinking goes on. Maybe the approach in the past of tolerating it to some extent, but keeping it within bounds, worked better at controlling the overall level.