Liquor amendment a ‘butcher’s bill’

Press, 23 October 1980, Page 2

Liquor amendment a ‘butcher’s bill’

Parliamentary reporter Parliament would be presented with a “butcher’s bill” in deaths and road accidents if it proceeded with the Sale of Liquor Amendment Bill, a Medical Association spokesman, Sir Randall Elliot, told a parliamentary select committee yesterday.

Sir Randal, a former president of the association, said that alcohol-related hospital admission and alcoholism rose proportionate to the per capita total alcohol intake and. availability. The bill would lower the drinking age to 18, would relax licence provisions for clubs ■ and would introduce licences for cafes.

Sir Randall said that a change in the law would involve Parliament in a grim experiment that had failed overseas. Twenty-four states in the United States had lowered drinking ages to 18 but eight had raised' ■ them again on medical evidence that death rates and alcoholism had risen by more than 4 per cent in all the 24 states■ ’z c Israel was now reducing liquor outlets, including the] sale of liquor from groceries, because an alcohol problem had developed when Israel • had increased the availability of liquor. In New Zealand between 1970 and 1977, alcohol-re-lated deaths had almost doubled, twenty one per cent of all admissions to psychiatric institutions in 1975 had been as a direct result of alcohol, and between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of all hospital admissions were now alcohol-related. It was mistakenly held

that intermittent bouts of drunkenness were the main problem resulting in violence and road accidents. But the greatest public health problem was a continual intake of high amounts of alcohol, causing diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, and obesity. There had been an “appalling” increase in cirrhosis of. the liver, which could be fatal. There was evidence that alcohol was the preferred drug of teen-agers and peer pressure was always towards adult behaviour, not away from it. Legislation could take New Zealand towards or away from a civilised attitude to drinking. The New Zealand experience with seat belts had shown that it took about 15 years to educate 10 per cent of the population in favour of an idea and that 80 per cent of the population had to favour it before Parliament would' introduce legislation. Sir Randall opposed 9 a.m, to 1 a.ffl. hours for the sale ■of liquor under an ancillary licence, the introduction of licences for clubs and cafe licences. These would increase the amount of alco hoi drunk and would increase continuous drinking, he said. The Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council opposed the proposed relaxation of licences for clubs because this would abandon the principle of a club existing for a common activity other than drinking, said the council’s chairman, Sir Leonard Thornton. The legislation would effectively place clubs in open competition with fully commercial premises and as

such they should be subject to the same restrictions and obligations as hotels and taverns.

The chairman of the select committee, Mr 8.. E. Brill, said that clubs working under tavern restrictions would be unable to open doors to legitimate young members if thej' were underage drinkers. Sir Leonard said that he could accept-the bill’s clublicence provisions if adequate supervision ensured that under-age members were kept out of club bars. The police checked clubs only . when they received complaints. The provision was enforceable only if there were the resources and the will to enforce it. The council could ■ support a lowered age if drinking was a more “normal” activity but young people would go to bars and. clubs where “men were really men with hairs On the chest.” Education would normalise attitudes to drinking only slowly. In the meantime Parliament should not make the job harder by lowering the drinking age, The council referred to a “demographic bulge” that would soon -enter the 18year age bracket with its Statistically proven crime and violence potential. Now was a bad time to be considering such a bill. .It had been proved that alcohol drinking thickened pre-frontal sections of the brain that were responsible for correct self-evaluation the psychological sensitivity. The pre-frontal, sections developed in late teen-age years.