On 7 December 2000, Malcolm Chisholm,
(Deputy Minister for Health) and Iain Gray, (Deputy Minister for
Justice) announced that by the end of 2001 the Executive will have
created an Action Plan on Alcohol Misuse, in response to the
problems that excessive drinking causes in Scotland. Alcohol misuse
is a real problem with 33% of men and 15% of women exceeding the
recommended weekly units of alcohol according to the Scottish
Health Survey for 1998.
Furthermore, most teenagers have begun to drink by the time they
are fifteen years old. The costs in personal, social and economic
terms are great; Malcolm Chisholm stated that there may be as many
as three to four thousand alcohol-related deaths each year.
The two Deputy Ministers outlined the following two steps which
will lead to the production of the Executive's Action Plan on
Alcohol Misuse:
1. A six month consultation period that aims to seek the
views of all interested parties on how best to tackle alcohol
misuse.
2. A review of the current licensing laws which date back to
1976.
1. Consultation exercise
This "inclusive consultation process" has now begun, with a
consultation paper and questions sent out to a wide range of
interested parties. The purpose of the consultation is not only to
receive responses to the questions, but also to find out:
• What is causing concern to organisations and individuals
about drinking in Scotland
• Views on what needs to be done by all parties
• What organisations, sectors, and individuals can do as part
of any agreed plans for action
To this end Ministers will be involved in a variety of discussion
exercises and events during the consultation period. An interactive
website has been set up at www.scotland.gov.uk/health/alcoholmisuse
so that information and comments can be exchanged. The Executive
"would like the process to be evolutionary, so would welcome early
thoughts during the consultation on key issues". At the end of the
six months all the responses to the consultation exercise will be
analysed and will feed into the development of the Action Plan. The
aim is to produce the plan by the end of 2001.
The consultation document also encourages networks to organise
discussions on the issue and to let the Executive know about such
discussions, as "Ministers in the Health and Justice Departments of
the Executive would be interested to hear views directly and we
hope there will be opportunities for this". Presumably, the
Executive may send a representative to such discussions. The
Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office will host such a discussion
on 2 May at 2.30pm.
The plan for action, when completed is to be a "true partnership".
Essentially this means that the plan will expect the alcohol trade,
public bodies and the voluntary sector to take action.
2. Review of the licensing laws
The Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976 governs the sale and supply of
alcohol in Scotland. A review of this legislation will be conducted
by an independent committee with a wide-ranging remit. (Full
details of the membership of that committee and how the review will
be conducted have yet to be announced).
Iain Gray, the Deputy Justice Minister stated that the issue of
alcohol misuse could not be comprehensively addressed unless the
licensing laws were reviewed as they have not been reviewed for
almost thirty years. He added that the drinks industry and licensed
trade both support the need for such a review. In addition to
opening hours, issues in such a review include whether the
individual, rather than the establishment, should be licensed, and
whether temporary extensions should be controlled by the police
rather than by the licensing board. It is announced in the
consultation document that "the review will link up with the
development of the overall Plan for Action and will have regard to
what emerges from this consultation exercise in reaching its
conclusions".
(A) Current Scottish Executive Action
1. Scottish Advisory Committee on Alcohol
Misuse. SACAM was set up last year in order to bring
together representatives from key sectors in order to advise the
Scottish Ministers on tackling alcohol misuse. The representatives
on SACAM come from the health sector, local authorities, the
police, the drinks industry, the licensed trade and the voluntary
sector. Malcolm Chisholm, as Deputy Minister for Health and
Community Care, has recently taken over the chair of the committee
in order to give its work added political impetus. The Scottish
Executive will consult with SACAM before producing the Action
Plan.
2. Funding. The Scottish Executive made £2.5
million available over three years to support the strategic
development of a new alcohol misuse strategy backed by SACAM. As a
result of this, work is continuing on the development of a
nationally recognisable proof of age card which is being piloted in
Glasgow and Angus in co-operation with CoSLA and Young Scot. The
Health Department is also funding the Server Intervention Project
which provides training for licensees and their staff on alcohol
misuse issues.
3. Television commercial. The
Executive launched a TV commercial in December (focussing on a bar
located behind an accident and emergency reception desk) that
highlighted the effects of alcohol-related violence. The commercial
aimed to demonstrate the cost of inappropriate drinking and to
encourage viewers to recognise such behaviour as socially
unacceptable.
4. Healthier living schemes. The Executive
have also taken some action on alcohol through general healthier
living schemes. £26 million was invested in a Health Improvement
Fund to tackle health inequalities which included practical action
on smoking, diet, alcohol, drugs and exercise. £34.5 million was
made available to the network of Healthy Living Centres which are
designed to improve the health of families in Scotland's most
deprived areas.
Malcolm Chisholm commented that the Executive wants to build on,
develop and reinforce all the good work that is going on when they
come to consider the Action Plan on Alcohol Misuse. "The Executive
plans to bring all the various strands together into a
comprehensive plan for action, which will act as a framework for
action for all concerned at national and local levels".
(B) Scottish Parliament Debate
Following an earlier Members Debate on a motion from Donald
Gorrie, there was a full Parliamentary debate on alcohol misuse on
7 December 2000, around the motion "That the Parliament endorses
the Executive's plans to work towards the publication of a national
action plan to tackle alcohol misuse". Not surprisingly there was
support for this motion, and MSPs had a lot to contribute. Rounding
up the debate, Iain Gray said "Keir Hardie, stood on a four-point
platform 100 years ago: the first three points were a Scottish
Parliament, reform of the House of Lords and a guaranteed wage, all
of which the current Labour Government has delivered. The punch
line is that Keir Hardie's fourth election pledge was temperance.
We will not deliver on that … I make that point lightly, but with
the serious intent of underlining the fact that alcohol - its
effects, its control and its production - is a strand that has
always run through reformist Scottish politics".
Two underlying issues emerged from the debate - funding and the
mammoth task of changing attitudes towards the consumption of
alcohol.
1. Statistics
MSPs quoted a great deal of statistical evidence to demonstrate
the gravity of alcohol misuse:
• an estimated 200,000 people in Scotland misuse
alcohol
• 1 in 5 people in Scotland worry about their own or someone
else's drinking
• at least 85,000 children in Scotland live with a problem
drinker
• 75% of stabbings, 65% of murders, 56% of fire fatalities,
52% of wife battering cases, 50% of rapes, 41% of assaults and
muggings and 25% of road deaths are alcohol related
• 1 in 5 of all violent crime take place in and around
licensed premises
• 14 million working days are lost every year because of
alcohol related problems
• the cost to industry is at least £2 billion
• 25% of accidents at work involve workers who misuse
alcohol
• £180 million is the estimated annual cost of hospital
treatment for alcohol-related illnesses in Scotland
• 1 in 7 acute hospital admissions relates to the misuse of
alcohol
• an estimated 3,000 people a year die an alcohol related
death (ten times the number who die from taking illicit drugs). The
official figure for Scotland in 1999 was 1,103 alcohol related
deaths compared to 340 drug related deaths.
• 40% of 13 to 14 year olds were drunk when they first had
sexual intercourse, leading to unsafe sex
2. Funding Anomaly between Drug and Alcohol
Misuse
One of the first and recurring issues that MSPs raised was that
of funding. They welcomed the allocation of the £2.5 million over a
period of three years for the development of the alcohol misuse
strategy but argued that this was not enough and more funding would
have to be made available for preventive work and service
provision. They expressed concern at the lack of resources
available for alcohol-specific projects, particularly in light of
the money allocated to drug abuse. The Executive directly spent
£1.3 million in 1999-2000 to address alcohol misuse but in the same
period allotted the much larger sum of £143.5 million to be spent
over three years on measures to tackle drug abuse.
MSPs welcomed the money spent on drug abuse but felt that there
should be a matching commitment to alcohol misuse recognising that
it is a much bigger problem. The statistics demonstrated that
more people die from alcohol misuse than they do from drugs. The
official 1999 figures reveal a huge difference between alcohol- and
drug-related deaths - 1,103 alcohol-related deaths compared to 340
drug-related deaths. It is estimated that there are between 30,000
and 40,000 drug injectors in Scotland but 200,000 problem drinkers.
The proper services and resources needed to cope with alcohol
misuse require appropriate funding and that is currently not
there.
3. Attitudes and Culture
MSPs also highlighted the need to address the causes of alcohol
misuse as well as its effects: unless the drinking culture within
Scotland is changed then the problem of alcohol misuse will never
be tackled successfully. To change things for the better will take
nothing less than a wholesale change in the culture of drinking in
Scotland, in which heavy and binge drinking are socially
acceptable. This includes getting the
right message across to under-age drinkers who view getting drunk
as a rite of passage (a situation which is not helped by
advertising that displays alcohol as attractive and glamorous).
Comparisons were made with Mediterranean countries where under-age
drinking and the accompanying problems are much less
prevalent, even though the age limit to purchase and consume
alcohol is several years lower. It was felt that by changing the
licensing system cultural attitudes could be changed within the
law. Concern was also expressed about the inconsistency of messages
about alcohol.
4. Member's/Committee Bill
Donald Gorrie suggested a Member's Bill on the issue in order to
offer a quick improvement. and Richard Simpson thought that it
could go forward as a Committee Bill as it had widespread
cross-party support. But no action has been taken on this as yet.
Tommy Sheridan has tabled a motion challenging newspapers to "show
their sincere commitment to prolonging the lives of Scottish
citizens" by refusing advertising "from society's biggest drug
dealers, namely the tobacco and alcohol industries", and calling
for a comprehensive ban on such advertising.
It was clear from the debate that MSPs want action to be taken to
tackle the problem of alcohol misuse and will support the Executive
in this matter.
Responding to the consultation
The consultation questions appear as an insert in this briefing
paper.
Written responses should be sent to: Mrs J McLeod, Alcohol Misuse
Plan for Action: Consultation, Substance Misuse Division, Scottish
Executive Health Department, St. Andrews House, Regent Road,
Edinburgh, EH1 3DG; Phone: 0131 244 2612; Fax: 0131 244 2689;
Email: alcoholmisuseconsultation@ scotland.gsi.gov.uk; Website: www.scotland.
gov.uk/health/alcoholmisuse
Responses should reach the executive by 29 June 2001, but as
mentioned above any issues mentioned on the website forum may be
taken up earlier, so there is a point to responding early on this
occasion.
Theological and Church Context
Attitudes to alcohol in Scotland's churches clearly vary from
strict principled teetotalism to a more liberal "relaxed" approach
to drinking. Both find Biblical justification, and each has its
dangers - from charges of self-righteousness or even hypocrisy in
the former, to a failure to take the painful effects of this drug
seriously in the latter. In a sense, this could be a "no win"
situation for churches to get involved in making pronouncements. A
desire to avoid sounding sanctimonious or out of touch might
inhibit us from saying anything which may (and probably will) be
misconstrued into a caricature of Holy Willie; but we have a
constructive contribution to make that is about more than our own
image.
Recognising these cultural pressures might help us appreciate
that this is not an easy area for politicians to get involved in
either, and therefore to welcome the realism of the current debate.
Equally realistic is a great deal of work done by churches in
supporting people who (one way or another) are victims of the abuse
of alcohol. That experience will be an important starting point for
our contribution to this consultation.
An open meeting at the Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office on
Wednesday 2 May at 2.30pm aims to pool that expertise, and our
faithful understanding, and help prepare the way for the responses
that churches may wish to make. A representative of the Executive's
Substance Misuse Division will attend. Please let the Office know
if you intend coming.
Consultation Questions
1: How should we define alcohol misuse? (You might like to think
about both consumption and the consequences of alcohol
misuse)
2: What concerns you most about current patterns and trends in
drinking in Scotland?
3: Are there priority groups or individuals whose drinking we
should try to influence in the Plan for Action?
4 : What specific objectives, and activities designed to achieve
these, would you like to see in the national Plan for Action? For
example:
• To change the ways individuals or groups within the population,
including children and young people, perceive the use and misuse of
alcohol?
• To affect patterns of alcohol consumption by individuals or
groups.
• To affect overall levels of consumption?
• To reduce misuse of alcohol by people of all ages and to promote
sensible drinking?
• To make sure that existing law relevant to alcohol is enforced
properly and consistently?
• To improve services that help people deal with their own misuse
of alcohol?
• To improve access to such services?
• To improve services to those affected by other people's alcohol
misuse eg relatives and carers, victims of crime?
• To improve relevant information available to the general public,
service users and service providers?
5: Would you like to see changes in aspects of the law relevant to
misuse of alcohol? In particular, how would you like to see the law
on liquor licensing change to produce a system of licensing that
reflects the modern view of the place of alcohol in Scotland?
6: Of the objectives you suggest at Question 4, which require
action (either singly or jointly) by government, statutory bodies,
industry, employers, communities, individuals or others? If several
bodies are involved, which has or have the key
responsibility?
7: What gaps do you identify in action that is currently being
taken? For example:
• To influence, educate or inform individuals and specific
groups?
• To affect patterns of drinking?
• To enforce the law?
• To improve services?
8: What can your organisation or sector do to address the
gaps?
9: What support structures will be needed to deliver the national
Plan for Action? For example, should local co-ordinating
arrangements through Alcohol Misuse Co-ordinating Committees be
strengthened and, if so, how?
10: What measures should be taken to ensure that the general
public and specific groups get information about the national Plan
for Action when it is ready, from your own organisation or from
others?
11: How should all concerned be held accountable for what they do
under the Plan for Action?
Back to top