Here’s yet another lesson in lobby groups over-egging commissioned “independent” reports to push their case for government intervention in their favour. Usually, it’s corporate interests pumping out this stuff. This time, it’s the anti-alcohol lobbyists at FARE.
A fortnight ago, FARE published some research it asked the “Centre for Alcohol Policy Research” at La Trobe University to conduct about online alcohol sales.
FARE claimed that the research showed: “high levels of risky drinking associated with rapid delivery services”; better age verification by alcohol websites was needed; and that delivery of alcohol within two hours of being ordered online should be banned.
Predictably, FARE got a Fairfax journalist to provide uncritical coverage of the research — Fairfax, the outlet that gave us Sydney’s discredited lockout laws, being the go-to place for public health lobbying.
Only problem was, the research didn’t exactly stand up to the claims made for it. It was a survey of just 528 participants, a sample so small that the study’s academic authors, quite appropriately, state that it is “not a representative population sample”.
Except, that’s what FARE suggests it as, claiming that the study “shows that younger risky drinkers are the biggest users of rapid delivery services, which enables them to extend existing drinking sessions”.
Pressed on this point, FARE told Crikey that the research was “an exploratory study… which could assist governments to better understand this growing alcohol market and legislate to safeguard vulnerable people.” So, “not a representative population sample” then.
According to FARE, the study “suggests” (a more accurate phrase than “shows”) “the convenience of ordering alcohol through on-demand delivery services is facilitating a pattern of heavy, risky drinking by younger Australians”.
Except, that’s not the “pattern” at all. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s National Drug Strategy Household Survey in late 2016 — involving nearly 24,000 households, or about 45 times the sample of La Trobe and properly weighted to accurately reflect the Australian population — shows significant, even dramatic declines in what is classified, rightly or wrongly, as “risky” drinking (more than four drinks on a single occasion) among young people: from 57% in 2001 to 42% in 2016 among 18-24 year olds.
It also showed a big rise — from 72% to 82% — in the number of teenagers abstaining entirely from alcohol, and a rise in the age of first alcohol consumption from 14.7 to 16.1 years. The “pattern” of “heavy risky drinking by younger Australians” is of dramatic declines.
Asked about the actual pattern, FARE did something it has done rarely or never before — actually acknowledge that young people are drinking far less than its constant claims of “heavy, risky drinking” suggest.
“The overall decline in young people’s consumption is welcome,” FARE admitted, before adding “18 to 24-year-olds remain the most likely age group to report binge drinking… at least once a month”.
FARE’s attack on online alcohol delivery is an example of how consumers can’t win with nanny statists — that there’ll always be yet another form of behaviour that paternalists want to modify. Instead of either driving to purchase more alcohol (which creates risks to themselves or others) or going to a public venue to consume alcohol (which increases the risks of physical assault, falls and other accidents) consumers ordering alcohol online remain home.
This may not seem significant, but drink-driving, assault and falls are some of the key risk factors that inform the development of alcohol consumption guidelines by the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Consumers of online delivery services are able to remain at home, consuming alcohol less riskily, but FARE wants to ban online delivery of alcohol within two hours — it’s not quite clear how — thus removing this option to drink more safely. That only makes sense if you take the view that the only safe level of alcohol consumption is zero.
A final thing: on the basis of the survey, FARE complains that age verification is poorly enforced online. So true. The La Trobe study had no age verification process to ensure the accuracy of its sample.
Is Australia’s attitude to alcohol evolving? Send your thoughts to boss@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name for publication.
I get the impression that this is the prohibitionist strategy of the 21st century – the social ills of alcohol will never go away, so trying to keep them in view is a way to keep the anti-alcohol message in the media and in the eyes of politicians who could make laws that restrict alcohol use. There’s never going to be a point where they are satisfied because their ultimate aim is to rid society of alcohol altogether.
It’s not too hard to see that the delivery / risky drinking data is quite different and not comparable to population wide data. You also don’t mention time of day for these deliveries.
I like a drink and my habits over the decades have ranged from abstinence to party overindulgence to a nowadays strict three a day max. But I don’t kid myself that anything other than abstinence is ideal for my health.
Home delivery has always been a good way for underagers to get bulk alcohol as I well remember.
It’s not too hard to see that the delivery / risky drinking data is quite different and not comparable to population wide data. You also don’t mention time of day for these deliveries.
I like a drink and my habits over the decades have ranged from abstinence to party overindulgence to a nowadays strict three a day max. But I don’t kid myself that anything other than abstinence is ideal for my health.
Home delivery has always been a good way for underagers to get bulk alcohol as I well remember.
Don’t know about “Sydney’s discredited lockout laws” when polling showed that the majority of
the population supported these laws – and certainly the ED doctors and ambo’s gave them their
full support. It would be interesting to see some stats on how many lives have been saved and
injuries avoided by having these laws in place. I for one, certainly felt safer in the city at night
because of them.
The NSW AHA has Keene’s tongue.
51.1 % of those contacted had enough time and were sufficiently trusting to answer a 52 page questionnaire run by a private polling firm for the Australian Government.
What were they on?
That is the National Drug Strategy Household Survey, not the FARE survey.
We’ve been a mob of drunks since the first fleet. Watch the parade coming out of Dan Murphy’s with trolley’s of booze every day of the week.