Neither the total closure of pubs nor the drastic reduction in
alcohol marketing had any beneficial effect on alcohol-related
harm, according to new IEA research
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Many public health campaigners have called on governments to
address alcohol-related harm by limiting affordability,
availability, and marketing through licensing laws,
advertising bans, tax rises and minimum unit pricing.
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The Covid-19 lockdowns presented a natural experiment for
this approach, with the number of alcohol outlets falling by
around two-thirds, alcohol advertising declining by almost
half and a fall in real terms disposable income, reducing the
affordability of alcohol.
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Overall alcohol consumption fell slightly during lockdowns.
However, heavy drinkers increased their consumption and
alcohol-specific deaths jumped by 18.7 per cent across the
United Kingdom in 2020 — this suggests that harmful drinking
is not driven primarily, if at all, by availability and
marketing, but rather by personal circumstances, hardship and
stress.
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The author recommends that the government abandon a
one-size-fits-all approach to regulating alcohol, and instead
seek to tackle the causes behind heavy drinking, such as
mental health problems and lack of access to support.
-
This would be more effective and would free responsible
drinkers from burdensome taxes, regulations and price
controls.
A new report by the
Institute of Economic Affairs finds that, contrary to the public
health consensus, attempts to reduce overall alcohol consumption,
through taxation, licensing or bans on advertisements, are
unlikely to reduce alcohol-related harm or deaths.
The single distribution theory, which has dominated public health
theory in recent decades, suggests heavy drinking and
alcohol-related harm are directly linked to the overall level of
alcohol consumption. In response, policymakers have sought to
reduce the availability and marketing of alcohol to reduce
overall consumption.
The first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK provided a
‘natural experiment’ to assess this theory and its policy
prescriptions.
During two periods of lockdown lasting a total of five months,
the premises selling alcohol fell by approximately two-thirds,
there was a 48 per cent decline in money spent on advertising
beer and spirits in the UK in 2020, and the affordability of
alcohol in the UK decreased slightly in 2020 due to a real terms
decrease in disposable income. The single distribution theory
would suggest that this reduction in availability and marketing
should result in reduced consumption by heavy drinkers and the
associated alcohol-related harm.
In practice, most people either did not change or reduced the
amount they drank, with overall alcohol consumption declining by
around 6 per cent. However, heavy drinkers tended to drink more
during lockdowns. Crucially, alcohol-specific mortality jumped by
18.7 per cent in 2020, according to the Office for National
Statistics. This indicates, contrary to the single distribution
theory, that reducing overall consumption does not in fact reduce
problematic heavy drinking or alcohol-related harm.
The evidence from lockdowns is the latest in a series of natural
experiments that strengthen the case for a rethink of our
one-size-fits-all approach to regulating alcohol. Rather than
focusing on reducing consumption with policies that hurt
responsible drinkers, policy should address the causes of problem
drinking, whether that be mental health or lack of access to
support. This could free millions of drinkers from unnecessary
controls on prices and deliver meaningful help to those in
need.
Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics, and author of
Lockdown Lessons in Health Economics: The case of alcohol,
said:
“This study strongly suggests that harmful drinking is not driven
by advertising, price and availability but by personal
circumstances, hardship and stress. While this might seem obvious
to most people, it is not the conventional view among
anti-alcohol campaigners.
“Lockdown was an extreme natural experiment, but it was just the
latest in a series of real world examples in which theory was
trumped by evidence. Neither the total closure of pubs nor the
drastic reduction in alcohol marketing had any beneficial effect
on alcohol-related harm. Alcohol consumption went down but
alcohol-related deaths rose sharply. There is an important lesson
here for policy-makers: to tackle harmful drinking, we need to
focus on harmful drinkers rather than on the whole
population."
ENDS
Notes to editors
Lockdown Lessons in Health
Economics: The case of alcohol is under embargo until
00.01 Wednesday 22 June. An embargoed copy of the paper can be
found here: https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Lockdown-Lessons-Christopher-Snowdon.pdf
