Alcohol Alert - November 2021

Hello and welcome to the Alcohol Alert, brought to you by The Institute of Alcohol Studies.

In this edition:

* ‘No Escape: How Alcohol Advertising Preys on Children and Vulnerable People’

* ‘Sobriety ankle tags’ rolled out after successful pilot

* Cross party group of MPs demands better approach to reduce alcohol harm

* Disagreement over alcohol duty reform

* Scottish LibDems and 28 NGOs call for minimum unit price to increase

* Diageo’s Christmas ‘responsibility’ campaign normalises excessive drinking

* No major economy covers the cost of harm from alcohol, tobacco and sugar

* Alcohol-fuelled incidents at Wales rugby matches spark criticism

We hope you enjoy our roundup of stories below: please feel free to share. Thank you.

Event: New IAS report on restricting underage alcohol purchases

Join us on Wednesday 8 December for the launch of our new report on ‘Preventing underage alcohol purchasing online using payment card details’. Register here.

With a growth in online purchasing, particularly since the pandemic, online age verification for buying alcohol is increasingly important. Currently most systems are poor, such as relying on honesty policies or uploading documents.

In a new IAS-commissioned report, Jessica Muirhead looks at how 'Merchant Category Codes' could be used for online alcohol purchases. Every time a payment is made on a bank card, a code is sent with payment details to identify the type of transaction. This is already used to prevent under-18s from gambling and would better protect retailers from illegally selling alcohol to under-18s.

This month’s IAS blogs

Link to blogs

Alcohol Toolkit Study: quarterly update

UCL’s quarterly alcohol data suggest that the number of increasing and higher risk drinkers has steadily increased since May 2021.

Prevalence of increasing and higher risk drinking (AUDIT)

Increasing and higher risk drinking defined as those scoring >7 AUDIT. A-C1: Professional to clerical occupation C2-E: Manual occupation

Currently trying to restrict consumption

A-C1: Professional to clerical occupation C2-E: Manual occupation; Question: Are you currently trying to restrict your alcohol consumption e.g. by drinking less, choosing lower strength alcohol or using smaller glasses? Are you currently trying to restrict your alcohol consumption e.g. by drinking less, choosing lower strength alcohol or using smaller glasses?

All past-year attempts to cut down or stop

Question: How many attempts to restrict your alcohol consumption have you made in the last 12 months (e.g. by drinking less, choosing lower strength alcohol or using smaller glasses)? Please include all attempts you have made in the last 12 months, whether or not they were successful, AND any attempt that you are currently making.

‘No Escape: How Alcohol Advertising Preys on Children and Vulnerable People’

On 30 November the Alcohol Health Alliance launched a new report that looks at alcohol marketing in the UK and calls for the Government to introduce restrictions to such marketing in order to protect children and vulnerable people.

Discussing the prevalence and ubiquity of alcohol marketing, the report shows that advertising is across an enormous range of sectors, using a range of mediums: at sporting events, festivals, TV entertainment, theatres, across outdoor media. They rebut the industry assertion that marketing is simply about brand switching and doesn’t increase and encourage consumption. The AHA argues that:

“The alcohol industry logically requires the continual recruitment of new generations of drinkers. Indeed, many brands see marketing as a key way to recruit new consumers and some specifically target the youngest demographics of legal drinkers.”

The report focuses on the danger of marketing to children and those in recovery. The AHA writes that it normalises alcohol and “creates a culture where alcohol is seen as an essential part of everyday life”. Respondents to the report’s survey said this led to pressure on them to drink in order to fit into that perceived culture. As the report states, studies have shown that children who are exposed to alcohol advertising are more likely to start drinking earlier in life, and subsequently will consume more. They are also more likely to develop alcohol dependency later in life.

The AHA report asserts that the UK’s self- and co-regulatory approach to alcohol marketing fails to protect children from exposure to large amounts of marketing, with studies showing that children are aware of alcohol adverts and that they appeal to them too. Although there is less data on the effect of adverts to people in recovery, survey respondents discussed how marketing and imagery of alcoholic products is highly triggering and likely to increase relapse. They argued it should be treated like tobacco due to the harm it causes.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities agrees that the current system is flawed, stating:

“A consistent body of research demonstrates considerable violations of content guidelines within self-regulated alcohol marketing codes, suggesting that the self-regulatory systems that govern alcohol marketing practices are not meeting their intended goal of protecting vulnerable populations.”

What is the AHA calling for?

In order to catch-up with many other countries across the world who have implemented alcohol marketing restrictions – such as Ireland, Finland, France, and Russia – the AHA report was clear on its policy recommendations:

‘Sobriety ankle tags’ rolled out after successful pilot

Following a seemingly successful pilot for community sentences, ‘sobriety ankle tags’ have been rolled-out for ‘serious and prolific offenders’. Those who are known to reoffend after drinking alcohol will face a potential ban from drinking or limitation to the amount they can consume. The tags can detect alcohol in the wearer’s sweat and alert probation services if detected.

An estimated 12,000 people will wear the tags over the next three years and judges can either include a condition that requires up to a year of abstinence, or have the person’s alcohol monitored with a defined level allowed.

Previously the Government has said the tags would not be used on adults who are alcohol-dependent or suffering from certain medical conditions, and that they would not be intended as a treatment for alcoholism.

The formal name for the requirement is ‘Alcohol Abstinence Monitoring Requirement (AAMR)’, and will be rolled-out in Wales first, with England following suit in summer 2022. Those who are banned from drinking and contravene the order could be:

* Fined

* Have their order extended

* Imprisoned

The Ministry of Justice says that the tags will help reduce the level of alcohol-related crime, with alcohol playing a part in 39% of all violent crime in the UK. They also state that such crime costs the UK economy around £21.5 billion every year.

Discussing the pilot projects that saw such tags fitted to people with community sentences, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said:

“This innovative technology has been successful in policing community sentences with offenders complying over 97 percent of the time. Offenders now have a clear choice. If they don’t work with probation staff to curb their drinking and change their ways, they face being sent back to jail.”

What are the legal complications?

Dr Arianna Andreangeli, of Edinburgh Law School, has previously raised concerns about the potential legal issues surrounding the policy, stating “there is no doubt that it constitutes an intensive interference with the individual’s right to private life, as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights”. She questioned whether there are sufficiently strong safeguards to accompany the policy in protecting these rights.

A 2012 paper however, argued that “the law clearly permits the imposition of sobriety conditions, and there are no convincing grounds for objections based on human rights law”. The authors went further, stating that “in fact, given the prospective benefits to both offenders and the public, it would be extremely unethical not to implement the scheme”.

What are the health concerns?

When the pilot projects were launched, a number of NGOs highlighted that that the tags needed to be implemented within a holistic system of support and prevention.

Nuno Albuquerque, an Addictions Counsellor at the UK Addiction Treatment Group has previously said:

“What they're doing in effect is just slapping a sticking plaster over the top of a person's open wound. Tagging them simply stigmatises them for drinking alcohol and d