"We are fighting Germany, Austria and drink; and as far as I can see, the greatest of these three deadly foes is drink". Thus spoke David Lloyd George in 1915. The war on alcohol abuse is not new; neither is the war on drugs. In the mid nineteenth century Britain went to war with China in order to secure the right to trade opium through its ports. In a painful reversal of principle, British soldiers are currently dying in Afghanistan partly to deny the Taliban a similar trading opportunity. The brave troops that make it back will quite likely bring with them a drink problem.
In both wars, drugs and alcohol, you can choose your battlefield: moral, religious, medical or economic. The supportive arguments marshalled by each side are complex, deeply held and often ferocious. If you stick your head above the barricade, you will definitely attract a bullet; but there are some still prepared to run the risk. The evidence assembled by Dr David Nutt and his colleagues recently in The Lancet to demonstrate the crisis of alcohol misuse is compelling. Not only is the work expertly constructed, as you would expect from some of the UK's most gifted scientists, it is delivered with conviction borne of frustration. They are clearly cheesed off with being consistently ignored by governments which ask the question but don't like the answer. There are currently two overwhelming truths dominating the arena of substance misuse in the UK. Firstly, the war on drugs currently classed as illegal is not being won. Even in countries where death is the penalty for drug dealing, law enforcement alone is ineffective in dissuading suppliers. Secondly, taken in the round, alcohol is now the most damaging drug in the UK. The combination of these awful realities, given the overall impact on society, presents one of the key challenges of our age; a challenge which is being quite deliberately ducked. The real answer, as Bill Clinton famously recognised, lies within the economics.
The war on smoking tobacco is being won, and the war on alcohol misuse is being lost, largely on the economic battlefield. Cigarettes are priced to discourage, whilst lager is cheaper than water. Our best hope of inducing more responsible attitudes towards other recreational drugs is to learn the lessons of both success and failure in these domains. The economics of alcohol consumption in the UK are managed by the major drink companies. Ever cheaper products, targeted marketing and aggressive promotions have been highly successful, if you happen to manufacture alcoholic drinks. It's been a nightmare for lots of other people. Much worse still, the entire economic strategy for drug consumption is in the hands of violent psychopaths, be they Colombian barons, Helmand warlords or Manchester gangsters. It is ridiculous that we have relegated such massive threats to health, rule of law and social well-being to these patently self-interested stakeholders. It is time for equally hard-headed but more benign generals to take the high ground. We need state intervention in both these commodities. As the government has just painfully realised, some markets you can happily leave alone and some require determined regulation. Both junk bonds and junk are firmly in the latter category.
After 34 years in the trench of attrition that is policing substance misuse I retired to tend the wounded - and dying. From both perspectives I know that hundreds of thousands of people in this country are suffering the consequences of failure to confront the fundamentals of drug and alcohol economics. Will somebody get a grip?
