Debate Tournament - Siphorous vs. HK

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Siphorous vs. HK

Sale and Consumption of Alcohol

Nearly everywhere in the world, alcohol is sold nearly without restriction to the adult population. However, alcohol has a direct effect on the health of a population, as well as the dangers of the operation of vehicles while under the influence of alcohol. On the other hand, alcohol is shown to have many other benefits, also to the health of a population. Given the pros and cons of this subject...

Should the sale and consumption of alcohol be further restricted, or even banned?

There will be three rounds, the first two will be limited to 350 words each, and the third round will allow 400 words. There will be no editing of your post allowed, unless it is approved by me, and only before your opponent has their chance to respond. You will have 24 hours from the conclusion of each post in order to post your response.

I would request that nobody, other than the participants, post in this thread until the conclusion of the debate.

I flipped a coin to determine who would lead off the debate.

Siph, you may lead off...

 

[Siphorous]

Alcohol should not be banned in westernised countries. The prohibition era in the U.S. of A. was a prime example of why banning alcohol sale and manufacture does not work. Crime rose, illegal alcohol manufacture and consumption took place. This was in no way helped by the government effectively helping to murder its own people by poisoning alcohol manufacture rather than use other means to enforce prohibition. So many reasons existed and do exist as to why banning alcohol didn’t and does not work that the 18th amendment currently remains the only example of an amendment to the U.S. constitution that was repealed by a later amendment.

Alcohol however should be restricted by limiting the alcohol by volume content of drink. Although some forms of alcohol may have beneficial effects, such as the flavonoids of red wine, the dangers present with consumption beyond which a person can coherently converse with another and the potential impact this can have in respect of health, violence and crime is unthinkable.

If alcohol restrictions are lifted and freedom is allowed - the physical and material costs on society will be tremendous.

 

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bump for HK's response

 

[HK]

I agree that alcohol should not be banned. You’re right, prohibition has been tried in several countries and it just doesn’t work – in fact it makes things far worse.

With that in mind, I disagree that there should be a legal restriction when it comes to alcohol volume content. I believe that the only restriction on the production and sale of alcoholic beverages should be the age restriction, and for many countries I believe even that could be lowered.

It’s tempting to think that if manufacturers were allowed to make alcohol to any proof then they’d start churning out drinks with almost toxic levels of alcohol, but there are some practical restrictions. For a start, in the production of beer and wines, it is very difficult to produce a proof over 18%, due to the fact that yeasts cannot reproduce when the alcohol concentration is much higher. So we’re unlikely to start seeing 50% proof wines being passed around!

Secondly, although it’s probable that companies whose market is young adults would produce a drink that had a higher proof in order to trade in on the novelty value, it makes less sense to produce higher proofs. Beverage companies and nightclub owners would rather have a customer who has to buy three vodka and cokes to get drunk, not just one. If they attempted to equal the cost of the higher proof drinks to multiples of their lower equivalents, the number of people likely to buy them in the first place would go down anyway, so from a financial point of view, we’re unlikely to see a huge increase in the proofs available to buy, just because it wouldn’t make sense to the people supplying them.

Thirdly and lastly – take away the mystery and after the initial novelty value of being allowed to do something, people lose interest. This is why prohibition didn’t work – tell people they are forbidden to do something and their desire to do it actually increases. And that’s why I think we should do away with most of the restrictions on alcohol production altogether.

 

[Siphorous]

If we examine the point regarding alcohol by volume restricting or not restricting we can see that there are arguments for and against.

I agree with the point made that for various reasons - providing drinks with high levels of alcohol by volume would be unworkable in the long run and less than profitable perhaps for the manufacturer.

However, I am not advocating forbidding people to drink but what I am advocating is the lowering of alcohol by volume for the very reasons that have been suggested - customers may potentially buy more drinks, but not necessarily so. Taking the social aspect of a public house for example, customers may be there alone but usually with friends. In the context of conversation and drink customers may not indeed purchase any more drinks than they normally might.

With alcohol by volume content lowered and if studies find that indeed customers would buy no more or no less drinks than they normally would - then the direct impact of that would be a lower blood alcohol level. This can only beneficial to the individual. If the individual is the type of person who would recklessly drink and drive despite the taboo on such - then a lower blood alcohol level could be responsible for saving an innocent life.

The benefits of a lower blood alcohol level will have a direct impact on health provision too and the cost of treating long term alcohol related sicknesses. The freeing up of resources for other health provision can only be a positive thing in the stretched world of the National Health Service (taking the U.K. as an example in this case).

 

[HK]

In the context of conversation and drink customers may not indeed purchase any more drinks than they normally might.

With alcohol by volume content lowered and if studies find that indeed customers would buy no more or no less drinks than they normally would - then the direct impact of that would be a lower blood alcohol level.

I think you make some good points, but the assumptions there are that a) raising alcohol volume content would mean raising it in pre-existing drinks and b) that people don’t drink to get drunk.

If manufacturers were presented with the opportunity to raise the volume content of their products, they would probably market alternative versions of existing drinks with the higher proofs, in the same way that you get several different types of coca-cola. So a higher blood alcohol level is not likely on a widespread scale - the majority are liable to stick to their regular choice, which is unlikely to change in proof to make them a sudden danger.

You raise the issue of whether lowering the legal content limit would make people safer on the roads. I do agree that for a minority of people, this may actually make a difference to their alcohol levels. However, I believe that minority is likely to be people who have no interest in actually becoming intoxicated in the first place.

A major factor behind drinking is, after all, the effect it has. People who are drinking to get drunk will simply drink more to achieve the same effect. So although lowering blood alcohol levels might seem like an upside to restrictions, it's unlikely to have an effect on the people who endanger themselves and others.

I think information is the key to making people safer, not attempting to restrict them. Many bars in the UK now list the ‘units’ in their alcoholic beverages – consume over a certain amount and you know you're not safe to drive. This type of information is far more beneficial than trying to limit how much people can drink in the first place, in the same way that teaching about contraception prevents more pregnancies than trying to persuade people to not have so much sex. There will always be those who overindulge, but restrictions can be bypassed quite easily if your objective is to get drunk – and the more restrictions you have, the harder people will work to overcome them, as prohibition taught us.

 

[Siphorous]

We have gone through a range of topics within the main topic of "Should the sale and consumption of alcohol be further restricted, or even banned?"

With regards to that - and bearing in mind your hypothetical situation of manufacturers being given permission to produced higher abv drinks, it is my firm belief that control is the answer. We already have controls, as we are both agreed on - fully banning the sale and manufacture does not work. What will work are tighter, more intelligent controls based around the social aspect of drinking, where that aspect gets out of hand with the points I've already made in respect of violence, health and safety.

Whilst I acknowledge your point that for those with no interest in getting inebriated that they may not be the most likely to drink themselves into an unsafe condition, my belief is that with tighter controls around the abv content of drink - whilst keeping costs the same or increasing them to a degree, will make the desire to consume more to get drunk less likely due to the constraints of costs. If for example the duty on alcohol was raised exponentially - there is no doubt that consumption would drop. Therefore whilst keeping costs the same or slightly higher- combined with dropping the abv content, it can only help to reduce the likelihood that those seeing to get drunk will get drunk. Determined individuals will no doubt get drunk if they can afford it - but I feel that the majority of people will resign themselves to fewer drinks and a smaller 'buzz'. Society will get used to changes if they are not too drastic and they would get used to the modest measures I propose.

Finally, whilst your point regarding more information seems sound and I do agree with that point - I disagree that it has an effect on statistics. It may raise awareness but examine the NHS statistics regarding disease or other condition admissions directly attributable to alcohol. There, we can see that bearing in mind 1999 when major manufacturers first introduced "units", the figures clearly show a steady increase in those alcohol related admissions from a period prior to that 1999 key year and for every year since. I would therefore posit the idea that information clearly does not affect people enough and that intelligent restrictions and other measures are the answer.

 

[HK]

In theory, I think your suggestions are good. Why wouldn’t limiting the amount of alcohol volume content allowed in drinks keep people safer?

The problem with this idea though is that it leans too closely back towards where prohibition stemmed from – the idea that the government knows better than the public what’s good for them, and should regulate closely what we can put into our bodies, because we’re not capable of judging for ourselves.

Whilst I believe that restrictions would be imposed with good intentions, it’s entirely possible that it would provoke a bad reaction from the public and increase the trade in smuggled liquor and illegal home distilleries. As I’ve said before, I think the key to reducing dangerous behaviour is to demystify alcohol and instead try to inform people about their options, not treat them as if they aren’t capable of making their own decisions.

Although the introduction of ‘units’ to try and keep people aware of what they’re drinking doesn’t appear effective statistically, this may be because more energy and marketing is currently being put into adverts that, instead of promoting awareness about what you’re drinking, aim to scare the viewer into drinking less with images of car crashes and potential injuries related to drink driving. Studies have shown that scare tactics aren’t very effective on a widespread scale, as many people will fail to feel personally at risk unless the material hits very close to home, and so they ignore such methods as not relevant to themselves, whether they actually are or not. Trying to get people to drink less because of the dangerous effects just doesn’t work – people don’t believe it could happen to them.

Whereas if you allow people to make their own choices, you can put more time and effort into getting people informed about their alcohol consumption. People are more aware than ever of their calorie intake because so many food manufacturers now put the information clearly on their packaging – alcohol manufacturers could employ similar techniques.

I think that raising restrictions on alcohol is only likely to engender public disapproval, and could possibly cause a backlash of criminal behaviour to circumvent the restrictions.

 

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aaaaaaaaaand.... this debate is closed.

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