Voluntary codes of conduct in the drinks industry were mere "window dressing" in the fight against under-age and irresponsible alcohol consumption, a Dublin conference heard yesterday, writes Joe Humphreys.
Prof Tim Stockwell, an international expert on alcohol abuse prevention, said a study of 38 regulation regimes worldwide showed that codes of conduct worked only if they were legally enforceable.
A voluntary code, while popular with the industry, "looks good but it achieves very little".
Prof Stockwell, director of the Centre for Addictions Research of British Colombia (CARBC), Canada, was speaking to a conference hosted by Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society Ltd (MEAS), a company sponsored by vintners' representative groups and alcohol producers, including Beamish & Crawford, Diageo and Irish Distillers.
Last May, MEAS published a code of practice on the promotion of alcoholic drinks which involves the "naming and shaming" of offenders but no legal sanctions. Prof Stockwell said codes which lacked "law enforcement" did little if any good, and were not recommended by international experience.
Moreover, vested interests should not be involved in the drawing up of regulatory controls. While the industry should be "consulted" by regulators, "public interest, not vested interest, should be served".
The CARBC global study of prevention strategies, which was completed this year, showed that taxation, investment in treatment programmes, random breath testing and medical or GP interventions were the most effective means of reducing irresponsible alcohol consumption.
Limiting pub-opening hours, banning price-discount schemes, and "responsible drinking" advertising were also recommended, said Prof Stockwell.
However, he said the latter was only effective if combined with other policies such as random breath testing.
He said governments could make alcohol taxation more effective and more popular by discriminating in favour of low-alcohol drinks, and ring-fencing tax revenues for alcohol-treatment programmes. Thanks to such policies, 40 per cent of the beer market in Australia was now low-alcohol.
The conference also heard that the average age that children start drinking in Ireland was now 13, and that parents' drinking habits played a key role in shaping their children's attitudes towards alcohol.
Mr Larry Ryan, director of Behaviour and Attitudes, which conducted research for MEAS on under-age drinking, cited a "direct correlation" between children consuming alcohol and their parents' drinking at home. He said parents today tended to have a more laissez faire attitude to their children's drinking, and were prone to talking about the benefits of the "French experience" while "forgetting that the culture of alcohol consumption here is completely different".