This blog has a number of articles and papers that express my personal opinions concerning society's attitude to alcohol, and how the sale of alcohol should be regulated and controlled. My starting point is an historical one: every society, from the most ancient to the most modern, has had a legally or socially accepted intoxicant used by the mass of people in that society. This ubiquity suggests that such use fulfils a fundamental human need - the need that people everywhere have to change their consciousness by one means or another. In our society, for better or worse, the socially and legally accepted intoxicant is alcohol, in all its forms.
Whilst I acknowledge that teetotalism and temperance are perfectly honourable positions for people to take, my view of alcohol use is pragmatic, not ideological. I accept that alcohol misuse is destructive and that is why its sale and use must be regulated. I don’t believe that the mass market for alcohol can or should be suppressed. In an open society that is part of a global economy in which trade and cultural barriers are coming down, that is simply not possible. The over-regulation of alcohol is both futile and counter-productive. The problem is that over-zealous attempts to do so are hugely destructive of the businesses and livelihoods of people who work in the alcohol drinks industry.
I argue for pragmatic, evidence-based policies that seek to achieve a reasonable balance between peoples' desire to enjoy alcohol and society's need for order. I argue against the ideologically-driven, media-fuelled moral panic that has in recent times so misinformed public opinion and thereby created destructive and irrational political bandwagons.
Paul Chase
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