'How we're drinking' is now the message

A Campaign targeting binge drinking among young people was never going to have a big impact when the actual problem lay with New Zealand’s adults, an environmental health conference heard on Friday.

Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand (ALAC) deputy chief executive Sandra Kirby said you could not expect young people to change their drinking behaviour when every major turning point in a Kiwi’s adult life involved getting drunk.

Twenty-first birthdays, marriages and wins and losses in sport were all celebrated by getting intoxicated.

She said alcohol ranked as the fourth largest contributor to the global burden of disease in Western countries, which included the likes of New Zealand, Australia and the UK.

Four percent of New Zealand’s gross domestic product was spent on addressing problems associated with alcohol consumption.

Ms Kirby said while there was no doubt that alcohol production and manufacturing was big business in New Zealand, it came at a huge cost to the community.

While alcohol abuse had always been thought of as a health issue, she said it actually had a larger affect on other sectors — namely justice and industry.

Around 70 percent of crime dealt with by police was alcohol-related.

However, the biggest cost was the loss of production associated with people calling in sick due to a hangover or, worse still, turning up hung over and "stuffing up" their work.

While Kiwis drank less alcohol on average per day than other countries, ranking about 24th or 25th when it came to alcohol consumption — a huge binge drinking culture existed.

The majority of people drank in excess of seven drinks per session.

"If we could drop that by two drinks we could reduce the harm caused," she said.

However, she knew they had a battle on their hands as there was still the perception "that being drunk is fun".

"You are not going to take away people’s favourite pastime that easily."

However, the "It’s not the drinking, It’s how we’re drinking" campaign was starting to have an impact.

When the campaign first started, around two percent of Kiwis thought New Zealand had a problem with drinking. That figure was now up around 75 percent.

"We believe you can change New Zealand’s drinking culture," she said.

It was not about imposing other countries’ drinking culture on Kiwis, but creating a new drinking culture that was very New Zealand.

The Gisborne Herald