New mindset on alcohol
Andrew Pring, Editor
At last, some sanity in Government thinking on binge drinking and on three counts. Firstly, judges are being told to pass far stiffer sentences on violent binge drinkers. Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, said last week that bingers would face three years in jail and more if they already have a criminal record when 'high spirits descend into criminal behaviour.
Secondly, the Government will spend £5m on a high-profile advertising campaign that aims to make drunkenness 'uncool.
And thirdly, despite the best attempts of the Daily Mail aided and abetted by the Home Office the Government is refusing to abandon the new licensing laws.
The trade should welcome all these steps. The first two because they focus attention on the question of personal responsibility the crucial issue that is always absent from any national debate on binge drinking. Instead of pubs and producers taking all the flak, it's time the punters were called to account for their behaviour. There's only so much licensees can do by themselves when it comes to dealing with youths who are determined to get out of their heads and then have no self-control. These people will only exercise restraint if they fear the legal punishment and realise their chances of being caught are high. So the police must also respond to Lord Woolf's signal and be seen to be enforcing the law.
The TV campaign will help ram home the message that antisocial drunken behaviour is unacceptable. For too long, Government has ignored calls by the Portman Group and the Morning Advertiser to follow the success of drink-drive campaigns. Now, we've a chance of influencing drinkers in the home and creating a new mindset about alcohol. This campaign must run and run.
It's a shame, then, that despite these intelligent steps, Government is pressing ahead with its alcohol disorder zones. This is as botched an initiative as marching drunks to cash points and must go the same way. When Parliament debates ADZs in the autumn, let's hope clear heads see the idiocies of the whole proposal. Then we really will be getting somewhere and the new laws will have a better chance to succeed.
